A mind map of English speakers

This is a useful image that Amy pointed me to from a mind-mapping site (http://misterrichard.weebly.com/mind-maps.html). You need to learn these for the exams and research them further.

Attitudes to accent and accent and dialect revision

Here is an emagazine article on attitudes to accent. Take some notes on examples of reactions to different accents and why it is news. Sign into emagazine first and then copy this into the browser: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15741

Revise some of the key ideas from the topic by doing some research on:

• Giles (matched guise)
• Cheshire (Reading study)
• Trudgill (Norwich)
• Labov (fourth floor and Martha's Vineyard)
• Milroy & Milroy (closed network)
• Kerswill (Milton Keynes)
• Baugh (linguistic profiling)
• accent surveys (e.g. Comres)
• dialect levelling

and anything else you like! Memorise quotes and statistics you can use to explore these.

computer room lesson 27/2/17 Standardisation of the English language

Dictionaries and grammar books were key parts of the process of standardising spellings, meanings and the manner of expression of English.

Read this emagazine article (sign in first) and make notes on dates and examples of dictionary uses nd conventions, especially Johnson's little joke about oats (what is he implying?). https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/14693

Then research Robert Lowth's Grammar and other grammar texts of the 1700s (and today e.g. Eats, Shoots and Leaves) - read enough to get an idea of who these men were and why they had the authority to decide. Ensure you know what the rules were drawn from and some examples of rules that were disagreed over. Then research what is changing now (some starters: 'one', the possessive apostrophe, a gender-neutral pronoun - what else?).

Make notes on your blog of key ideas and examples relating to spelling and grammar standardisation and changes - as always, cite your sources. this content can be brought into the discussion of the older text, your essays on language change, opinions/attitudes about language and any opinion piece on language could probably use it!

Language and occupation and opinion - political debate on Trump visit

This link to the transcript of the debate in the House of Commons on the petition against Trump's state visit is a fascinating insight into the conventions of political speech and how opinions are supported in this context - look at the language of this occupation, particularly register, lexis and discourse (especially modes of adress, turn-taking and structuring of points). Look at it also for how opinions are expressed and supported for paper 2, section 2.

computer room lesson 20/2/17 and 25/2/17

Preparednesses,

E-bloc (Mon): tomorrow is hand-in day during the lesson, so use today to finesesse your coursework if you wish, then go onto the A-Block work.

A-Block (Fri):  here's a link to the British Library website English page (it's Lang and Lit so ignore the lit sections) for you to make some notes on Language Change - look at their timeline and note down some key events/dates to memorise.

Then, if you have headphones, go to their accents section and collect some examples of different phonological and grammatical aspects of different accents and dialects to memorise.

You can search their website in the bar on the top right for 'Language Change' and browse what's available - here are some ideas of things you need to cover if you want to do specific searches: varieties of English e.g. thieves' cant, polidori, pidgins and creoles, business English and English as a lingua franca - put your notes and links to your sources on your blog.

Amelia email PEE paragraphs - urgent

I should not still be waiting on the analysis of this text - please send me your PEE paragraphs if you have not already handed them in. Thanks. I will be contacting home when terms starts again for those who still think handing in work on time is not a priority or discussing it at the progress evening. Don't make me do that.

CLA revision by 28th Feb - a TED ed quiz and discussion

Revisingnesses,

this TED ed video with questions that I uploaded asks some thought-provoking multiple choice questions to help you develop your skills of close transcript analysis and then the 'discussion' prompts you to explore the relationship with theory.

Keep a record of any questions you want to ask as you go and email me so I know what I need to feed back on.

Complete this by Tuesday 28th Feb.

Putting your coursework through Turnitin - working now!

Conscientiousnesses,

I have created an assignment on our Moodle page under Component 3: Language in Action (which is the official name for our coursework unit) called 'Halla's groups coursework Turnitin.

You do need to put the whole thing through as one file so please cut and paste them together - don't worry about including pictures or formatting issues because it is only the text that is important. The file also needs to be under 2MB. You should be able to overwrite it if you need to alter anything and check again. Please make sure all the text of everything is on there by the hand-in so I can check it if I need to.

You may or may not have a high percentage - even if you do, as long as it is all quotes and direct references to theory that you have acknowledged, that is fine. Please ensure anything you have read is on your bibliography to protect yourselves as human readers can catch even more similarities than online checkers.

St Brendan's writing prize - good practice to enter and maybe win money!

Coursework folder contents

Courseworkians,

Here is the list of required aspects of your coursework folder - these must be handed in without a folder or stapling, in order, on Tuesday the 21st of  Feb - they will then be punched in the top-left-hand corner and fastened with a treasury tag.

Contents:

• Front sheet signed to declare you haven't plagiarised with titles etc. filled in on the day
• Contents page for whole folder with page numbers if possible
• Title page for investigation with word count and your name
• Contents page for investigation including the appendices
• Investigation (all sub-headings)
• Tables
• Unannotated data
• Permissions forms/informed consent letters/forms where applicable
• Any research that isn't easy to acquire, photocopied
• Bibliography
• Original writing and commentary front sheet - identify if it is 'the power of storytelling, information or persuasion' and give the word count of the piece and the commentary
• Original writing audience, purpose and form table (fill this in on the hand-in day)
• Original writing piece
• Commentary
• Annotated style model
• Bibliography

Coursework re-drafting

Precisenesses,

now's the time to make your work the very best it can be before peer assessment on Tuesday.

If you fancy a break from coursework, read some e-magazine articles on one of the key topics or watch a couple of TED talks on language change.

One of the areas we need to research on that you can do some initial notes on is World Englishes. See what you can find out, today or soon. Some key words: American English, Business English, pidgins and creoles, Circles of Englishes, global village, leet and lolcat.