Feck that for a swear word!

And so the debate about swearing in the broadcast media rages on: this week TV chef Jamie Oliver joins Jonathan Ross in the ranks of TV personalities who are to be linguistically 'neutered'. But in the midst of the sea of language that is coming to be seen as ever more unacceptable, there exists a small island of tolerance... a final stronghold of mild expletive... a last bastion of semi-taboo language. Yes, I'm talking about FECK.

Immortalised by that fantastic comic creation Father Jack from the equally-fantastic 90s alternative sit-com Father Ted, 'feck' is an Irish word that suddenly found its way into common usage in British English slang. Whilst there's no doubt about the context in which Father Jack uses the word, in its wider and general use in Ireland it is actually not synonymous with the similar-sounding word that differs from it by only one vowel (he said, coyly). You can read what the OED has to say about the origins of 'feck' here, and its background and usage are also discussed in this article, which focuses on the word in response to a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority that 'feck' is not a swear word and its use in a current Magners Cider advert (in which bees are told to 'feck off') is therefore entirely acceptable.

Well, that's one view. Another view, of course, would be that whatever the actual origins of the word, and regardless of its traditional usage, it has now come to be used in exactly the same way as its cousin 'f*ck' (largely - though probably not entirely - thanks to Father Jack), and therefore, the argument goes, it should be treated in just the same way. This is an argument, incidentally, that has been rehearsed with reference to a certain word used frequently on the new 'rebooted' Battlestar Galactica series (I know, I know, more sci-fi anorak references... but they're always so relevant!). This TV show is set somewhere out in space, sometime in the future.. or maybe the past (don't get me started on that one). Anyway, the writers of the show have managed to get around the stringent US censorship rules by inventing their own term to replace the F-word, and that word is 'frak'. Its use is exactly the same as the f-word that we know and love/loathe* (delete as applicable) and, to be honest, I'm surprised they get away with it on prime-time TV! Have a look at this compilation and you'll see what I mean.

Techno slanguage

If you're a little 404 when it comes to the language of the internet, or if you're feeling a bit Code 11 when it comes to technological neologisms, you might like to have a look at this article, which focuses on new entries into the English slang lexicon that originate in the language of the internet and texting. In another article on the same topic there is a list of a number of these new terms, which will prove very additions to the language change databases that all you A2 students (should) have been compiling. Book!

No more smut, filth and obscenity...

...Well, not as much, anyway.

Since my last post on Smut, filth and obscenity...? there have been some interesting developments in the whole 'swearing on the BBC' row. According to this article, there is to be a crack down on the use of 'foul language' following "a review of bad language across the corporation's services".

Commissioned in response to what has come to be known as 'Sachsgate' (nice word formation there), the review comments not only on Jonathan Ross's use of taboo language but also makes the observation that Ross's language is frequently "gratuitous and unnecessarily offensive" and concedes that "it is possible that some language alienates some audiences unnecessarily". Who those audiences are, though, is not necessarily easy to determine - language that, for one person, is gratuitous and offensive might be considered by another person to be harmless and humourous self-expression. The BBC's recently-revised guidelines on offensive language take this point on board.

The guidelines state:

There is no consensus about words that are acceptable, when, and by whom.
Different words cause different degrees of offence in different parts of the
world. So a person's age, sex, education, employment, belief, nationality, and
where they live, all impact on whether or not they might be offended.

They also comment on what constitutes the most offensive language:

Language that causes most offence includes:• sexual swearwords• terms of racist
abuse• terms of sexual and sexist abuse or abuse referring to sexuality•
pejorative terms relating to illness or disabilities• casual or derogatory use
of holy names or religious words and especially in combination with other
offensive language.

As a father of three young children, I'm also relieved to read that the BBC guidelines stipulate that they "do not include any offensive language in pre-school children's programmes or websites (four years and under)". Glad to hear it!! After all, can you imagine Iggle-Piggle shouting the F-word at Macca-Pacca? Or PC Plum branding the youth of Balamory "a load of little s***s"? A little less reassuring, though, is the next line of the guidelines, which states that "We (the BBC) must not include offensive language in programmes or websites made for younger children except in the most exceptional circumstances". Except in the most exceptional circumstances??? I dread to think what that might mean...

Smut, filth and obscenity...?

I knew that would get your attention.

