John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!

https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk

In this video, John McWhorter talks about how language has changed, and how he believes that is changing currently. McWhorter highlights the fact that he believes texting is becoming standard English - slowly, but surely - and goes into further depth about the subject. There is an interactive transcript also available.

Steven Pinker: What our language habits reveal.

https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_language_and_thought#t-70602

Notes:
-Language changes over the years without us noticing.
-Pinker has a descriptive attitude towards language. Prescriptivism / Descriptivism / Standard English.
-Language is used as a window into human nature.
-Language emerges from human minds interacting from each other.
-Visible and unstoppable changes in language are occurring: slang and jargon, historical change, dialect divergence and language formation.
-Language began as being spoken, then followed to become written and read.
-Communication model: Sender - Message - Reciever, Social - Historical and cultural context.

Form, purpose and audience.

Wireless 2015: Review.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/festivals/wireless-2015-review-urban-music-festival-surrenders-to-edm-headliners-10368735.html

"It was female solo artists who really owned the main stage over the three day festival. Mary J Blige gave a spirited, heart-felt performance of classics such as “Family Affair' and “Be Happy”, giving the audience her all in a red jumpsuit."

Form: Review.
Purpose: To inform, to entertain.
Audience: Music lovers, people thinking of going to the festival.

Short story.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/27/tessa-hadley-her-share-of-sorrow-short-story

"Ruby’s name might have suited her if she’d been smouldering and mysterious like her mother in the dance photographs. But she was plump and stubby with short, fat arms, lank, beige-coloured hair and fair, freckled skin that turned pink easily in the sun-"

Form: Story, fictional.
Purpose: To entertain.
Audience: Teenagers and adults.

Article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/world/middleeast/for-those-who-remain-in-syria-daily-life-is-a-nightmare.html?src=mv&_r=0

"Every morning, at the dawn call to prayer, women and children move silently from the Damascus suburb of Douma to the surrounding farm fields, seeking safety from the day’s bombardments by the Syrian government."

Form: Article.
Purpose: To inform, to educate.
Audience: Adults, charitable people.

Article/interview

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/caitlyn-jenner-fears-physical-threats-6451046

"The former Olympian is said to be afraid of providing the necessary information, such as her medical records, to the court to secure the judgement because of physical threats she has received."

Form: Article/interview
Purpose: To inform, to educate.
Audience: The general public, transgender people.

Article/news

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/iphone/11863366/iPhone-6s-Plus-sells-out-online-with-orders-to-take-up-to-four-weeks.html

"Company says it is on track to beat the 10m iPhones pre-ordered over the first weekend last year"

Form: News, article.
Purpose: To inform, to advertise.
Audience: iPhone users/buyers.

How the internet is changing language.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10971949

This an article on the BBC website written by Zoe Kleinman. The article explores the many different aspects of written communication through technology, and Kleinman gives her view on how it is affecting language, and if this is a negative thing.

Four different aspects of online communication are spoken about in this article - 'Super slang', 'word play', 'txt spk' and 'word thief'. The article begins with the discussion of a court room questioning with Christopher Poole. Poole was asked to define a list of internet slang during the questioning, such as 'rick rolling'. He had a discussion with BBC news, in which he spoke about how he believes it is a positive and interesting thing to see the way that the internet is changing language.  To quote Poole, "Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you can notice them more quickly.".

The first subtitle 'Super slang' explores the effect the internet is having on Ukrainian language, and how noticeable it is becoming. The main focus is on the negative impact internet has had on language, and how it has made language and some gestures more aggressive and derogatory.

'Word play' follows this title, where Kleinman talks about some 'cult websites' using 'cult dialect such as 'LOLcat'. The language is purposely incorrect, but even so the 'LOLcat' has become an internet phenomenon. Professor Crystal then talks about the fact that these websites have become online language games. It is said that this phenomenon is extremely fashionable at this moment, but it is unlikely that it will last.

Kleinman continues, and now discusses 'txt spk'. She has discovered that texting language is expected to consist mostly of abbreviations, but in reality only 10% of this language is abbreviations. Text language seems to be made up of vowel-free abbreviations of singular words, rather than of entire phrases. The article continues to give examples of some abbreviations that are frequently used, and explains their meanings. Kleinman finishes with a quote from Mrs McPherson - "Does this belong in our language?".

The final subtitle 'Word thief' continues with a discussion with Mrs McPherson. She begins with highlighting new language found through technology such as 'To Goole' and 'App'. McPherson also comments on the fact that the term 'social networking' has only recently been linked to the internet, changed from its previous defnition - The use or establishment of social networks or connections.

Overall, I found this article to be very interesting and helpful if you are looking into the effect of technology on language and so I would recommend it.

Terminology

This is a list of terminology which may be found useful in an A-level English language course.

Cohesion
-Refers to the way texts hold together, the way parts connect. This connection can be through words, grammar and ideas.

Coinage
-The creation of a completely new word.

Collocation
-The way certain words frequently appear together e.g. 'fish and chips'

Colloquial language
-The informal vocabulary used in everyday conversation e.g. 'Hey' and 'Cheers'.

Creole
-A pidgin language that has developed and become the first language of a new generation of speakers.

Deixis
-Deictic expressions cannot be understood unless the context of the utterance is known e.g. 'here and 'there'

Dialect
-A language variety in which features of vocabulary and grammar show the user belonging to a particular regional group.

Divergence
-When the speech styles of two or more people move away from each other.

Ellipsis
-The omission of part of a word, or of a word or words from a sentence, while still making sense. e.g. 'Going out tonight?'.

Euphemism
-The use of a mild word or phrase instead of one that could be harmful, offensive or unpleasant e.g. 'passed away' rather than 'dead'.

