New conference, new blog

The 2012 conference now has its own blog which you can find here.

March 6th 2012

The next emagazine English Language conference is approaching. Bookings will open this week on December 1st and we have an excellent line-up for you.

More details on Thursday...

Coming soon...

...well, not that soon, but next year, we'll be organising another emagazine English Language conference. The date will be Tuesday 6th March 2012 and it will again be at Logan Hall, Institute of Education, London.

More details will appear on here as they are confirmed.

Deborah Cameron research update

One of our speakers, Deborah Cameron, has followed up her talk at the conference (and a specific question raised by a teacher on the day) with a document for teachers. It's designed to point teachers towards some of the most recent research into gender and communication.

You can download it from here on the emagazine website. Deborah Cameron has also written an article for students in the September 2011 edition of emagazine, so keep an eye out for that!

Survey results

As promised, we will keep this blog running for a short while after the conference so we can share some of the resources from the day with you.

Here's a quick breakdown of the results from the survey that we carried out before the conference and which Jonnie Robinson referred to in his session on the day. Thanks very much to the nearly 300 students and teachers who contributed to the survey and thanks to Jonnie for analysing the results and doing so much with them.

Question 1
Male 29%
Female 71%

Question 2
77% of respondents were 16-18
13% were between 26 and 50

Question 3

Question 5
The question on different words used for a range of things (playing truant, soft shoes for PE, the most formal room at home, female parent and the most formal room at home) threw up some very interesting results, including a few joke entries.

In his talk Jonnie Robinson chose to focus on one of these (see below):

more to follow soon...

Peace and love!

Thanks so much to everyone who came to our conference - speakers, students, teachers, all of you - and for making it such a great success. Here's a picture of the mighty David Crystal and adoring fans at the end of the conference, sending out peace and love to everyone.

While the conference itself may be over, we'll be keeping this blog running to provide post-conference resources, including links to some of the presentations, follow-up reading and survey results, as well as a link to an evaluation of the conference itself.

Countdown to the conference...

We're really excited about tomorrow's conference and hope you are too.

If you want to check on any last minute arrangements then have a look here. We'd like to remind you that it all starts at 10.15 and we need everyone in their seats by then. We are going to need to stick very closely to timings on the day so that everyone gets the most out of it, so please try and have a quick look at the programme and if possible bring some lunch with you to avoid having to queue too long during the lunch break.

We're really looking forward to seeing you there tomorrow.

American English?

With only two days to go until the conference, it's good to see one of our speakers, Jonnie Robinson of the British Library, getting national media coverage for the ongoing research into accents in the UK carried out as part of their Evolving English exhibition.

He'll be telling us more about some of the findings of the BL's huge survey of changing accents on Wednesday but you can read a bit about it here in the meantime.

There are many ways in which these texts could be grouped but here are three suggested groups with brief reasons, which you can develop in more detail. As you can see, I’ve highlighted differences as well as similarities and suggested possible sub-groupings - remember that it’s important to do this on task 1 of ENGB1.

Firstly, texts 1, 2 and 4 clearly all have the purposes to instruct and inform. As written texts, 2 and 4 do this through the use of conventional discourse structures (the ‘recipe’ structure of 2 with its front ended imperative constructions and the question-answer structure of 4). Text 1 however, unlike the other two is a spoken text. In this instance, the TV chef is not only speaking but demonstrating as well to a viewer who would be watching her on TV. Consequently she uses a deictic term ‘here’, to refer to something she’s pointing to and which the viewer can see. The informal nature of the programme can be seen in conventional features of informal spoken discourse such as pauses, elision - ‘gonna’ and elliptical constructions - ‘need a bit of oil’. There are other examples of a more informal register such as the way in which she uses personal interjections – ‘if friends come round’ and phrases such as ‘looks a bit scary’. As with most shows of this kind, the intention is to establish and maintain a relationship between the presenter and her audience who may have viewed the programme before and/or will (hopefully) watch it again. There isn’t the need to present a perceived closeness between producer and receiver (or to maintain viewing figures !) in texts 2 and 4 and so the register they use is much more formal.

