Challenging but useful: does language affect our future?

This is useful for CLA but also attitudes to language, which is part of LC. Read it once to get an overview and then again, following up on the ideas by researching. What do you think?

http://theconversation.com/does-the-way-we-speak-affect-our-future-23503

You need this word

A coinage is one of the terms for a new word (coinage is also the verb for creating a new word). This coinage is something I need in my life and, no doubt you do too: oxt. Check it out. See you oxt month.

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5901883/oxt-new-word-weekend?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=voxdotcom&utm_content=wednesday

Do you want to be a girl?

What are the connotations of 'girl' for you?

Grammar Girl talks monikers and context:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/16/how-to-call-someone-girl-without-seeming-like-a-raging-sexist/

Articles about what's not feminist

There's a trend for comment of this sort lately. I've read two articles today, which I shall link to below, but I will add comments whenever I come across something and it would be great if you did too - even if you overhear a conversation about it (anonymise it, of course). What's supposedly not helping the cause of female equality? Do also read my post on not knowing what feminism is.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/16/three-extra-women-cabinet-hardly-whiteguymageddon

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/16/celebrating-cellulite-happiness-hairy-legs

Weird Al's Word Crimes

Well, clevernesses, I am not sure what to make of this. Is he being as prescriptive as he sounds (and, indeed, offensive about it) or is it a rant in character, using all the aspects of language use people pick up on and exposing them? Some of the subtleties of the visuals link to the Muphry's law post I wrote earlier, so check that out first and, well, I couldn't help but enjoy some of this although I winced an awful lot too. If you haven't come across Weird Al before, as Lang students you will find some of his work very interesting/punny. Check out Eat It (Beat It, Michael Jackson) to see an early one. This one is a version of Blurred Lines (yes, there's a parallel here about contentious issues set to this music!).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

Get your groove on with Grammar Girl - co-ordinating conjunctions

Tricky but worth giving it a couple of goes to try and understand and she's brilliant! For and nor but or yet so...

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/quick-dirty-tips/grammar-girl-quick-and-dirty-tips-for-better-writing/episode/34776756?autoplay=true

Study of interruptions - useful for investigations

This is interesting more for its approach than its results. By not categorising interruptions as either competitive or co-operative (back-channel) it is ridiculous to say that it is as clear-cut as the results suggest. Women get interrupted more, and women feel more able to interrupt women? Or is the work far more collaborative where women speakers are involved? The investigator does some useful evaluation of his approaches but doesn't address this flaw. Worth reading to inform your investigation methodology.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13422&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Edit: apparently Kieran is a woman. I could have edited it invisibly but it just illustrates gender assumption issues.

PPS reading this again much later, I realise I hadn't indicated a gender (perhaps I am getting more into the habit of sidelining gender-marking where it is not relevant) but I had assumed Kieran was a man's name, even though in the article it clearly states "her". I missed it. Always read the contextual information carefully ;)

Love this: Muphry's Law [sic]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

Lots of St B's students in this great music video 'Use your Head'

This just shows how lyrics (and brilliant energy) can be used to get a message across.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBVWCwz8RjI

Bdelygmia

No, it's not a typo. It's a technique in rhetoric where you use a litany of critical epithets against your opponent. Just imagine all the things I would like to call Gove who had the nerve to say on Newsnight that outstanding teachers agreed with his reforms. Nope. So I'm not going to use it because you are all far too well-versed in the Sapir Whorf hypothesis to fall for such techniques (and because you no doubt have your own views on Gove and I see no necessity to change them) but I thought you might be interested to know what it was.

Why it's worth knowing grammar and genre conventions...

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/07/09/legit-tax-letter-of-the-day/

I don't think you understand the word 'feminism'

The web address says it all. A Buzzfeed article that links directly to a movement I posted about months ago where men and women wrote on boards about why we need feminism. (By the way, I said then that I thought it would be a good corpus of data to investigate if you could find out how it was collected or, better still, collect your own sample). This is a really shocking reaction to that movement. Sigh.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

A 'descriptive' attitude to LC - the brilliant Stephen Fry

He mentions two prescriptivists whose views you can look up: John Humphrey and Lynne Truss.  His views are very much in line with mine. I really try not to wince when some uses of language offend me because that is so old hat. Be tolerant and try and work out why language is being used that way. That's what a descriptivist does.

http://youtu.be/J7E-aoXLZGY

A great gender blog post on female talk

Some of these issues are controversial but there are lots of great links, a clear example of 'mansplaining' and some important ideas. I had the experience she talks about just last week when I said something which no-one responded to; then, when a male colleague echoed it, everyone enthused about the idea. I am a reasonably assertive speaker, although my timing isn't great (I can kill any joke at 100 paces), so is it a gender issue?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/10-words-every-girl-should-learn_b_5544203.html

An amazing Language blog to work through

I will definitely be directing students to this next year to work through. You can get a headstart...

http://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/

The recency illusion (an LC article from The Guardian)

This 'recency illusion' is a theory you could mention in a Language Change essay. He also mentions the idea of language "deteriorating" which we will cover under the idea of a 'prescriptive attitude to language change'. (Check out also Jean Aitchison's metaphors for prescritptivist attitudes to LC: http://a2englishlanguagerevision.wikispaces.com/Attitudes+towards+Change+and+Variation )

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/01/words-much-older-than-you-think-language?CMP=twt_gu

The power of marketing language

Language + you

Ouch.

Watch this.

http://www.upworthy.com/no-one-applauds-this-woman-because-theyre-too-creeped-out-at-themselves-to-put-their-hands-together