There's been a lot of talk about swearing in the media over the last month or so - prompted, of course, by the now-infamous 'Brand and Ross' incident. In case you haven't heard about this (where have you been?!), comedian Russel Brand and presenter Jonathan Ross have both been suspended from the BBC for making 'lewd' telephone calls to actor Andrew Sachs and broadcasting them on Brand's Radio 2 show. This has sparked a huge debate about the 'role' of swearing on the TV and radio, and quite a range of views have been expressed in one forum or another.

The writer of this article calls for a total ban on swearing in the broadcast media, observing that "it's just plain wrong". This view is supported by the writer of this article and, according to this report, by almost two-fifths of TV viewers. And as if it weren't enough that Messrs Ross and Brand have had their knuckles rapped for their bad behaviour, Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills and even the otherwise squeaky-clean Ant and Dec have got in on the act, each prompting their own flood of complaints in response to their 'smutty' language.

On the other hand, the writer of this article argues that there's nothing wrong with swearing, asking "should swearing sometimes be excused for the sake of its artistic merit?" (and answering his own quetsion with a hearty "Flip yeah!").

To look at things from a more academic perspective for a moment, American linguist Steven Pinker has argued that swearing is an inbuilt language characteristic and one which we revert to as a matter of pure instinct. You can listen to what Pinker has to say in YouTube footage here (click on the 'go' button once you've clicked the link), or in a Guardian podcast here.

So what are your views on swearing? Is it ever acceptable? Does it depend on context? Do any of the people expressing the views above have a point, or are they just talking a load of... well, you know what I mean. Post a comment and share your thoughts.

Ch-Ch-Changes

No, this is not a post about the linguistic qualities of David Bowie's lyrics (although that would in itself be an interesting analysis - I offer you "It's on America's tortured brow; Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow" - Life on Mars?. Weird.). But no: instead this is a link to a series of articles that have appeared over the last couple of years focusing on language change and people's attitudes towards such ch-ch-changes. I'm putting this up now because those of you in my A2 class are about to write your first essay on contemporary language change, and these links will be immensely helpful.

First off, there are some excellent articles on general views about language change here, here , here and here. Then there are some items which look more specifically at attitudes to new words and/or phrases here, here and here.

The next two links focus on attitudes towards the use of jargon - here and here. Then there's a whole heap of articles about people's attitudes towards changes caused by the electronic media (texting, email etc.) - here, here, here, here and here. Then there are some stand-alone items on attitudes to language reclamation, people's views on the use of the title Ms, some observations about Political Correctness, and finally some words from broadcaster John Humphrys, who is well known for his views on language use and langauge change.

All very interesting... or, as Mr Bowie would have put it, "strange fascination, fascinating me".

Memoir? Six words? Let me think...

The Books Blog page of the on-line Guardian is currently asking people to send in their own six-word memoirs. "A challenging exercise in linguistic economy", I hear you muse, in a sentence whose words, by chance, number precisely six. "I might have a little go", you continue, becoming ever-more adept at meeting the criteria of the challenge. "It'll test my powers of language", you say, unwittingly sparking controversy over whether the contracted auxiliary verb counts as a word in its own right or is in fact part of the word it is appended to.

Anyway, why not have a go. Add yours to the comments link at the bottom of this post; you could even send one to The Guardian. Here's mine:

"So far, so good. More later..."

At the end of the day it's not rocket science

According to a new book by Jeremy Butterfield of the Oxford English Corpus, phrases like the two that I personally (there's another one) have just used in the title (and now the content) of this post are among the most irritating expressions in the English language. As reported by yesterday's Telegraph, the top ten language sins at this moment in time (there I go again) are:

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science

You can add to that list misuses of the word literally and any number of cliches that are spawned by the world of corporate management (witness to incentivise, to action and synergy). The book's author says that "we grow tired of anything that is repeated too often – an anecdote, a joke, a mannerism – and the same seems to happen with some language." Interesting fuel for a language attitudes debate.

So which cliches of the modern age get up your nose the most? Post a comment and let us know.

Speaking of the cliche 'it's not rocket science', have you ever wondered what actual rocket scientists say when they want to make a point about something not being incredibly difficult? No? Just me then...

Obamania!

With the US Presidency safely in his hands earlier today, Barack Obama delivered a victory speech that was crammed full of the kinds of rhetorical devices that we linguists find fascinating (very nice of him too, considering we're just starting rhetoric in our AS English Language classes!).

