New 13s? Step this way...

It was lovely to meet you all this week, and I'm sure we'll have a riot over the next academic year. This blog is a way for me to sum up what we've done weekly, along with provide electronic copies of handouts, slides, and links to people who know far more about English then I ever could.

So, to sum up this week: We've looked at two of the fundamental principles that I think underpin this course. Firstly, the idea of hierarchies: society is obsessed with putting people into hierarchies, and we see this pattern everywhere in the course. In the extract we looked at it was easy to classify various concepts into either good or bad. Things get a little more nuanced later on, but this is a simple enough place to start.

Secondly, we looked at the model that suggests pressures along the continuum.. Any use of language will be somewhere along the line, and if you can identify and comment on the pressures that act upon that level of formality, then you'll find this course a breeze.

In terms of language variation, we had a brief look at Rastamouse, as it provides us with a neat snapshot into just how angry some people can get about 'other' varieties of English, particularly where children are involved. We'll develop this a lot more later on, but for now, it's worthwhile understanding that there are lots of different attitudes to language change and variation, not all of them good.

Finally, I introduced you to Melvyn Bragg's 'The Adventure of English'. I know it's a tiny bit dry at times, but it does provide a really useful foundation for some of the stuff that we'll see later on. We'll aim to have the first two episodes done and dusted by the end of the week. Click here for episode 1, and here for episode 2.

In the meantime, if you've any problems or questions, then drop me a line at my school account. Don't bother with the Gmail one as that one never gets checked.

Cheers!