pupoture

I've never been a great believer in Linguistic Determinism. That said, too many philosophers - all much smarter than me - have argued their points persuasively: "Whereof one cannot speak; thereof, one must say nothing!" And as for those who say that language cannot be trusted because it allows us to describe things that don't exist, or which are untrue... Don't get me started! But I feel like the past year (and a bit) has reinforced my view that we can, in fact, extend our knowledge and understanding independently of language and that we don't need our passions or impressions to have been previously distilled or crystallised into absolute words or phrases which nail them down for us. I propose that language is determined by us, its creators; it is not some primordial AI which has developed the capacity to control us.  Language is running harder and faster just to keep up with us. My suspicions were first aroused last year when the OED appealed to Mumsnet to co...

Recent Language Change questions on ENGA3 have featured pairs of texts (one old, one contemporary) on the same topic and offered you the chance to analyse how they use language to create different representations of whatever it is they are focusing on: rugby matches, the city of Bradford or coffee, in recent years. You are also expected to think about how the times the texts are from might have influenced their language. It's worth remembering though, that this isn't the only type of question for ENGA3, so you might want to think about some others. Remember too, that any topic that turns up in Section A of the paper can also appear on Section B as a Language Discourses question. Political correctness (PC) is worth a look at as a language change topic. It's a movement to change language and redress some of the perceived inequalities in how language represents traditionally less powerful groups in society, but it's always controversial. A question on PC could offer you ex...

With Nigel Farage appearing on BBC's Question Time nearly every week, spouting his particular brand of ill-researched xenophobic scaremongering, you might be forgiven for thinking that the whole world has gone mad. But no, it's PC that's gone mad. And this time, we're not talking about PC as in Police Constables involved in Plebgate, but PC as in Political Correctness . Nearly every year at about this time, a newspaper brings up the hoary old myth of Christmas being banned by some council or other to prevent offence to (take your pick) atheists, muslims, hindus, sikhs, buddhists or jedis. It forms part of a wider view that the traditions so long associated with this supposedly Christian country (of which a paltry 10% of the population actually go to church) are under threat from alien forces. Sometimes it's the forces of darkness (darker-skinned people with their strange religions), sometimes it's the reds (crazy communists trying to make us all equal), but ofte...