Fascinating article about how emphasis and punctuation can change meaning

The seven different interpretations of the sentence "I never said she stole my money" is doing the rounds but it's explained in detail here with some other related examples. Most interesting.

Preparing for A2 Summer task (compulsory)

Studiousnesses,

over the summer, please complete the following two tasks:

• your own, personalised IPA sheets for use next year, ready in a new folder that has summary notes for the AS units (e.g. theories and key terms) and room for the A2 units of 'coursework', 'LC' and 'CLA'

• a reading log that shows you have read at least five sources on your coursework theory area and/or the A2 units. Include the Harvard referencing information and a very brief summary of key ideas in each source e.g.

Ross, A (2011) 'Technonanny - Language acquisition in older children', emagazine 54 online, accessed  23/06/15 Available from (with logon): https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15360 (In this article, Ross in her role as Technonanny explores an 8-year-old's uses of the word "like", especially in its non-standard uses, e.g. as a filler, which she notes younger children don't use and which she has a dislike of. She explores the 8-year-old's sensitivity to her audience and her conversational strategies, explaining how she (Ross) has adjusted to the non-standard use of "like" after seeing how it is part of a sophisticated set of conversational skills.)


To summarise, please come back to the first lesson with your folder ready, the IPA sheet ready, and a reading log with at least five sources on it (hard copy if you have a new teacher or on your blog is fine if you are coming back to my class). The reading log should be fully Harvard referenced - there are sites to help you with this - and the notes/summary should show that you have learned something from the source. You could use some of my blog posts to help, emagazine (there's a login for you in the top box of our Moodle page, both AS or the A2 page you will be automatically enrolled on by the end of August), library, Google Scholar, Jstor or any other reputable sources. More than five would be good and it is vital you get ahead with both the content and the skills required to research effectively if you are going to do well at A2.

Email me if you want to start collecting data for your investigation - I am away 11-19th July but will be picking up my emails periodically outside those dates.

Language and Technology article about email sign-offs

Did you see Humans? Will any job that requires sensitivity to another person soon be done better by technology? Such as creating the right tone and sign-off in an email in this article...

Too cazh? Slang words added to the Scrabble list cause controversy!

Presecriptive attitudes to language change found in Scrabble community - shocker! Thanks to Beth Wiltshire for pointing me to this.

Independent study of Language change - free unit from the Open University

This is a brilliant resource that will help you polish your grammar and then take you into some of the history, key issues and concepts we will be studying for the Language Change unit. Remember, we will only touch lightly on much of this in lessons, so any prior knowledge you have will help you embed the learning and it is even better to do it before rather than just research after the lesson. There will be plenty in here to help you with your wider reading - don't worry if you can't follow it all at first; keep chipping away at it and coming back to it (same approach with the coursework).

Teen sociolect on the internet (LC)

This article (and, as ever, the comments underneath it) shows that the concept that younger members of society drive the most linguistic change is a frightening or appalling thing for older generations.

Linguistics essay competition (by 1st August)

Trinity college are running an essay competition you might be interested in entering (if you are currently in your first year here).

You would have to research it (full bibliographical referencing would be needed) and I would be happy to read over a draft for you.

Here's the link.

Media text info and an article showing a prescriptive attitude to LC

A prescriptive attitude, you may remember, judges whether something is right/wrong, good/bad, progress/decline etc. We want to look at attitudes to Language Change: it is a key element of this A2 topic.

This article clearly shows a prescriptive attitude. It also explains an idea about language to non-linguists and, as such, is an excellent example of the kind of text you have to write as part of your A2 coursework.

Remember that the language idea(s) you inform readers of need to be on the same general topic as the theory you have chosen from for your investigation, so this would be a suitable media text to write if you were looking at any Language Change investigation e.g. something linked like 'How are emojis used to enhance written text in a range of a teenagers' Facebook statuses from 2013-2015?' or something completely separate from Language Change e.g. 'How did desktop publishing affect the production of two Lord of the Rings fanzines between 1970 and 1990?'. As long as both the investigation and media text are linked by the overall theory area, they can be about quite different things.

