Capitalisation in titles

Wondrousnesses,

check the rules for capitalisation in titles (books, songs, TV programmes, filsm etc.) because many people are slipping up on this:

• Always put a capital at the start of the first word.

• After that, capitalise the first letter of any lexical words but not grammar function words. 

Not sure what I mean? Grammar function words are the 'closed classes' - the types of words that don't get new words added (except in truly exceptional circumstances like the possibility of a new gender-neutral pronoun). Whereas lexical words carry meaning. In titles, it is conventional to only leave out capitals for determiners, conjunctions and prepositions - pronouns are closed class but often appear capitalised, probably because I always is capitalised and so it seems unfair(!) to leave the others out. Auxiliary verbs are also 'closed class' but since verbs are capitalised, perhaps they don't like to be left out either and are usually capitalised. There are always some exceptions in published titles so check the original if possible, otherwise follow the rules above.

e.g. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Pride and Prejudice, Never Let Me Go, A Passage to India

Further analysis support

Sensibles,

as the draft deadline approaches, people are wanting to make sure that what they are handing in is in the right sort of format. As I've said before, the structure needs to be led by your content but here is some further structuring help if you need it:

- subheading 1

- overview of why this feature or idea is relevant

- quantified findings

- tentative explanation of why in context these findings are significant/interesting/ambiguous

- close PEE of interesting quotes

- tentative links to context, any theories, and your hypothesis

- subheading 2 etc.

Work for Mon and Tues 28th/29th

Independents,

I am going for a chest x-ray tomorrow so I definitely won't be back before Friday but I have replied to all the emails I've had so get in contact if anything is stopping you progressing.

As you will have found out from the research you've been doing on reading from this set work,  working out our written language rules is even more complex and "unnatural" than learning the complexities and irregularities of spoken language. For example, the letter combination 'ough' can be read out 8 different ways (listen to the different sounds it makes in 'tough', 'thought, and 'through').

Orthography is anything to do with the way words are written down, including font, italics etc. and also spelling. English has what is called a 'defective orthography' when it comes to spelling/sound connections because written letters (graphemes) do not correlate in predictable ways to spoken sounds (phonemes). Watch this video (6.5 mins) and take notes to get an idea of the problems this causes and how significant the process is for all the written interactions we face in our lives and why so many people struggle. The Children of the Code website has many other videos on offer - I haven't seen many of them but they describe themselves as a 'social education project' and there are some serious academics involved, so it seems like a really reliable source for wider reading.


Post research on your blog about why reading (and writing if you discover references to this) is so difficult (you can use the video as one of your sources), giving examples that you can refer to in the exam. Try and note down memorable quotes from significant researchers/theorists/academics. It may be worth watching videos more than once to allow you to understand first and then note-take, pausing to write down quotes etc - if you only watch once, you may find it disjointed, although it is useful to eventually be able to take notes in 'real time'. Use at least 1.5 hours for this research and do it during Monday's lesson time so that should be up by Tuesday (along with the previous reading research questions). As always, ensure you post your bibliography.

Record yourself reading aloud something complex/challenging. When you listen back, notice what caused you to slow down, pause, false start or miscue - can you notice any patterns? Is it unfamiliar vocabulary? Lack of pragmatic understanding of the topic? Syntax and complexity of the sentence? Other things? Please keep good notes (with examples) on this for class discussion.

Then continue with coursework.

Tips to improve your non-fiction writing - access outside college

The smoothwall will probably stop you reading this in college but it's a useful article by a young writer on the advice she'd been given by the Buzzfeed team, who know all about suiting their writing to their audience.

Extract from a first draft of an analysis

 Just to give you an idea of what students have handed in as first drafts before, here's part of a section on interruptions - there was a chart to refer to (but it won't copy in), where interruptions were divided into 'contradictory', 'supportive' and 'clarifying'. Look at how this student is sensitive to the ambiguities in the data and there is a sense of overview and interpretation of what the data suggests. 

