A Level English Gateway College

Friday, 28 April 2017

ELI5: Explain to me like I'm five

I've stolen some terminology from the discourse community of Reddit users in the title of this post. In small groups, you are to explain to a lay audience different linguistic theories relevant to language and occupation. These are as follows:

ELI5: What is a discourse community, and what are the six characteristics of one? What is a rhetorical situation and what is meant by "rhetor", "exigence", and "audience"? (Swales)
ELI5: Why does a speakers language converge with or diverge from the language of other speakers in a social group/discourse community? (Giles)

ELI5: What is the cooperative principle and are there "rules" for conversations? What are some examples of those rules in action? (Grice)

ELI5: What does a linguist mean by "face"? What is meant by "positive face"/"negative face"/"face threatening act"? (Goffman/Brown and Levinson)

ELI5: What is the role of humour in the workplace? Doesn't "joking around" detract from important work?

(Holmes and Marra)

Post your responses here. All of these theorists

Tuesday, 17 January 2017

Text Analysis and Academic Writing

Welcome back from Winter Break and mock exams. It's time to switch gears to the skills pertinent to both Paper 1: Language and the Individual, Paper 2: Language Varieties, and life. We will begin with an overview incorporating aspects of text analysis (Chapter 11 in Cambridge Elevate), academic writing, and independent research.

Before we focus on something more in-depth, let's start simple: Pick one of your favourite songs and analyse a verse of its lyrics in terms of rhetorical devices, grammatical content, and semantics. Link these to the songs overall message. Post your response below.

Here's an example of how you might lay it out:

“Right in Two” by Tool

The genre of the text is lyrics. The text is in written mode and received through the eyes. When performed, it is spoken, transmitted orally and received through the ears, with associated attributes such as incomplete sentences and repetition. In both modes, it is planned and durable. The intended audience is fans of the metal band “Tool” - typically Americans in their 30s and 40s. The purposes of the text are to entertain and to describe human conditions such as violence and war. These are framed using a religious lexis and conventions of a narrative discourse structure. Ultimately, the intended message of the song is to portray mankind’s greed and aggression as innate and meaningless.

The song begin with lyrics providing the orientation in the narrative discourse structure:

“Angels on the sideline
Puzzled and amused.
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they're all confused.”

The noun “sideline” (here abstract) is used colloquially to convey being a passive observer – mirroring early American “Deist” beliefs of a God that does not interfere in human affairs. We picture “angels” as spectators entertained (as indicated by the adjective “amused”) but perhaps already a bit worried (conveyed through the predicative adjective “puzzled”) by the antics of human beings. “Father” as synonym for “God” belongs to a Judeo-Christian lexis, and the noun phrase “free will” alludes to the central theme of Book of Genesis: that humans have to ability to choose evil as well as good. The use of the plural demonstrative “these” provides rhetorical distance for the speaker, showing that the angels are dismissive of creatures that they view inferior (as one might say, “These people who leave their rubbish everywhere…”). Further dismissal of the new species is shown through the interrogative sentence “Why did Father…?”, emphasizing their disbelief. The predicative adjective “confused” suggests that human beings do not know what to do with their ability to choose. “All” could be serving two functions: as an equivalent for the intensifier “very” or “completely” (“You’re all wet!”), or as a universal pronoun (“All pies are delicious”). The idea of human absurdity is furthered in the subsequent five lines:

“Don't these talking monkeys know that
Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys,
Where there's one you're bound to divide it.
Right in two.”

The lines begin with an interrogative sentence, sustaining the theme of the angels’ disbelief. “Eden” and “holy garden” complete a semantic field of “Creation” or “Genesis”. This reference to the oldest story in Western literature reinforces that the song is a narrative, and the writer (Maynard) introduces the complicating action, namely that greed begins to cause conflict. The noun-phrase “talking monkeys” serves as a sort of pejorative or diminutive to lessen the sophistication…

Tuesday, 6 December 2016

Theories on language and gender assignment

Working in pairs/small groups, you will investigate studies on language and gender OR concepts that are referenced by these studies ("Politeness", "Grice's Maxims").

You will summarise, in simple terms, how the studies were conducted and what conclusions they reached. You will explain new linguistic terminology ("hedging", "tag question") and provide examples. You will post your findings on this blog, and you will notice how I used the second-person personal pronoun and future simple tense to convey authority/dominance, thereby terrifying you into compliance. You should also read your classmates' posts and determine if any theorists have ideas that conflict with the linguist you researched. Comment, discuss, and showcase the brilliance of the English students at Gateway College.

What you will not do is cut and paste, or write anything that you yourself do not fully understand. This is an exercise in learning and teaching each other, not regurgitation of information. The theories we will be investigating are:

1. Robin Lakoff (1975) "‘Language and women’s place"

2. Jenny Cheshire (1982) "Reading Study"

3. Pamela Fishman (1983)

4. Deborah Tannen (1990)

5. Jennifer Coates (1989)

6. Jane Pilkington (1992)

7. Deborah Cameron (2008)

8. Janet Hyde (2005)

9. William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins "Powerless Language"

10. Grice's Maxims

11. Brown and Levinson "Politeness"