The important factors are that the content should inform on language theory and be engaging/accessible for its target audience (who must not have a linguistic study background e.g. teachers but not Language teachers, Guardian readers but not Guardian Language section readers).

You!

Synthetic personalisation relies on this - the ambiguity in English of whether you are referring to a single person or many when you use the second person pronoun "you". But it can cause problems. Here is a Guardian Language article which takes the stance that we need the precision that comes from a distinction e.g. you and youse. But could ambiguity be preferable? Thoughts?

Transcription conventions

Here are some codes you could use for your transcriptions. There are others that you could use if you prefer - do some research.

Transcription conventions

 

Transcribe (write down!) exactly what you hear. Include all pauses, however brief. Spell it as it sounds if the accent seems important or the word is non-standard e.g. awright?

 

Pauses

 

Can be of various lengths from the equivalent of a comma (called a micropause) to a timed pause of half a second to several seconds. 

 

e.g. I (.) well (.) I (0.5) like (3) love you

 

 

Utterances

 

Utterances in spoken language are like sentences but are not started with a capital letter. A full stop does not indicate the end of a sentence but does indicate a falling intonation giving a sense of finality. A rising intonation would be indicated with a question mark. Sometimes an up arrow or down arrow is used to represent rising or falling intonation.

 

I asked you a question. (2) well?

or

I asked you a question ↓ (2) well ↑

 

Names

 

Names are often replaced with letters to preserve the confidentiality of the participants. Like a script, the layout should start with the identifying code followed by a colon:

 

A: hold on

B: I’ve got it

A: thanks

 

Interruptions and overlaps

 

If someone else begins talking while someone is already speaking, a slash shows where the second speaker begins. The first person may continue speaking, causing an overlap:

 

A: hold/ on

B: /I’ve got/ it

A: /thanks

 

Or an interruption looks like this:

 

A: I(.) well (.) I/

B: /what is it?

A: (.)love you

 

Paralinguistics

 

Body language, actions and tone of voice can be indicated in square brackets.

 

A: hold/ on [helps B who is struggling with a stack of papers]

B: /I’ve/ got it (.) thanks [gets the stack balanced]

A: /got it? [smiles] (.) that’s it

AS to A2 progression lesson 8/6/15

Diligents,

here starteth the A2 hard graft...

h/w for tomorrow if possible, Friday if not: read the coursework intro booklet, focussing on the sections on reliability, comparablity and ethicality. If you have any questions, note them down and ask asap.

Before you chose the type of data you would like to investigate, we will do some activities to help you see what might work well by looking at some sample data.

Today: watch two of the following You Tube clips, then choose one to transcribe. Use the transcription conventions to transcribe the data then answer the following questions. In note form, write up your findings on your blog ready for next Monday.

1. Annotate the data. What is interesting about the language used?
2. What theory could you use when analysing the transcript? (add more annotation)
3. What other data could you collect that would compare with it?
4. What could you title an investigation into data like this? (Use the title format of an interrogative e.g. How does… or a declarative e.g. An investigation into…
5. What real data could you collect (rather than just going to You Tube?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW9ENhFoWBE (The Apprentice – Language and Power)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kORINpVUEtE (USA Fox network discussion - ‘challenging’ Language and Gender)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4PvRZi3XY (‘Geordie Shore’ interview – easier Language and Gender - transcribe up to time reference 2:06 “being your wife forever”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2EertzeHjM&feature=related (Child directed speech - Child Language Acquisition)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNEWatD0viw (Bill Bailey parody of 1300s poetry by Chaucer using some modern language - Language Change)

Your Powerpoint or other presentation about your findings should include:

• Which data you chose and why
• What you found and what theory you linked it to
• What other data you could choose to go with it or replace it with to make an investigation
• What you would call that investigation