Eastenders regional accent analysis

Eastenders is a soap opera based around a community in East London. The stereotypes shown within the extract we watched are plentiful. We first see Cora and Max having an awkward first meet after Max cheated on Coras with Tanya. Cora is an older lady who we can assume has lived in London all of her life, she has a strong Cockney accent and can be seen to have a stern look on her face. This brings in the stereotype that people from London are quite tough. A mid shot is used during this conversation so you can see each characters body language, Cora has her arms folded across her chest to show anger towards Max.

The next scene is of Tanya throwing her ex husbands mail in the bin, the children are sat around the table eating breakfast and are seen to be slightly distressed about their mums actions. The stereotype of this is that most marriages end in divorce and become unfaithful, there is also the assumption that the children automatically stay with the mother rather than the dad.

A wide angle shot is then used to show Zainub, a muslim lady going into the cafe to talk to Carol. The dialogue used by each of these characters is very different; Carol has a standard english accent whereas Zainub has a pakistani accent. The character of Zainub may represent the cultural diversity that is well known in London. Carol assumes that Zainub is a council tenant, this could portray how many people in London would live on a council estate. Zainub was very put out by this comment as she see's herself as an upperclass business women within the community.

London is renowned for its fast paced, busy lifestyle, this is reflected in many scenes. In the first scene Tanya is rushing around in the kitchen whilst her children are sat at the table eating breakfast. In the scene with Jack and Sharon, Sharon tells her son that she can't come to his assembly because she needs to go to work. This shows how people in London are more career orientated, perhaps because they have better opportunities at their doorstep.

The houses seen within the short clip we watched were quite old buildings with modern exterior. We can interpret from this that the house have been there for a long time and that they have been passed down through generations.

Doc martin regional accent essay

editing:
match on action with doc martin and dog
track and dolly used when walking down street

sound:
background music- non diegetic
plumber- cornwall, bit stupid, illiterate, can't explain himself, blue collar workers. older one doing all the work
doc martin- higher class, doesn't understand some of the dialect used by plumber, has more time for the higher class people. Comes from south, higher class
english women- higher class, complex words
older woman- works on farm, with  vegetables but is also a teacher, poorer works 2 jobs
cornwall slang

mise en scene:
little cottage type setting, small, old fashioned, beams
by the sea, small village with winding streets and small novelty shops.
Everyone knows one another

camera:
wide shot when water is spilling out everywhere


Doc Martin is set in a rural town in Cornwall, it is situated around a doctor who moved from London to Cornwall to carry on his profession. In the extract that we watched it portrayed the difference between different regions. Doc Martin is original from south London, the stereotypes of this region are that everyone is rather well off and have good, well paid jobs. This is because sterotypically most people from the south are associated with living or working in or near the capital of London.  Doc Martin is portrayed as being well spoken and intelligent. He is also rather popular, perhaps because of his knowledge and therefore authority.

Doc Martin can be compared with the other characters we see in the extract. The two plumbers, who are working on a job in the doctors surgery, originate from Cornwall and have a very different accent and dialect to Doc Martin. The older plumber can be seen sitting down doing hardly any of the work, whilst the younger man is doing all the work. The older plumber has a thick accent that is hard for Doc Martin to understand. "Use some more nouns would you" is something that Doc Martin says to the plumber, this can be showing how illiterate the plumber is. This comes from the stereotype that people from cornwall are typically less intelligent then any other region.

Wide shot of the setting of the programme is a small town in Cornwall, it is a quaint little town with winding rounds and novelty shops. The stereotypically backdrop of lush green rolling hills can be seen as well as it being beside the sea. In terms of mise-en-scene none of the characters are seen with mobile phones or high tech gadgets. This follows the stereotype that people from Cornwall are behind the times and sort of live in their own bubble.

One of the characters that interacts with Doc Martin is an older lady who can be assumed to have lived in Cornwall her whole life. She has a very strong accent and uses many Cornish slang terms e.g, Bodmin. She can be seen offering Doc Martin some of her vegetables, this reflects the rural area of Cornwall and the stereotype that everyone is a farmer and produce their own goods. As she continues to talk to Doc Martin she reveals that she is a teacher at the local school. The fact that she has two jobs could portray that she is less well off than Doc Martin and needs two jobs to help her live.

Within the editing of the programme, jump cuts were used to connote his fast paced busy life in London, this contrasts with the locals who live a slow paced, calmer life. It could have been used to create a divide between Doc Martin and the local residents of the village.