Another possible grouping would be texts 3, 5 and 6, which all make significant use of images. Text 3 uses an image of a modified action man (an iconic and famous toy) to shock its readership in line with the text’s purpose which is to persuade people to donate. The image of an amputee is used to provoke a strong response and is supported by the accompanying text, which uses hard hitting modification ‘terrible physical and psychological toil’, ‘exceptionally high’ and ‘brave young men and women’. Text 5 also uses an image, this time the fair-trade logo that like the action man doll, the text producer assumes that the reader will recognise. Again this image is used to present an important message. Although the text is advertising the showing of the FAIRTRADE documentary, it is also aiming to promote awareness of FAIRTRADE itself, in a similar way to how text 3 aims to promote awareness of the need to support war veterans. Text 6 however uses images to support a narrative and has the sole purpose to entertain, following the typical discourse conventions of a comic book for younger readers. The images in this text are much more detailed, since they are required to support a narrative.

A third possible grouping is that of texts 3, 4 and 6 which all present and/or challenge widely held assumptions and stereotypes. Text 3 aims to present the harsh reality of war by deliberately challenging the assumption that war is like a game and that soldiers are like action heroes. Similarly, text 4 aims to dispel ideas that people might commonly have about ferrets as well as providing more information on looking after animals through its series of straightforward declarative sentences. Text 6 also challenges ideas about war but in this case does so through its characterisation: the young and naive Charley is placed in contrast to the wiser and realistic Ginger. However, since its readers would be relatively young and its purpose is to entertain, it doesn’t rely on the shock tactics of text 3. Within this group, texts 3 and 4 could be placed into a sub-group of advertisements since they both promote charities and attempt to persuade their readers to donate money to their causes.

Grouping texts: text six

And here is the sixth and final text for your categorising pleasure. It's a page from Charley's War, a comic strip about a young soldier, by Joe Colquhoun in Battle Picture Weekly. Click on the image to see a bigger version of it.

Once you've looked at all six texts from the last two weeks, have a think about ways in which you would group them and the kinds of language methods/ linguistic frameworks you would use to explore these texts. Examiner and author, Marcello Giovanelli will add some comments in a separate post later today.

Grouping texts: text five

And here is text five. It's a poster for a film screening of Black Gold. There'll be one more text next week and then we'll look at how you might analyse and group these texts.

Grouping texts: text four

And here's text four. It's taken from a leaflet produced by the BVA Animal Welfare Foundation (full text can be found here if you decide you like these little chaps and want to have one as a pet).

Grouping texts: text three

Here's your 3rd text...

It's an online charity advertisement taken from the website of the Army Benevolent Fund.

Grouping texts: text two

And here, without further ado, is text two.

It's an extract from "The Crafty Food Processor Cook Book" by Michael Barry.

Cut the meat into even-sized cubes, leaving on any fat but removing all gristle.

Process for 10 seconds, scrape down the sides; flash the motor on and off again to make sure it's all thoroughly evenly cut, then turn into a separate bowl.

Add the onion and egg yolk to the bowl and process until pureed, add to the meat with the salt and pepper.

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly together, divide into 4 and shape into 1 inch thick patties with smooth, round sides.

Let these stand, if you can, in the fridge for a few minutes, and then barbecue them or fry them in a minimum of oil in a thick bottomed frying pan.

If you like them rare, a minute on each side on high and then 5 minutes over a low flame will do it; if you like them a little bit better done , a minute on each side on high and 7 to 8 minutes on low is about right.

You can eat them in buns, with the traditional gherkins, tomato sauce, mustard and relishes.

There will be more texts next week and then a final analysis of them for you to do after half term, before Marcello Giovanelli gives you an examiner's view of what you could say about them.

Grouping texts: text one

So, here's your first text. It's an extract from a transcript of TV chef Lorraine Pascale, from BBC's Baking Made Easy, telling you how to make Macaroni Cheese.

