Monday, 27 June 2011

Stephen Fry Idiolect

View a mindmap for Stephen Fry's idiolect.
This is an example of the sort of thing that you need to create this lesson - Consider the influences that affect the way that you speak!
Eg - Region - give an example "buzz" for bus - "sckool" for school etc...
Ethnic/ cultural heritage - Liverpool dialect from mother, Irish dialect from father - "antwacky" "Craic"
Influences of technology/ social networking - "LOL" "OMG"
Influences of global television - Australia "No worries" America + Friends = "How you doin'?" "totally"
Education/schooling = jargon.
Age - "Cool" "Minger" "just sayin'"
Do your friends influence you? Do you all converge your speech?

Gas attack...

Gas attack...

Hey Ma -james

Hey Ma' - james

Recasting of war!

Metallica - 'One'

Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Thursday, 16 June 2011

English Language - Reminder of your task.

Choose 3 or 4 adverts that use regional accents as their voiceovers. Why have these particular accents been used to promote these particular products?
Wickes - Cockney = masculine, wide-boy, physical - a doer rather than a thinker. A bloke! A mans man!

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

http://www.coionline.tv/listeningroom/media/COI%20Voices%20Research.mp3

Click here to listen to a podcast on accents

Accents and adverts - English Language.

Ant & Dec and Cheryl Cole boost regional accents in advertising

Media reach selected for COI's
Commercial radio increases share and reach
Cheryl Cole flaunts her style with new website
L'Oreal signs Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole to front ads

Social change and celebrity culture have shifted perceptions of accents in advertising, according to research from the Government’s Central Office of Information (COI) and the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Strong regional accents such as Geordie and Mancunian are more favourably viewed in ads due to the impact of celebrities such as Cheryl Cole and Ant and Dec, with people in Manchester and Tyneside responding the most favourably to their own accents.Those in the West Midlands and Bristol responded more negatively.


It is the first research of its kind to look specifically at accents in relation to behaviour change advertising. The research found that perceptions of accents have changed in the last 50 years, so there is no longer one regional British accent that is widely preferred across the country.

In the mid 20th century the 'cut-glass' received pronunciation (RP) accent of the officer class, as typified by many voices in early government public information films, was generally accepted as the accent of authority.

However, social change has meant a softer modern day RP has evolved. This is now most widely accepted across British regions, but there are times when local or regional accents can work well for certain campaigns.

Local accents are more associated with real, ordinary people, seen as "one of us" and "people like me". Whereas, RP is more associated with official institutions.

Other factors included the campaign message and the age of the audience. Local accents seem to be more effective at conveying credible real-life experiences, so may be more appropriate for behaviour change campaigns.

Adverts which seek compliance, such as filing a tax return, which need to impart trust and authority are thought to be more effective in received pronunciation.


Older people tend to be more willing to accept received pronunciation accents, younger people tend to be more engaged by local accents.

People who are positively engaged with authority seem more likely to accept RP than people who are not, and prefer local accents.

Recasting - Lang/Lit

The point of recasting is to keep the basic information the same but to create a new GAP. So, for example, turning a nursery rhyme into a tabloid news story.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water,
Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.

The search for two missing children from a Bolton Primary school ending in tragedy today, when they were discovered badly injured in undergrowth at the foot of a hill.
Jack Simmonds aged 8 and Gillian Duffy aged 7 had gone missing from their homes on the Towbeck estate late on Tueday afternoon. Police and neighbours organised a search and the children were discovered by sniffer dogs in the early hours of Wednesday morning.....etc....etc....

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Regional accents survive against the odds.

Interesting article from The Times -
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6973975.ece

A2 Language - What do you need to know.

The Grammatical Framework and Textual Analysis – what do you really need to know at A2?

You must know:
 Pronouns: first/second/third person singular and plural
 Nouns: abstract and concrete, proper and common
 Sentence functions: declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory
 Adjectives and adverbs (people often confuse adjectives with abstract nouns)
 Modifiers and intensifiers
 Verbs
 Simple sentences
 Orthography: historical spelling features (extra ‘e’; doubled letters; variants like ie/y, u/v)

You should know all or some of the following:
 Comparatives/superlatives of adjectives
 Types of adverbs & adverbials (manner/degree/time/place)
 Verbs – aspect/tense; main/modal/auxiliary/primary
 Pre- and post- modification of nouns
 Conjunctions – co-ordinating and subordinating
 Compound and complex sentences
 Minor sentences
 Syntactic parallelism

You might even know:
 Passive/active voice verbs
 Finite/non-finite verb forms
 Clause types: relative, comment, main, subordinate/dependent
 Clause types: adjectival, adverbial

Textual Analysis work always requires you to analyse the effect of grammatical and lexical features of the text. Therefore, grammar is only one aspect, but a solid knowledge of grammar is often a differentiating feature of a very strong candidate.

You should be able to connect these grammatical features with contextual factors, i.e. audience, purpose, genre/form etc. NB: be careful with the intended audiences of historical texts in Unit 5. Diary entries are usually intended only for the writer’s eyes, or maybe their family. A farmer’s wife writing a diary in 1796 is not doing so for ‘people interested in farming in the 18th century’! Likewise, letters have a specific intended audience of an individual or household, unless written to a newspaper/magazine.

Cupcakes - 14th June 2011

You are part of a production team which is putting together a radio programme about trends in childbirth over the past 100 years. 
Your role is to research and write the script for a section of the broadcast which will deal with women who have children later in life, how they feel and the problems they may encounter.
Using the source material, write the opening of the text to be spoken in your section of the broadcast.You should adapt the source material, using your own words as far as possible. 
Your spoken text should be approximately 300 to 400 words in length.
In your adaptation you should:
use language appropriately to address purpose and audience
write accurately and coherently, applying relevant ideas and concepts.

A2 Lang/Lit - Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs

Why do you think the collection of stories is called this?

Don't forget your magazines for next lesson....

Interesting link - http://gu.com/p/9a6z

A2 English language.

Accent and dialect - Don't forget your homework.  Watch adverts and consider the voices used.  Are particular accents used used for particular products? Why do you think this is? What image is being portrayed by the use of certain regional accents?

Here's one to think about.        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9tjs-6wbsI