A2 Conference

I'm going to try my hardest to make this happen - a conference in London on the 6th March. You can have a look at the flyer for it here, and I'll speak to you about it more when I've spoken to them in charge.

Daily Mail solid gold

Kids - don't waste your time on the YouFace or MyTube - simply type in 'Patois' into the Daily Mail site for, literally, minutes of non stop lulz. Here is a great example about the rise of LME, which certainly deserves your attention. I want you to try and spot the Daily Mail's attitude to the rise of LME, as opposed to the explantion given by the linguist half way down.

I want to go for a pint with David Crystal

What a legend. What a hero. Find a link here to the iplayer of him speaking on 'The Front Row', or, if you need that DC permanence in your life, get a podcast of it here. It's about 20 minutes in, after a discussion of Leonardo da Vinci, and some singing chap who waffles on a great deal.

 I'm also running a competition, where anyone who links to a useful YouTube video of DC nattering about anything relevant (put the links in the comments section below) automatically wins a delivered cup of tea and muffin next lesson. Guaranteed.

Y13 Model answer

Here you go kids - a model answer provided by the generous Steve Campsall (check out his englishbiz site listed on the right: it's gold). Make sure that anything you add to your existing plan is done in a different colour, so I can see what you originally thought. Happy reading!

Attitudes to Multi Modal Language

So far, we've looked at the nitty gritty of how multi modal language works - if you can't give me at least six features that you might expect to appear in a multimodal text, then you seriously need to do some swotting up. Next up is attitudes to these variations in language usage. As you'll discover in Y13, attitudes to language change in the media are nearly always negative. So, first up, I want you to read either or both of these articles from The Daily Mail or The Daily Telegraph, that are all to do with Voldemort's reaction to Twitter and the language changes he forecasts will result (Twitter, in case anyone has forgotten, puts limits on characters so your message has to be short, in the same way that text messages had to be as they used to cost 10p a pop years ago).

Well, the first thing I'll direct you to look at is this old counter argument that comes from the Guardian years ago (the essay written by the Scottish schoolkid is a hoax, incidentally). Once you've looked at that and completed the tasks that I've set in class, if you are feeling really brave, have a look at this from the Languagelog blog, which does a fairly useful job of demolishing ideas established in the Mail and Telegraph articles. (Y13s - if your language investigations look like this then I'll be a happy man)

Before I sign off, I'm going to point you in the direction of the fantastic SFX Language blog, which is my go to page when I need articles in the media related to language issues. If you haven't added this to your Google Reader and keep up to date with it, then you'll score less than somebody who has. Simple simple simple.

Finally finally, if anyone is reading this who isn't in my Y12 class, you might be interested to know that according to my Y12s, some of the more obvious MML features are falling out of use. Whereas standard English used to be the language of rules, exam papers and 'the man', it is now the only viable option for articulate 17 year olds who wish to avoid using MML features, and the 'trampiness' that they apparently now connote.