Graphology
-The appearance of a text influences how it is read and understood.

Hypernym/hyponym
-A hypernym is a general word linked to more specific words e.g. 'furniture' is a hypernym and 'desk is a hyponym of furniture.

Idiolect
-An individuals distinctive way of speaking.

Idiom
-An expression whose meaning cannot be understood from the meanings of the individual words that make up the expression e.g. 'It's raining cats and dogs'.

Interrogative
-A sentence that is a question e.g. 'What time is it?'.

Jargon
-The technical language of a certain occupation. The word is often used critically.

Lexis
-The vocabulary of a language.

Morphology
-The study of the structure of words.

Paralinguistic features
-Gestures and accompanying facial expressions which contribute to the communications of meanings in speech.

Phatic conventions
-Utterances such as 'you know' which establish and maintain social contact.

Phatic talk
- 'Small talk' in conversation e.g. 'Hi, how are you?'

Pragmatics
-The study of the part that language plays in social situations and relationships.

Semantic field
-A grouping of words with related or similar meanings - through being connected in a certain context.

Sociolect
-The distinctive vocabulary and grammatical constructions particular to an identifiable social group.

Sytax
-The way sentences are constructed, word order.

Taboo language.
-Words that are avoided because they are considered offensive, embarrassing, obscene or unpleasant.

Stephan Fry - Uses and Abuses of language

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqb28e_frys-planet-word-3_shortfilms

Stephan Fry's Programme talks about the uses and abuses of the English language. The uses of obscenities are explored as Fry discovers the power of some words in different situations. In this episode, he first goes to a tribe in Africa (Turkana), where he learns about which words that if used in this certain place, would be treated as being explicit. Fry then meets a woman with Tourrets syndrome, where she explains how she uses this to teach children and become a 'superhero' for them. She talks about how she has dealt with having Tourrets and how it has affected her life. As the show continues, Fry meets Brian Blessed. Together, with a psychologist, they investigate the Stroop effect and the hypoalgesic effect of swearing. Stephan Fry covers several more topics, and speaks with even more intelligent people - watch to find out more.

I found this programme to be very interesting and looks in-depth at the English language, and would highly recommend watching this. Waring: contains explicit language.

Frameworks

Phonetics, phonology and prosodiscs
-Speech, sounds,effects,articulated and analysed (alliteration, onomatopoeia).

Graphology.
-The visual aspects of textual design and appearance (form, purpose, audience, font, emojis, technology).

Lexis and semantics.
-Words and meanings.

Grammar and morphology.
-Structural patterns and shapes of English (morphology, exclamatives, questions).

Pragmatics.
-Contextual aspects of language use (meaning).

Discourse.
-Extended stretches of communication occurring in different genres, modes and contexts.

'All raait! It's a new black-white lingo' article summary.

Steven Swinford and Laura St Quintion's article 'All raait! It's a new black-white lingo' is about the slang used (mostly) among teenagers living in London. The article begins discussing the affect of ethnic background on the dialect that is used. It is said to believe that the slang used includes words and sounds from several different languages such as cockney, Jamacian creole and Bangali. Professor Paul Kerswill led a study into understanding slang, and where teenagers have discovered it from. His study included researching a group of teenagers, of a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds to discover if the dialect used by the teenagers was related to race. Kerswill then found that no matter which background the teenager had, they all used relatively the same dialect. The Professor continued to explain that he believes that this dialect will make its way into the film industry after he discovered that in multi-cultural cities such as Manchester, similar dialect was used. Kerswill then said that he believes that this dialect is used as a way to seem "fashionable and cool" and is also used as an opportunity to be unique and to 'mark' themselves out in the community.As the article continued, it began to move onto how social media, and music (rap music to be precise) has influenced teenagers' language. Rap stars such as Lady Sovereign and Dizzie Rascal are mentioned, to show that some lyrics in their music contain slang that is now used regularly by teenagers. Professor Paul Kerswill is yet again mentioned when discussing his study. He has discovered that even in places such as Watford (Hertfordshire) the teenagers are no different to those in London. Kerswill's study was said to have cost £275,000 and analysed conversations of 32 teenagers aged 16 to 28 from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The influences on pronunciation are spoken about as the study is explained. Words such as "pound" were found to be pronounced as "paaand" which originates from traditional cockney language. The article then explains other variations of language, and the backgrounds they believe that they have originated from. Different to the pronunciation, Kerswill's study discovered certain language used such as 'nang' meaning 'good' and 'creps' meaning 'trainers' were originally from places such as Jamacia. As the article ends, some concerns about this dialect are expressed. The Lilian Baylis school, for example, has banned its students from using such language. The head teacher, Gary Phillips, explained that this was because he was "trying to teach the kids that there is a time and a place for it". Overall, the article sums up the context of this new dialect which has been discovered through doing many different studies. As some may not have a problem with people using this language, others are still not accepting the inevitable use of it and are yet to be persuaded.

'From the mouths of teens'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/from-the-mouths-of-teens-422688.html

The article 'From the mouths of teens' discusses the context and reasons for teenagers using slag. Race is spoken about to define why we came to use slang in the way that we do, and explains the fact that slang itself has converged with common language. The journalist carefully explains that race no longer is the border between who uses slang, and who does not - "'People say he speaks like a black boy, but he just speaks like a London boy.' The message is that people are beginning to sound the same regardless of their colour or ethnic background."

Grammar test

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/quiz/2013/feb/04/grammar-punctuation-quiz-test
This is a grammar and punctuation test given to year 6 pupils. It contains 14 questions, each measuring different language skills and it should be aimed to have 10+ correct answers.

AQA specification

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-language-7701-7702/introduction

This is the AS and A-level specification for English language.