After seeing this, this student was given advice to:

• use closer analysis of the quotes in context using more terminology (although that's done quite well here, it needs to be consistent throughout)
• work on structure/guidance for the reader giving more focus to what seems significant rather than trying to cover everything
• support judgements (e.g. "the rest could be considered contradictory" needs more exploration/explanation)
• use footnotes to link to theories e.g. Fairclough's unequal encounters needs to be clearly referenced

 Excerpt from an investigation on Difference theory in Y9 group discussions:

To an extent, the evidence supports Tannen since, in the male group, they interrupted each other more times than in the other two groups. This could suggest support for Tannen’s theory since

47% of the interruptions that took place within “Boysgroup” were contradictory which could suggest conflict. An example being when B1 interrupts B3 saying, “no (3) these two” whilst B3 is saying “put these two” when discussing which words they think matched. This could be considered an interruption because if B1 had allowed B3 to continue he may have completed his turn. Through B1’s use of the negative “no” in order to interrupt B3 could suggest that B1 is imposing his need to control the discussion task. This could be further supported as once he says “no” it takes B1 three seconds in order to then say “these two” suggesting he would rather the group matched a different two words together. His long pause could indicate that it took him a while to locate the other word he thinks would be a better match.  

Once B1 interrupts B3, his pause is quite long and it is surprising that one the other speakers didn’t take over the air time

from him, such as B3, which could suggest they thought that B1 was the one leading the task and so they didn’t want to take over his air time. In total, B3 interrupts B1 5 times which is the most any of the boys interrupted. This could suggest that B3 and B1 were the main speakers fighting for status during the task, evident in the different types of interruptions that B3 made. Only one

of them was supportive and the rest could be considered contradictory. In comparison, B1 interrupted B3 3 times and made 4 interruptions overall. One reason why B1 may be considered the more powerful participant is because B3 interrupted him so many times which could suggest

that B3 wanted more air time and he knew that B1 had the most and so he was challenging him for power.

Investigation - simplification

Some people are still unsure if they are "doing it right" - don't worry about that, just investigate your data, exploring what is interesting/significant because each investigation is different.

But, for clarification, here are some of the basics.

Also refer to this post from July and this recent post.

The investigation (2000 words) is broken down into sections:

• introduction (what do I know so what am I focussing on?)
• methodology (how did I collect my data thoughtfully?)
• analysis (what did I find and how does it realte to theories and context?)
• conclusion (how far do my findings support or contradict my hypothesis? overview in context)
• evaluation (how reliable were my findings, what were the significant methods and what would need to be changed to improve reliability/comparability/ethicality?)

The analysis that you are doing now needs to test your hypothesis, so it is vital that you know what you can quantify to test your hypothesis - look at the features of language that you think could be used to see whether or not your hypothesis is supported and check with me if you are not sure via email.

Then, when you've done the quantification, you should know what are the significant findings and what is puzzling/surprising. Give each section of analysis a relevant sub-heading to what you are closely examining (usually a language feature e.g. interrogatives). Analyse a range of these closely, looking for key quotes to explore using terminology, theories of all sorts and contextual factors PEE.

Keep focussed on relating the findings to the hypothesis but bring in anything else that might shed light on the findings e.g. that it's more about power than gender (Fairclough's unequal encounters) or that it is a discourse community feature rather than dialectal (John Swales).

It doesn't matter at this stage if you write things that should ultimately go in the conclusion or introduction - you can reorganise later. Don't worry - just get something written that I can help you with. There are always significant changes after the first draft.

Work for Fri 25th

Delightfuls,

sorry I am still ill. I would be there if I could.

1. Get up-to-date with your blogs, ensuring you've posted the research, the quantified findings, the headings and anything else interesting.
2. Get up-to-date with my blog (most recent posts and ensure you've done everything from the last few computer room lessons) and use the search bar (top left under the cookies message) to search within my blog archive for anything relevant on our key topics
3. Revise CLA terminology and theories as we will have to do the test next week and every time you come back to them, you can do a little more depth, add a quote or example, connect and contrast them in new ways etc.
4. We are getting close to the analysis deadline (Tue 6th dec) so keep chipping away at that and let me know if you are at a sticking point.

Email me if you have any worries/issues, as ever. Please make sure your work is all done as you will be under so much pressure if you fall behind.

I haven't been well enough to do any marking or checking on what work has come in so just get it all up on your blogs and I will do what I can as soon as I can.