Baked pasta has a reputation of being (.) a bit of a family dish but my macaroni and cheese is really really glamorous it’s even good enough if friends come round as a dinner party dish (.) so I’ve got some pancetta here (1) and (.) I’m gonna fry it (.) in the pan (.) need a bit of oil (2) I love pancetta (.) such a lovely flavour (.) you know you can use bacon as well just snip some bacon up (.)some spring onions (2) OK so while they are cooking up I’m gonna get on with the white sauce it’s a basic white sauce (.) and it’s equal amounts of flour and butter (1) sooo (.) put 40 grammes of butter (1) and I’m going to add some flour (.) 40 grammes (2) then just mix it in and make a little paste (1) get right into the corners (1) so it goes quite lumpy and looks a bit scary (.) and then (.) take it off the heat and add some milk I’ve got 200 mill of milk (.) I’m not gonna add all of it just a little bit

Grouping texts: day one

Studying English Language at A level can mean that you look at some of the language's most ancient and glorious texts - Beowulf, William Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - but equally you might be given some strange and seemingly ephemeral texts to analyse: text messages, shopping lists, the opening paragraph of a Charlie and Lola book, some conversational exchanges about the weather, a status update on Facebook or a man talking to his chiropodist. Why?

Well, it's all language; that's why. And if you're studying A level English Language you're going to be looking at a huge range of material and trying to see patterns and connections in it. Most importantly, from an examiner's point of view, you'll be looking at extracts of language and grouping them using the linguistic methods (frameworks) that you've been learning on the course.

Marcello Giovanelli's session at the conference will be all about this - how you apply linguistic methods to texts in the exam - and he's well placed to advise on this, being an examiner for one of the biggest awarding bodies and a co-writer of one of the Nelson Thornes textbooks for the course.

Each day this week, and into next, we'll be giving you a new text extract to think about. As each day passes you'll be able to see potential links between the texts. They might share a similar target audience, use humour in their language, follow similar discourse structures, be from the same mode or feature words from particular semantic fields.

On day six we'll give you your last extract and ask you to suggest ways in which you could group these texts and linguistic reasons for those groupings.

It's all good practice for ENGB1 - if you do the AQA B spec - and will give you a taste of what's to come at the conference.

Rock and rolls

In the immortal words of Oasis "I want a roll with it". But what do you call one of these? Following on from a request by students at King Edward VI Sixth Form College in Nuneaton, we're adding an extra survey question here on the blog to see what regional differences there are in the naming of this bread-based food.

Rep yr endz

Thanks very much to all the people who have already submitted data to the Survey Monkey questionnaire. We've had over 100 separate entries so far, which is very good, but we know that over 600 people have already booked places for the conference, so we need your data too!

At the moment, London and the North East are very well represented, so all you people from other areas, get on to the site and (ahem) rep your endz...or if you are a speaker of Standard English and not a middle-aged man trying to use slang that was out of date two years ago, represent the language variety of your local area.

Click here to submit your data.

Contribute to Language Evolution

One of the guest speakers at our conference is Jonnie Robinson, one of the key people behind the fantastic Evolving English exhibition at the British Library. The exhibition charts the history and development of English as a language, featuring a range of ancient texts, sound recordings and interviews with top linguists. It's a comprehensive and fascinating exhibition which is worth visiting at least once, and preferably more often.

Along with the main exhibition itself, there are many extra events. We've already had one on rap's contribution to the language, and one on the history of swearing in English, but still to come are talks from Paul Kerswill on Multicultural London English (March 22nd), a debate about attitudes to language entitled "What is Proper English?" (Mon 7 Feb 2011, 18.30 - 20.00), Paul Baker on the secret (and not so secret) languages of gay communities through history (Tue 15 Feb 2011, 13.00 - 14.00) and Jonnie Robinson himself presenting a talk on the joys of regional English (Wed 23 Feb 2011, 18.30 - 20.00).

