Language diversity and change - accents and power

This Guardian article explores the power of accents and opens some interesting avenues for investigation e.g. how much influential power certain accents currently hold.

Look at the words Jack uses to describe a change in accent (e.g. down near the bottom of the article, he uses "thickened" versus "weakened", which have different sets of connotations rather than being simple antonyms).

It's really worth reading/watching Pygmalion if you are interested in attitudes to accents - it is also worth practising some, perhaps using a YouTube video to help or going on a short course. Also try transcribing an accent carefully using the IPA. Do other people hear what you hear? Can they reproduce what was said from your transcription?

Language and gender - whose issue?

I found this article from 2008 when I was researching a quote I saw on my FaceBook news feed (always check sources!). The quote was about how when we talk about women being raped, we use the passive construction rather than focussing on the actual problem: the men who did the raping (the active agent). He also talks about how certain words have narrowed in their immediate connotations so that when someone says 'race', we have started to think about the people bringing up race as an issue, not the dominant race; the same with gender. That leaves the powerful unquestioned - they don't have to examine their privilege.

This links to Steven Poole's ideas about 'unspeak' and a central idea from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:  because language influences thought (Sapir and Whorf), influential people choose words and expressions carefully (Poole), or instinctively, to shape the views of others through their language choices. As Katz says, by calling the problems around gender expectations in our society 'women's issues', it means that the actions of the dominant gender remain unquestioned - it doesn't have anything to do with men, does it?! Katz talks about how those in a position to do so can challenge this, so it's well worth checking out more of his work, e.g. his TED talks. And checking out Steven Poole's writing for an understanding of how our views are being manipulated (one of his examples is about whose idea it was to stop calling it global warming and start calling it climate change) - I'm sure you are aware of the current political uses of the synonyms 'migrant' vs 'refugee' and their starkly different connotations. Try and collect examples to use in a discussion of the importance of this - it would be great material in the creative question in AQA Paper 2 if you have examples from the key areas.

Mistranslations - language technology

I love mistranslations. If this article whets your appetite, read the opening of Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue (excellent read for Language students) for some blindingly good ones. This article touches on some ideas that you could link to World Englishes (cultural issues in language choices) and Language Change/Technology. Speech recognition technology's one of the most interesting areas in current synchronic language change. Its implications are worth exploring e.g homophones, punctuation, handwriting, children's language development etc.

As an aside, look at the clickbait headline and maybe do a study of how these work on different sites. Bristol Post is a particular culprit on my Facebook news feed recently.