Independent research - a few reassurances

Researchingnesses,

don't worry:

1. everyone is struggling
2. struggling is good - if you weren't struggling, you'd already know how to do it - think of it like learning a physical skill where you have to practise and get frustrated and practise more
3. this is a vital life skill (as well as essential at university) - think of all the people who voted in the referendum without knowing how to read a wide variety of reliable sources to get the clearest possible picture (not that you can ever get a perfect view of any issue but you can be better informed or less so)
4. the more you practise the skill, the quicker you get, and the better the overview you have of a topic, the easier it is to choose relevant points to explore in depth (and the easier it is to memorise things that fit into a bigger picture)
5. everything you read about theorists and key ideas is useful - try and find a way to make it relevant in your next essay
6. if you are not sure you understand, post your research on your blog and I will check it - remember to use Harvard referencing in your bibliography for each post and to have visited at least a couple of reliable sources (see my earlier post for ideas on what is reliable)

And don't worry. You probably won't start to feel that things are clicking until around March when all the terminology, theory, analytical style and wider understanding are at your command and you can start to really assemble exam-worthy responses. That is if you have been chipping away at all of these areas in the meantime to develop them. So don't worry. But do carry on struggling.

The Crown and other period dramas - Language change (important)

I know how much you've got on at the moment and thinking about getting ahead on Language Change (which we will be starting before Christmas) is probably the last thing on your mind... But watching period dramas and keeping an eye on how the values of the time are represnted in the language choices is a fun thing to do (honest!).

If you've got Netflix (or right now it is available on YouTube but I'm sure it will get taken down soon), watch the pre-title opening sequence of The Crown episode 2 and look at how the princess's heightened RP (overt prestige) and colonial values make her speech a product of its era. Look at Philip's (lack of) respect for cultural diversity in the noun choice of "hat" and think about what has and has not changed in terms of their language use over time.

Keep notes on attitudes towards key issues like race, sexuality, religion etc. in any time period you happen to be watching drama set in or reading novels set in. Getting a sense of what characterised different decades and key periods e.g. the world wars, the English renaissance (which marks the start of our time period within which one of your exam texts will come from: 1600-the recent past), the decline of colonial Britain, the rise of the internet - these are all pulled out of a hat; there is no indication that the text on the exam paper will be linked to any of these contexts so a general historical awareness is super-super-helpful to get context marks, but don't despair! Any historical perspecitves you get from doing wider reading for this will make you a more critically aware human being, so it's all useful.

Work in my absence Tues 22nd Nov

Splendids,

I know I still have another lesson on the Tom transcript to do with one class, but it is a good idea to move on to reading all together while I can't be with you (I'm hoping to be back Friday).

To get started, get an overview of the topic from a non-linguistic perspective, then read more challenging texts. Answer these research questions on your blog and add a bibliography of reliable sources:

Who are the most popular children's authors for early years, infants and juniors? What are the elements of these books that are successful? Which books for young children do you remember/love? Why do you remember them?

How are children taught to read in schools (there are different approaches so read more than one source)? What are the arguments for and against current approaches? Make sure you cover synthetic phonics and reading schemes.

What sorts of 'miscues' (virtuous errors based on misapplication of reading skills) do young readers make and how are caregivers encouraged to deal with them (again, numerous ways)?

Research needs to be completed and posted to your blog by end of Tues 29th. Remember, you are multitasking an awful lot so use the lesson time for this as well as some independent study time and don't put it off because you have other things to do. We will be able to move much faster if you've done this well.

Work in my absence Mon - investigation analysis support

Analyticals,

I'm sorry I still can't be with you. You need to be principally working on your analysis for your coursework, so here's some support (see tasks in bold a tthe bottom of the post). Keep chipping away at everything else too. Please let me know if anything is unclear because I am really poorly and struggling.

Remember this is an investigation, not an essay. In the draft you submit to me, the analysis needs to be sub-divided under sub-headings that are not related to which piece of data you are looking at e.g. transcript 1, transcript 2, but instead are sub-headings that will help you to explore your hypothesis. This means that you need to give an overview of the data in each section of the analysis (under each sub-heading), not explore each piece of data seperately (although of course you will need to do that in the early stages - see my post on quantifying the data).