You can contribute to Jonnie's session at the Emagazine conference by submitting your data, either as a teacher or student, by visiting our Survey Monkey  questionnaire. The more data we get, the better!

More on texting

And following on from yesterday's post on texting, here's a link to a Daily Telegraph report on new research from Professor Clare Wood and her team at Coventry University which suggests that texting can actually have a beneficial effect on children's literacy.

The comments below give you a pretty good taste of how angry some people are about textspeak, or even about research like this being carried out in the first place (presumably because it runs counter to what they already "know").

Crystal clear on texting

David Crystal will probably need no introduction to students of English Language A level and we're very pleased to welcome him to our conference for not just one session, but two. What makes the second session so special too is that it is a Q&A which will feature questions that you can send to us in advance for David Crystal to answer on the day.

To submit a question follow this link.

David Crystal's first session will be on the subject of texting. We in the UK are very familiar with SMS messages on mobile phones as we've been using them in huge numbers for well over a decade, but in the USA texting has only recently caught on. What's interesting about this is that the same moral panic that David Crystal explores in his book Txtng: the Gr8 Db8 is now taking place in the USA.

American newspapers and websites have been full of reports about concerns over the damaging effects of textspeak on young people's literacy, but, as David Crystal argues in his book, the main research into texting so far has actually shown that it's linked with higher levels of literacy.

Here are a few links to media articles and interviews which put different arguments forward about texting:

David Crystal interview about texting and language change
Doctor Clare Wood on research into texting and literacy
Texting is good for you
Texting is bad for you
Texting as an educational tool
Outrage over texting in the classroom
Texting and gender differences

Not just any conference...

The Emag Language conference is not just any conference; it's an M&S conference. Or something like that...

What this means is that we want the conference to be more than just an event where you turn up, listen to some lectures and go home. The session run by Jonnie Robinson, whose work at the British Library has helped bring us the excellent Evolving English exhibition, will require some input before the event from all of you attending.

What we want to do is collect data from you and then get Jonnie to analyse that data and present his findings back to you on the day. To do this, we've set up a questionnaire which you can access here, and we'd like everyone attending to fill it in.

The Myth of Mars and Venus

Deborah Cameron, who kicks off our conference, is one of the most prominent linguists in the country and much of her recent work has been effective in getting a wider audience for language issues. With self-help and pop psychology books such as Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, If Men Could Talk and Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps gaining mass market circulation through the 1990s and early 2000s, Cameron's Myth of Mars and Venus has come as a refreshingly forthright response to the industry that has grown around "hard-wired" differences between women and men and lazy stereotypes about how the sexes communicate.

In her talk, Deborah Cameron will look at the the myth of difference and how it harms us all. Obviously, we'd recommend you buy the book as it's a great read (just like this review  or this one say!), but in the run up to the conference, if you look at these links from The Guardian in 2007 you'll get a taste of what she's tackling and the linguistic evidence she brings to challenge the myth.

Main article
What Language Barrier?
Speak Up, I Can't Hear You
Back Down to Earth
 
This Sunday Times article from 2007 is also a good read.

For an alternative approach, and one that might give you the chance to think about how far we can generalise about the linguistic behaviour of women and men, have a look at this emag article by Jennifer Coates, another key thinker in the field of gender and language.

Conference website now up and running

The conference website is now online and you can find out more about the full programme for the day, each speaker and how to book tickets.

From next week we'll be starting to collect your data for Jonnie Robinson's session on investigating language, and your questions for David Crystal.

Welcome to the Emagazine Language A level conference blog

The conference will be taking place on Wednesday March 16th 2011 and this blog has been set up to help prepare students and teachers for the day.

On this blog we will be:

• giving you details of each session being run
• gathering data from you to pass to our resident language expert, Jonnie Robinson, to analyse on the day
• collecting your questions for Professor David Crystal to answer in his Q&A session
• providing helpful links for students and teachers to access before and after the event