You can listen to the man himself deliver his speech here, and there's a full transcript here. See how many linguistic devices you can spot (clue: there are lots of them!).

Beckham's accent gets the boot

The language quest of hotel chain Travelodge continues apace this week, as they publish the results of their survey into both the favourite and most loathed accents of British English. In keeping with many such investigations in the past, the accents of areas such as London, Birmingham, Wales (huge generalisation, but don't shoot the messenger) and Liverpool come off the worst, with varieties associated with the north-east and Scotland coming out on top.

What's particularly interesting about these results is the celebrities that are chosen as examples of each variety. London accents are representated by controversial figures such as Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen, and although David Beckham might not be controversial in the strictest sense of the word, he certainly does divide opinion. Wales gets Charlotte Church (generally considered to be rather irritating), Liverpool gets Colleen Rooney (WAG famous for... well, being a WAG), and Birmingham gets Ozzy Osbourne (unique, but not necessarily in a good way). By contrast, Newcastle gets Cheryl Cole as its figurehead (considered to be quite attractive by lots of people), Bolton gets comedian Peter Kay (current media favourite) and Scotland gets Edith Bowman (popular with 'the yoof', I believe).

All of this supports the observations of linguist Howard Giles, who is famous for (among other things) his discussions of the motivations for language attitudes. One of the points he makes is that people's attitudes towards a particular accent are frequently motivated not by the aesthetic qualities of the actual sounds (although this can be significant), but by the things (people, places etc.) with which the accent is associated.

The results of the Travelodge survey are also reported in slightly different ways here, here and here.

Language is out of this world

No, that's not an observation on what a cracking course A level English Language is (although now you come to mention it...), but instead a comment relating to this report on the development of software that will allow linguists to decode alien language. "What?" I hear you cry, "Aliens? As in little green men?" (Actually the majority of people claiming to have seen aliens concur that they are in fact grey and not green... and not really 'little' at all... and there are probably female aliens too, when you think about it... but I digress). "Since when did alien language become fair game on an English Language course?" you continue, and not without justification. But it's what the article says about language in general that is interesting for us as linguists:

[Dr Elliott] believes that even an alien language far removed from any on Earth
is likely to have recognisable patterns that could help reveal how intelligent
the life forms are. "Language has to be structured in a certain way otherwise it
will be inefficient and unwieldy," he told New Scientist magazine.

This idea that all languages have a common basic structure (or 'deep structure' as it is sometimes known) is not a new one - linguist Noam Chomsky is well known for his theories in this area. The report goes on to explain:

All human languages have "functional terms" that bracket phrases - words like
"if" and "but" in English. According to Dr Elliott, such terms in any language,
are separated by up to nine words or characters. This limit on phrase length
seems to correspond to the level of human cognition - how much information we
are able to process at once.

Whether we apply this to alien languages or not (and I suggest that we don't spend too long on that one), this basic principle of (human) languages would seem to point to a definite link between language and cognition (mental agility and ability), which lends weight to at least one of the main theories of language acquisition that we will be debating later on this year.

...And yet more on dialect

Following on from the previous post on various regional dialects, the Lancastrian and Cornish varieties now get their turn in the spotlight. The Travelodge hotel chain has commissioned a study into the extent to which people understand various accents and dialects of British English. You can see reports on the results of their research into the Lancastrian dialects here (complete with a link to the short dialect guide that came out of it) and the findings of their Cornish dialect investigation here.

Dialect, dialect, dialect...

The subject of regional accents and dialects is rarely absent from the pages of national and local newspapers for very long, and in the last week or so there have been a number of interesting articles in various publications.

This article from the Northumberland Gazette looks at the work of the Northumbrian Language Society, whose efforts to keep the local dialect alive will this week include an event which sees the recital of a selection of poems written in the Northumbrian dialect. Further south in Hull, meanwhile, a hotel has begun to issue its guests with a tongue-in-cheek guide to the local dialect, as reported here. It's a pretty comprehensive list, which takes an affectionate look at the local regional variety - although there are a few people from the area who are less than pleased with what they consider to be bit of a mickey-take (although the hotel management denies it was ever meant to be seen in this way).

Elsewhere in Yorkshire, one of last week's editions of the Huddersfield Daily Examiner issued a plea to bring back the Yorkshire dialect - an article which, in turn, prompted some negative responses a few days later because of its use of what some people considered to be regional forms that were not from Yorkshire but from across the border in Lancashire.