Basically, to structure the analysis section you need to 1) choose sub-headings 2) present quantified data in the form of tables/charts and then 3) explore those findings PEE+theory+context, relating it all to your hypothesis.

Choosing sub-headings:

• consider how you are testing your hypothesis e.g. if you are looking at the use of CDS, your subheadings might be 'interrogatives',' child-led discourse', and 'simplification and diminutives' (notice that they are features of CDS across a range of frameworks that I know to be significant in my data and that will allow me to explore the uses of CDS in the transcripts in a structured, comparative way)
• they don't necessarily need to be techniques, they could be key questions e.g.  'In which ways is dominance established by the dominant participant?' (Notice that this question allows the exploration of not only who may be the dominant participant in each of the transcripts but how they achieve this and could call for more subheadings under this key question.)
• the quantifying you have done should lead you to choose these headings thoughtfully because it should point you to the significant or puzzling findings that need exploration with PEE

Tables/charts

• tables and charts are an important part of your analysis - they help provide evidence of all the thinking you have been doing in order to test your hypothesis and are the basis for your findings
• they should represent the most interesting of your quantified data and should help you to explain why you have chosen to focus on particular areas of the data e.g. if you are looking at gendered language in written texts, you might have a table of which lexical fields dominate and then choose to explore the top two with PEE analysis 
• they should be introduced at the start of the section in a clear and useful way that establishes why they are interesting/useful and an overview of what they show
• they should be positioned where they will be useful to the reader of your investigation and referred to in the analysis, not just be for show
• ensure that they reflect how much data you have e.g. percentages are useful but ranges in addition clarify how significant differences are (see my quantification of data post)

PEE

• because of the word-limit, you need to be highly selective about what you explore: pick significant or puzzling findings and look at quotes in context (AO3 out of 20 marks - for tentatively exploring how meanings and representations are affected by social, cultural issues etc.), applying all relevant theories (AO2 out of 15 marks) and exploring techniques using terminology, clearly guiding the reader (AO1 out of 15 marks).
• always relate your explorations back to your hypothesis - remember, that's what the investigation is about - how far is your hypothesis supported/contradicted (not proven/disproven because it is such a small investiagtion) by the data you have collected?

Please post any quantified findings you have discovered (in note form but clear to a reader who doesn't know what you are investigating) and possible sub-headings by Wednesday for me to look at as soon as I can and for the rest of the class to learn from and comment on with suggestions and questions. Comment on at least three posts by Friday.

You may go over the word-count at the drafting stage but it is better to have more that you can select the best bits from to raise the consistency of the quality of the overall piece. You might end up leaving out a whole sub-heading in order to go into more depth on the others... but it is great to have that option - all the work you do improves your skills so nothing is wasted.

Email me if you need to, as always, and I will get back to you when I can.

Friday 18th work in my absence

Wonderfulls,

sorry but I feel completely rotten so I won't come in tomorrow.

A-Block - your work is already set in the computer room post for Mon14th/Fri 18th below.

E-Block -  we would have been working more on the Tom transcript but I want to give you another lesson on that so leave that for now - if you want to develop your work on CLA, apply the same question to the 'Zach and the healing robot' transcript. Otherwise, carry on with the same work as Monday.

Remember, everyone, that you need to be confident on as much theory and terminology for CLA as you can to apply to the texts and for a test next Tuesday.

Close analysis

Analyticals,

because we are working on close analysis to improve your investigations, commentaries and exam analysis, you need to keep looking for opportunities to examine the language around you.

Log into emagazine and then paste the link below into your browser to read Dan Clayton's analysis of a Walker's crisp packet - ignore the stuff at the beginning describing the exam task as it is the old specification but, as you know, you will be analysing useen texts with close analysis in both papers of the summer exams.

Look at how he uses multiple terms from each of the frameworks to explore the text - you would need to integrate these much more by focussing on multiple techniques (from multiple frameworks) in single quotes to show an integrated approach but this is a very useful basic approach.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/14665

Representation

Perceptives,

we need to think more about the representations in texts that we are looking at for the close analyses (see my last post) we are doing. This article from emagazine (also by Dan Clayton; again, log in first before pasting the link into your browser) gives a great overview of the kinds of representations to look out for and reading this will help prepare you.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15051

Halloween story by Zach

The Haunted Dead (dictated by Zach, aged four years and five months)

First at the mill,  the ghost said, "How spooky is this mill? When the clock strikes 13, strange things happen and you don't know what will happen."