In the first scene we see a dog run into the doctors with a policeman chasing him. This could be portraying that in the village the worse things that need to be solved by the police is a lost dog. This contrasts with the lifestyle in London where big crimes will be being solved.

Branston and Staffords theory applies to Doc Martin; Doc Martin can be seen as the archetype for South London, he is stereotypically more well off and is more literate than the locals of Cornwall. The plumber could be seen as the archetype for the people of cornwall, he is stereotypically shown as being more illiterate than Doc Martin and is a blue collar worker, this could show that he earns less.

Dyers idea of hegemony can also be seen in the extract we watched; Doc Martin is seen as being the authority figure throughout the village, he wears a suit to show legitimacy of authority and credibility. In the scene with the plumber Doc Martin is physically towering over the plumbers, this is a visual representation of how he is seen as more knowledgeable than the two plumbers.

Overall within the extract of Doc Martin there is a clear divide of the regional differences between those from Cornwall and Doc Martin from South London. Doc Martin is represented as being more well off as he is from South London with the stereotypes of him being more knowledgeable and having better job opportunities. It could be seen that there is a bias towards Doc Martin as the other characters in the programme are seen as slightly dim and behind the times.

Regional Accents

English-
Quite posh
All drink tea
Polite
Apologise a lot
Eat fish and chips
queue a lot
complain about weather
obsessed with beer and football
live in London
rich posh and happy
royal

Irish-
big families
gossip
pale and ginger
drink a lot
fight a lot
rural
religious
good and dancing and singing
happy

Northener-
like gravy and chips
prefer colder climates
mostly working class
chavs
fake designer labels
poor
tracksuits
uneducated
aggressive
criminals

Southerners-
Bit posher
more expensive

Essex-
teen mums
fake tans
drinking
falling out
botox
glamorous but cheap

Scottish-
sheep everywhere
angry
haggis
hate english
patriotic
obsessed with money (tight)
drink a lot of alcohol
kilts
enjoy the outdoors

Devon/somerset-
bit slow/backwards
behind the times
live on farms
rural areas

liverpool-
drawn on eyebrows
put 'R' in front of words

welsh-
live in the middle of nowhere
sheep shaggers

Luther essay

Barthes theory suggests that a piece of narrative is like a ball of string, it can be unravelled in one way or many ways. Texts may be open; unravelled in a lot of different ways, or closed; there is only one obvious thread to pull on. Barthe also categorised the narrative codes in the following 5 ways:

Enigma code- Any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes part of the mystery to the reader. The purpose of this is typically to keep the audience guessing until the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved. 

Action code- This builds tension, referring to any other action or event that indicates something else is going to happen, and which hence gets the reader guessing. 

Semantic code- This code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word. 

Symbolic code- This is very similar to the semantic code, but acts as a wider level, organising semantic meaning into broader and deeper sets of meaning. 

Cultural code- This code refers to anything that us founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be challenged and is assumed to be a foundation for truth.

In Luther, the narrative is open as their are many different ways that the story could unravel and the story is not clear cut. The enigma code in this case would be that at the end , the girl who has been missing throughout the episode (Alice Morgan) has still not been found. Within the story we assume she is dead but then luther receives a message from her through someone else. 

The action code would be the part when theo is walking towards the fridge, the dramatic music in the back builds tension and as he goes to open the fridge it blows up. During this build up the audience are left guessing as to what is going to happen when he reaches the fridge. This gives the woman police officer the motivation to get fired up and get involved in the investigation. 

The semantic code within luther would be that the murderer was going around eating the organs of his victims. This gave the connotation that he was urning for love that had been taken from him previously in his life. Also, within the scene in the hospital the family have blood over them, this gives the connotation that they have been tortured by the murderer. 

Todorovs theory suggests that within a narrative there must be; a state of equilibrium (where all is as it should be), a disruption to the event, a recognition that the disorder has occurred, an attempt to repair the damage of disruption and a return of a new equilibrium.

Luther began with a man on a cliff staring out into the sea, this would be the state of equilibrium as it is calm and peaceful. The disruption would be when the first murder takes place, the recognition of the disorder happening would be when the police turn up at the murder scene and realise their is a mass murderer on the loose. The chase that then happens to find the killer would be the attempt to repair the damage of disruption. The restoration of a new equilibrium would be in the final scene when the murderer is shot and killed. 

Props theory suggests that their are eight different characters within a narrative; the villain, the donor, the helper, the princess, her father, the dispatcher, the hero and the false hero. The villain within luther would be the mass murderer as he is breaking equilibrium within the story. The hero would be luther as he defeats the murderer and enables everything to return back to equilibrium.