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Punks in 1983: probably teaching you English in 2014 Youth culture, and the various sub-cultures that it spawns, has been a hugely productive area of new language for several decades. We've had teddy boys, mods, rockers, hippies, grungers, emos, ravers, nu-ravers (and cheesy quavers), shoegazers, indie kids, grebos, psychobillies, punks, skinheads, redskins, post-punks and goths, among many others. And that's before you start factoring in those which have come from the USA and Jamaica (gangstas, rude boys, natty dreads and even backpack hiphoppers). Each movement has had its own associated look, musical style and even language terminology - as you'd probably expect from any community of practice - and an article by the excellent Alexis Petridis in today's Guardian * tells us all about relatively recent subcultures and some of the language associated with them. Sisters of Mercy: none more goth If you're looking for material to help you with ENGA3 (or ENGB3) Language ...

On Monday Lynne Murphy, of Sussex University and Separated By A Common Language fame, came to talk to our students at Colchester and it was great to hear her bust the myths of US English 'destroying' English English. As she put it, in many ways American English has (kinda) saved the English Language. So, it's good timing for all of us doing ENGA3 World Englishes, and especially Language Discourses around American English, that Lynne has also posted an interesting response to an article by the linguist Geoff Pullum about what he sees as the minimal differences between the American and English varieties. In his original article , Pullum claimed that "the differences have been wildly, insanely overstated" and  "the one thing that has always struck me about the differences, particularly in grammar, is how tiny and insignificant they are". He concludes by saying, "Many people seem to enjoy getting hot under the collar about Americanisms in Britain or B...

Dogs are better than cats - it has been scientifically proven, by scientists using science - so it's no surprise that LOLcats are so last year when it comes to language memes and dogs are where it's at just now. Well, not dogs exactly, but Doge , a weird variant of English (some use of wow , a deliberate mis-spelling or two, a strange unnatural combination of an adverb plus a noun, for example) that exists on the internet in pictures like this one below. If you're still not sure what Doge is or why you should care, you can have a look here for a more detailed update, read this link on Superlinguo , or listen to this clip from this morning's Radio 4 Today programme . (HT to @suewalder for Toast link and @StanCarey for LOLcats article)

If you are studying Language Change or Language Discourses for either AQA A or B A2 English Language, a recent run of articles should be really helpful to you. One of the big debates - probably the biggest, overarching debate of all - connected to this topic is over the ways in which people view language change. Is it a downward spiral of decline or a natural process of evolution and progression? As you might expect, it's rarely a simple answer and opinions are often divided. For members of the declinist to-hell-in-a-handcart brigade (aka the prescriptivists ), like Simon Heffer and Lynne Truss, our language (usually ours , not theirs ) is permanently at risk from the eroding winds of change and the tides of textual degradation. In a recent piece for The Daily Telegraph (which you'll be reading/working on now if you're in one of my A2 classes), Lynne Truss bemoaned what she saw as the increasingly blurred distinction between single and compound words such as any way / anyw...

"Menglish". I'll just leave this new word with you for a moment so you can process it . If you're a male reader of this blog, then you might need a few more seconds to process it than a female, because you're designed to be a bit slower with language. Females, after all, are experts in language and just better designed to deal with fancy stuff like words. At least, that's what a reheated brand of Mars and Venus cobblers from Julie-Anne Shapiro would have us believe. Menglish has been featured in the Telegraph and Mail this week, with the Mail accepting the banal generalities of Shapiro's "research" at face value and The Daily Telegraph's Rebecca Holman taking a much more sceptical view of it all. Menglish then is the language that men speak. "What the actual flip?! I thought we spoke English!" you might cry, but no, you'd be wrong. If you're male you speak a completely different language from women and that's why err.....

Rising intonation is a feature of phonology that has been discussed for a couple of decades now, often inciting strong feelings, most of them negative. Also referred to as HRT (High Rising Terminals) and AQI (Australian Question Intonation), but sometimes just labelled uptalk , rising intonation occurs when the normal descending cadence of a statement (dropping off towards the end) is replaced with a rising tone (like when you lift your voice to ask a question). We looked at it in this post back in December. Recent research reported in the Mail Online suggests that HRT doesn't just rub people up the wrong way but can actually affect career prospects. According to Pearson who surveyed 700 men and women in managerial and ownership roles, a striking picture emerges: The majority (71 per cent) agreed that AQI is a 'particularly annoying trait', with 85 per cent adding the use of the trait is a ‘clear indicator of a person's insecurity or emotional weakness.’ More tha...

As you might have noticed, I haven't posted much since last year but I'm hoping to add some more articles in the next few weeks. In the meantime, the EngLangBlog twitter feed is worth following. Here are a few things that have appeared in the last week or two: A new study on how young people manage to text and write formally . It's almost like young people aren't completely stoopid.  - useful for ENGA3/ENGB3 Language Change and Language Discourses (and ENGB1 Technology for B spec people) Why because isn't (always) a conjunction - useful for ENGA3/ENGB3 Language Change Lynne Truss loses the plot and maybe going insane over compound words. - useful for ENGA3/ENGB3 Language Change and Language Discourses Dialect words from around the north of England - useful for ENGA3 Language Variation