The new way to avoid checking your emails every ten minutes...

Welcome to my blog! On it I'm going to post all the things we cover in class (handouts, youtube vids, useful stuff in the library, revision notes....) so it'll be in one easy to find spot. If you want to ask me anything direct (and that incluldes you, parents) then don't bother emailing me at my gmail address, but do drop me a line at my school address.
Cheers!


Tuesday 10 July 2012

Terry, Ferdinand and language change

"When someone calls you a c***, that's fine," Ferdinand said. "When someone brings your colour into it, it takes it to another level."


From following the John Terry trial, you'll find, summed up in one sentence, a fantastic example of how language (and associated attitudes) change, often within a generation. I remember watching 'Only Fools and Horses' when I was a nipper, and being a little surprised to watch both Del and Rodney describing a shop (and its owner) as a "paki" shop. What is interesting to see is how societal offence at racial insults has shot up in the last twenty years, whilst offence at the dreaded C word seems to be reducing - among professional footballers at least. 


While considering this increased aversion to racism, it might be worthwhile looking at what contemporary society does find acceptable to have a pop at. We looked at people with lower social economic status (when we looked at the Urban Dictionary definition of 'Meff', which I can't link to here), and you can find a great discussion of the word 'Chav' here, along with a lot more links that I'd like you to read through.


Just so you can use your brains - start looking at the 'Gypsy' series of programs on Channel 4. What might some people find offensive about these programs? What counter arguments might be made?




Wednesday 4 July 2012

Get going with Bragg - I'm not joshing, either...

Here you go kids - a quick update of things to be getting on with, plus a few useful links. 

First up, you'll need to watch and take notes on the documentaries from Melvyn Bragg about the history of the English language - they can get a little dry at times but it's really important that you understand the process of how English became English. Your homework for this week is to watch the first two (about and hour and a half all in) and take notes, which I'll ask to see on Tuesday 10th July.

Secondly, if you've got time, then have a look at this that I wrote a while back - it describes how a word starts off as edgy and cool and hip, and eventually works its way inwards (think of the circle model) until it is part of the mainstream, at which point young hipsters go off searching for other words that mark them out as being different from the uncool, un hip language of 'the man'. Man.  After you've done this, head over to the superior SFX blog and check out the article on development of the word 'Swag', which provides another model which we'll look at before the end of term.

As ever - any questions, comments etc etc, send them to the usual address.

Friday 27 April 2012

Revision / Round up

Like a harassed DJ responding to requests, I've been seeing people and speaking to them about areas they want to brush up on before the exam. I thought I'd post some links here that might be useful to everyone, as I've noticed that a few requests are overlapping.
First up - Jean Aitchison's Reith Lectures - you can download them all here. The first one, 'A Web of Worries' will give you much more detail on her ideas about damp spoons, crumbling castles and the like, but the other ones are really useful, too. (I search for a lot of podcasts in iTunes, and download them directly there).
Whilst we're on podcasts, if you've got an hour or two to spare, head over to the British Library website and check out some of the podcasts from their Evolving English exhibition. David Crystal's is really good, but also is Steven Pinker's, where he dicusses the evolutionary process of words.
Still on podcasts, you can also check out two interviews with Henry Hitchings from the Blackwell site (or better yet, search for Henry Hitchings in the iTunes store - there are two really good podcasts there; one 19 mins long, the other 11). Again, really useful, but no substitute at all for reading the book, which I still recommend you do before the big day.
And finally, you can still find more stuff then I could ever dig up by wandering over to the Eng Lang SFX site - I've been banging on about this for 2 years now, so I'm certainly not going to stop now.
As ever, any questions, comments, Bell & Ross watches, send them over to the usual address

Monday 20 February 2012

Concordance software

Not all of you will need to look at this, but for those of you who are crunching a lot of words for your investigation, then you can use this extremely useful tool that you can download here. Once you've downloaded it to your computer (don't bother trying it with school computers - if you need to use it in school you can use my laptop), if you need some pointers on how to get started with it, then you can look at the first couple of tutorials that are available on Youtube - here, here and here.

As ever, keep looking at the excellent SFX blog - there's been a load of really useful stuff on there recently. Any problems - give me a shout.

Monday 16 January 2012

Language and sport

Given we're a sports college (or are we still?), I'm outraged at myself that we haven't covered the link between language and sport in too much detail. If you are thinking of completing any sport related work for your coursework (either for AS or A2) then I strongly recommend visiting the ever excellent Macmilan Dictionary blog, then scrolling down and clicking the 'Sporting English' tab on the right hand side. Alternatively, you can save yourself a calorie or two, and simply click here.

Monday 9 January 2012

Shamelessly re-blogged from the SFX site - this is quality



The blog formerly known as ...English Language @ SFX: Unfriended for grammar fails: There's a good article here on ZDNet by Charlie Osborne about grammar, spelling and punctuation on social networking sites. She takes a loo...

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Euphemism

You can find a fantastic article all about euphemism here, from The Economist site. Y13 kids, if you can see how the choice of words involved in constructing euphemism reveal something about the society that uses them (in terms of ideologies or beliefs), then trust me, you're onto a winner. Enjoy!

New Year Resolutions

Right then, I know I've been neglecting this of late (even though my hit counter keeps going up; I can see you all there thinking 'Does he ever do anything?'), but from here on in, I'm making a solemn promise to post at least once a week, either something I've written, or a re-post from some of the many (regularly updated) jobs that you can see to the right of this post.

If I don't, then (and this is cast in the stone of the internet, for you to screengrab at will) I'll bring biscuits to the following lesson. Fact. Double stamped. If you like, you can vote on the type of biscuits, but be aware; if you're the kind of freak that likes Custard Creams, then a long, lonely life awaits.