pupoture

One of the areas that we've been looking at in AS classes recently is that of sociolect. I've also been mugging up on the writing and research for this area because of a project I'm working on for something else, so it's been useful to go back to some of the studies that have been carried out into the links between language, the social groups we belong to through choice (communities of practice and discourse communities around work, play and special interests) and those we belong to due to accidents of birth (social class and gender). One of the things that's particularly interesting to look at is the overlap between what we might call social groups and the other areas on Paper 2 of the AS and A level - gender, regional dialect, occupation - and it's clear to me that you can't really talk about one of these without thinking about the others (and indeed, areas like age, ethnicity & sexuality). I've set my AS classes the following task recently and we...

Following yesterday's post about other top tips for articles about language, Tony Thorne of King's College London sent this link to a whole range of articles he has gathered on the topic of slang . There's plenty there for anyone studying Language Change and Variation at A2 and lots of good stuff to read. Thanks very much, Tony .

Just a quick round-up of recent articles about language... Internet language and the prevalence of very short "fragments" of language are discussed in this New York Times article by Teddy Wayne. He considers how the constraints of Twitter often lead to compressed grammar and the growth of what he sees as questions being formed by simply adding question marks to statements, or just one word tweets (like "This" or "Adorable") appearing. Worth a look for both Language and Mode and Language Change. The innovations associated with Multicultural London English (MLE) continue apace. We've already seen some interesting discourse-pragmatic features such as quotatives and tag questions along with phonological features, but it's grammar that's focused on in this piece by Jenny Cheshire on the Linguistics Research Digest , and specifically the appearance of a new pronoun "man" (as in the example, "(1) didn’t I tell you man wanna come see yo...

First it was slang getting slagged off and now it's dialect being dissed. Is this a slippery slope towards linguistic fascism? We've reported several examples of so-called slang bans on this blog over the last few years - a few are listed below - but in many cases, the definition of what constitutes 'slang' has been pretty broad, and more often than not, just plain wrong. And that's before you even start to look at the whys and wherefores of imposing 'zero-tolerance' policies towards forms of non-standard English. In The Daily Mirror yesterday, Martin Fricker reported on a school in Halesowen, part of the West Midlands' Black Country, where such a zero-tolerance approach to local dialect had been introduced. The Daily Telegraph reported it as well, but what is striking in so many of the responses quoted from parents of children at the school is how insulted many of them feel at being told that their variety of English is sub-standard. Take for example,...

The recent slang ban in a London school was debated on a Canadian radio station recently and you can hear what was said through this link .

Basically, tings is getting bare random with this kind of shizzle, yeah? In another (futile) attempt to control behaviour in a school - and language is clearly a powerful type of behaviour - the Harris Academy in Croydon has tried to implement a "slang ban". The BBC covered it here , the Daily Mail here and The Guardian here . It was also discussed by the linguist Paul Kerswill on today's World At One (start listening after 13.30 to hear it). We've gone over the arguments about this kind of ban on several occasions on this blog - first in London , then in Manchester , then Sheffield , and finally in Middlesbrough - so there's not much else to add. Edited on 17.10.13 to correct Guardian link and add Guardian Comment is Free link to Will Coldwell article

While I was tapping out a blog post about Lindsay Johns' Four Thought programme, the linguist Paul Kerswill was already on the case, writing a response directly to him, which he has kindly allowed us to post here. As one of the linguists involved in the Linguistic Innovators project - the work that put Multicultural London English (MLE) on the map and kicked off so much discussion about slang, dialect and code-switching in the media - he's well placed to offer a more considered reflection on what Johns has presented in his programme. Thank you for your Four Thought programme this evening, which taught me how linguistic action on the ground can make a difference to young people. But I feel I need to challenge you on several points. First (and let me get this off my chest straight away), exactly who are these middle-class, culturally relativist academics who wish to oppress young people by withholding Standard English from them? Maybe you are thinking of academic linguists ...

Fresh from his appearance at the Conservative Party conference , where he angrily denounced "trendy teaching" and "hip hop Hamlet" productions as "viciously racist", while (not so freshly) trotting out a tired Stevie Wonder joke, Lindsay Johns made an appearance on Radio 4's Four Thought programme, with a 15 minute attack on his old favourite, "ghetto grammar" .  We've looked at Johns' arguments about this subject - the need for Standard English and the dangers of street slang to inner city youths - on this blog before and, to be honest, much of what he says in the Four Thought lecture is a slightly reheated version of his older articles which you can find here and here . Unlike Johns, who sees the issue in stark terms - Standard English = good, slang = bad - the issue is more complicated than he suggests. I think he probably realises that, but why let research, reality and facts gets in the way of a good rant? And hey, it seems to ...