And when the dead rise, zombies say, "Brains!" and near the end/morning, go into the grave.

Next night day, the spooks come out and some are invisible - you just can't tell.

When you see the clock strike 13, you do you know what's going to happen last night and you do know not to go near that 13 o'clock. You know the roof might fall down.

In the morning, the creatures go to the grave. At the time they go, it's too violent, fighting in the morning at tomatoes. (They do tomato fighting in Spain.)

At least the book finishes at 6 o'clock. I can't wait. Because it's 016, it's nearly the end of the book.

At six in the morning and at six at night, don't stare at the mill. Don't stare at it too long. Don't stare at it too short. Don't stare at it at all.

The end.

Computer room lesson Mon 14th or Fri 18th Nov

Courseworkians,

because you are multitasking, I will leave the balance up to you today and you can focus on whatever you think you will need most help with (remember to use my help while you have access to it):

•  analyse your data - once you have done your quantification, you need to start looking closely at the data in the areas that the quantification showed you were interesting (you need quantified data and PEE analysis of quotes that you can explore tentatively, showing how they relate to theories - not just your hypothesis - and context). I am taking in the draft of the analysis on Tuesday the 6th Dec. I will write an 'anlalysis support post' shortly.
• re-drafting of your creative piece and commentary - don't leave this until the last minute, remember you need to do multiple re-drafts between now and Feb.
• CLA theory research and terminology learning - ensure you are doing all the wider reading around CLA (remember I asked you to look into Bellugi's theories about the formation of negatives) so that you know how theories connect and contrast and some detail about each - remember you have got to get in terminology and examles that relate to the theories. Post these notes to your blog - use reliable sources e.g. emagazine, university websites, Andrew Moore's website is accurate and Jstor is great if you can find anything accessible. We will be testing your theory knowledge next week as we finish up CLA by looking at reading and writing.

quantifying data

Scientifics,

the first major step in analysing your data is to quantify as many things as possible that will test your hypothesis e.g. if you are hypothesising that you will find defecit features, you will need to count how many hedges, empty adjectives etc. you find. These quantified findings will tell you what is significant (common/patterns of results) and worth exploring or unexpected and therefore worth exploring.

Set out a protocol for anything where it might be ambiguous what you are counting and not counting e.g. for interruptions you might want to establish that you are not going to count any back-channel agreement i.e. only count something as an interruption when it's a contradiction, agenda shift or the first person stops talking immediately or within a second of when the second participant speaks.

You might want to sub-divide e.g. count all interrogatives but keep them also as separate totals for open, closed, tag, rhetorical, prompt questions etc.

Keep them sub-divided also if you have multiple pieces of data so you can see if there are anomalies (surprising results, outliers etc.) in particular contexts e.g. if the participant's number of interrogatives decreases in one transcript, it would be a signal to look closely at why in that context fewer interrogatives were used.

Remember to make different pieces of data comparable by creating averages or percentages - it's no use pointing out that fewer interrogatives were used if it is a shorter transcript, so you should work it out as 'interrogatives as a percentage of turns taken' and acknowledge that, in small data samples, quite big percentage differences can result from just one or two extra/fewer examples... so discuss reliability and give the actual figures too e.g. in trascript one, participant A asks 40% (as a percentage of turns) interrogatives, however in transcript 2, she only asks 20%. This may be because her conversational partner in transcript 1 is female (and she uses a similar percentage of questions: 35%) and her partner in transcript 2 is male (and he uses a smiliar percentage of questions: 10%) which could be explained by Giles's theory of accommodation and by Tannen's orders vs proposals pairing from Difference theory, or it could be that that percentage of questions is idiolectal, as the difference in actual number of interrogatives over a similar length of transcript is just 1 in real terms. It may also be...

Once you have quantified anything you need to in order to decide how far your hypothesis is supported or contradicted, you can start doing close PEE anlaysis in context to explore why this might be the case according to any relevant theory and the GRAPE - be tentative and don't come to any firm conclusions. Ever. Never say proves or disproves. Aways acknowledge the limitations of the data.