And finally, no blog post (at least, no blog post from this writer) would be complete without something on the dialects of the West Midlands, which is why this video report gets a mention. Them bostin' Brummies have got in on the Facebook act, setting up a group called 'Faycebook' (the extra 'y' being an attempt to replicate the West Midlands vowel pronunication) to celebrate all things Brummie.

'Custody' battle

A real-life language and representation debate appeared in yesterday's Guardian. The writer of the article discusses the use of the word custody when talking about the responsibility of child care following a divorce or separation. This article demonstrates quite clearly just how significant language can be in terms of influencing people's perception of a given issue.

Going... Going... Gone!

In the last couple of months we've had quite a few posts focusing on new words that are finding their way into various 21st century dictionaries and other lexicographical collections, so in the interests of providing a balanced view of the whole process of language change, here is an article from Time Magazine that looks at what happens at the 'other end' of the language change production line, so to speak. The article begins:

The lexicographers behind Britain's Collins English Dictionary have decided to
exuviate (shed) rarely used and archaic words as part of an abstergent
(cleansing) process to make room for up to 2,000 new entries. "We want the
dictionary to be a reflection of English as it is currently spoken," says Ian
Brookes, managing editor of Collins, "rather than a fossilized version of the
language."

But this is a controversial mission statement, as the article goes on to point out:

Here in Old Blighty, the birthplace of English, the dictionary's compilers
face passionate resistance from language lovers who believe that any cull
reduces the richness and variety that make language powerful — and leaves us
all a bit dumber... Collins' editors know that old words die hard — and that
some people will vilipend (regard with contempt) any execution without a
fair trial. So they've offered the chance of a reprieve. They have made
public 24 words that face deletion because editors could find no example of
their use in their database of English-language books, newspapers,
broadcasts and other media. If, by February 2009, a word reappears in that
database with at least six "high quality" citations, it could be spared from
the semantic dustbin.

You can read the full list of 24 words currently residing on Dictionary Death Row here. If you ask me (you didn't, but I'll say it anyway), the thought of such wanton lexicide (wonder whether that one will ever make it into the CED) is abhorrent, and must be stopped! But it's not just these 24 words that face the chop - there are loads of unfortunate lexemes that need rescuing from the clutches of the language axeman. Where, for example, would we be without the word napiform meaning 'shaped like a turnip'? And what about typtology, 'the theory that the dead communicate with the living by tapping on tables'. And, should the day come when the word hylomania bites the dust, how on earth will we ever be able to talk about 'the abnormal love of wood'? A language cull would indeed reduce the richness, the variety and - at times - the downright weirdness of the English language... and that can only be a bad thing.

So let's hear from you - which obscure words are on your top three list of vocab worth reviving?

Wordsmiths strike again

Another list of the hottest new words of 2008 was published in today's Daily Mail. So if you suffer from nomophobia, get depressed by stagflation or simply can't tell your funt from your framily, then take a look at the article. It lists a number of very inventive new uses of language, each demonstrating one or other of the word formation processes that we're about to start looking at in A2 (Language Change).

Language is booming when it comes to the crunch

There's a really good article here about the new terms that have come into the language as a result of the current global financial crisis. As the article says, "tumultuous times change language" and this has certainly been the case with the world banking meltdown. Credit crunch is the most obvious example of linguistic innovation in this area, and the article gives a detailed account of the development of this term. The article as a whole presents an excellent overview of the ways in which language is used by the media to represent this particular issue, including a very useful glossary of 'meltdown lingo'. As such this is a great resource for your AS coursework on Representation and Language.

Some accents just Palin comparison to others

Tee hee hee, see what I did there? A headline truly worthy of the hallowed pages of the "Sun Writer's Pun-Writer" handbook. For this post is indeed all about accents (accents such as that of Sarah Palin, candidate for the US Vice-Presidency) and how some accents (Sarah Palin's, for example) are seen to be less prestigious and/or desirable than others - in fact, some accents pale in comparison to others (Palin comparison... geddit?). Ahh-herrmmm... anyway...*

One article from the American press chooses to headline specific negative perceptions of Sarah Palin's accent ("What an accent! Mush!") as a summary of the writer's generally less than positive views about her as a politician. This highlights the fact that people tend to see accent and dialect as an important characteristic when it comes to making judgements about other people, and another article from the American press picks up on this. Like the first article, this one starts by focusing on Sarah Palin's accent ("Really? That's an Alaskan accent?") but moves on to a more detailed discussion of the significance of attitudes towards language varieties, drawing on the views and observations of a number of expert linguists. Whilst this article focuses exclusively on American accents (and is therefore technically outside of our remit for Unit 5 'Contemporary Language Variation in the British Isles'), many of the issues that are raised about accents of American English are of equal significance for British English varieties. Among the points raised is the observation that, contrary to earlier predictions that regional accents would 'die out', people are actually holding on to their distinctive linguistic varieties as a means of marking their identity.

