How TV affects children?

Most children plug into the world of television long before they enter school. According to a
research carried out by an American Foundation:

Infants watch a TV an average of 2 hours a day.

Children and teenagers spend nearly 4 or 6 hours a day in front of a TV screen and almost 2
additional hours on the computer and playing video games.

The first 2 years of life are considered a critical time for brain development. As children get older TV
and other electronic media can get in the way of exploring, playing, and interacting with parents and
others, which encourages learning and healthy physical and social development.
Of course, TV in moderation can be a good thing:

It can help young children to learn certain things. For example, the alphabet, the name of the
colours or about wildlife on nature shows.
Tv can also be a source of entertainment, challenging childrens curiosity and encouraging
them to show interest in some topics.

There is no doubt that TV can be an excellent educator and entertainer. But despite its advantages,
too much television can be harmful:

Children who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be
overweight.

Children who view violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behavior but also fear that the
world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.

TV characters often depict risky behaviors, such as smoking and drinking.

Thats why it is important for parents to control the use of TV and teach children that it is for
occasional entertainment. Parents should teach good TV habits if they dont want their children to
spend hours in front of the TV.

Source: http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html

Speech acts and events

In attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce utterances containing grammatical
structures, they perform actions via those utterances. If you have a boss with a great deal of power and he
says You're fired then the boss's utterance is more than just a statement. That utterance can be used to
perform the act of ending your employment. However, the actions performed by utterances do not have to
be as dramatic as that example. The action can be a compliment You look great or an expression of surprise
You are crazy!.
Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts and, in English, are commonly given more
specific labels, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request. These descriptive
terms apply to the speaker's communicative intention in producing an utterance.
The speaker normally expects that his or her communicative intention will be recognized by the listener. Both
speaker and listener are usually helped in this process by the circumstances surrounding the utterance. These
circumstances are called the speech event. In many ways, it is the nature of the speech event that determines
the interpretation of an utterance.
For example, if one person produces the utterance This tea is really cold! it can have two interpretations
according to different situations. On a winter day, the speaker producing that utterance, it is likely to be
interpreted as a complaint.
Changing the circumstances to a really hot summer day with the speaker being given a glass of iced and
producing the same utterance, it is likely to be interpreted as praise.
Speech acts
The action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related acts.
The fist one is locutionary act, which is the basic act of producing a meaningful utterance. For example:
I've just made some coffee.
The second one is the illocutionary act and it takes place when we produce utterances with purpose, i.e. we
form an utterance with some kind of function in mind. When making the same utterance I've just made some
coffee, our communicative purpose may be to make a statement, an offer or an explanation.
The last one is the perlocutionary act. We intend that our utterance will not only have a purpose, but also it
will produce an effect that will be recognized by the listener. As regards the previous example, I've just made
some coffee, we will want the hearer to drink some coffee.

PHONETICS
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. There are three main areas of phonetics:
Articulatory phonetics deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced. Sounds are
usually classified according to the position of the lips and tongue, how far open the mouth is,
whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating, etc.
Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds through the air. When a
speech sound is produced it causes minor air disturbances (sound waves).
Auditory phonetics deals with how speech sounds are perceived by the listener (e.g.
differences between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, dark and clear lateral, etc).
Phonetics also studies allophones. Allophones are the different realizations of the same phonemes.
For e.g. when /p/ occurs at the beginning of words like put /put/ and pair /pea/, it is said with a little
puff of air (Aspiration). However, the phoneme /p/ is unaspirated in the words spoil and speak.

PHONOLOGY
Phonology is the establishment and the description of the distinctive sound units of a language,
phoneme, by means of distinctive features. Each phoneme is considered as consisting of a group of
these features and differing in at least one feature from the other phonemes, e.g.:
A phoneme can differ from another one because of the position of the tongue, lips and the length of
a sound.
If we consider the vowels /i:/ and /u:/, we can notice that the first one is a front vowels and the
second one a back vowel. As regards the lips, for the front /i:/ sound the lips are spread and
for the back /u:/ sound they are closely rounded. Besides, both phonemes are long sounds.
A phone can distinguish two words. For example:
In English the words pan and ban differ only in their initial sound /p/ and /b/.
Phonology is also concerned with:
The study of how sound patterns are affected by the combination of words. For example, give
and him may combine to /gIvIm/.
The investigation of intonation patterns.