On the other hand, the article reports, there are some people who see a distinctive regional accent as an obstacle to progression in socio-economic terms, and it is perhaps these people that are adopting a more standard language variety that is not marked for any particular region. The writer picks on "rural Maine" as the undesirable antithesis to the "city", and there's an important point to bear in mind here: attitudes towards regional accents and dialects are not always based on their linguistic characteristics, but often on society's percpetions of the region with which the variety is associated.

Nowhere is this more true than in Britain, where you can pretty much guarantee that any opinion poll asking which is Britain's coolest/most prestigious/sexiest accent will show one variety coming bottom of the heap: the Birmingham accent and dialect. The results of a recent CoolBrands survey identified 'Brummie' as the least cool accent of British English, with Received Pronunciation seen as the coolest (don't ask me why, I don't make up the rules!), closely followed by Scotts and Geordie. You can read the full story here and here. Like users of any regional variety, though, many Brummies are proud of their accent and dialect, even if they are aware of the negative light in which it casts them in many people's eyes.

The road sign pictured left actually appeared at roadworks in Dudley in the West Midlands a few years ago (I'm offering a prize for the first correct translation posted in the 'comments' section of this post), and gives a clear indication of the sense of solidarity that can come with the use of a regional variety. As a proud ex-pat Brummie myself, I'm always pleased to see this kind of thing. Imagine my delight last year, then, when I found out about national Talk Like a Brummie day. And how much more delighted do you think I was when I found out that said event is to be repeated on 19th July 2009?!! Yowm gunna loov it, aah kid.


_____________

*I'll get my coat...

Room for a small one?

Sticking with what seems to have become a bit of a theme in recent postings, this article on language innovation asks us to consider whether the English language is 'full'? The writer of the article, Alex Beam, claims to "love neologisms, coinages, new words, whatever you want to call them", citing staycation, manecdote and brocabulary as personal favourites. In the interest of presenting a balanced argument, however, Beam raises the following question:

Are new words as great as we think they are? Paul MacInnes, writing for The
Guardian newspaper, says no. "The common line is that any new word is a good
word," he says. "It shows a vibrant, playful language shaped by those who
practice it." He continues: "Not often, however, does anyone stop to ask whether
this is a good thing, whether... the English language is full."

It's an interesting point, whether or not you agree with it - and this kind of debate is right up our street as far as the A2 English Language course content is concerned.

txt speak - luv it or h8 it?

There's been a lot of media interest in the language of text messaging recently, not least because of the latest book to be published by David Crystal, one of the UK's leading linguists. In Txting: the gr8 db8 Crystal explores the impact that the language of texting has had on the spelling system of English. This article features a detailed account of some of Crystal's thoughts on the subject. Whether you're an AS student thinking about the language of so-called 'blended', mixed mode electronic texts, or an A2 student focusing on language change and attitudes towards it, this article is a very useful one to read.

Lend us a word, mate

With the history of the English language at the forefront of our minds on the A2 course at the moment, this article was a timely find. The article reviews a new book, The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English by Henry Hitchings, and focuses in particular on the wide variety of foreign loanwards that have worked their way into the English language for one reason or another over the centuries. As well as citing some of the usual suspects (Latin, Old Norse, French), the reviewer highlights some of the other languages that have so generously donated their lexemes to our beloved tongue - among them Turkish, Arabic and Dutch. As the reviewer points out, this rich linguistic history reflects and indeed emphasises the multifaceted nature of Britain's social, political and economic history.

Having worked through some examples of words that have come into English from other languages, the reviewer touches on some of the attitudes that are often expressed about the proliferation of foreign loanwords in English. He comments that English has never been short of its "furious defenders against foreign corruption", an observation about 'linguistic gatekeeping' that links very nicely with a couple of other articles that I found recently - this time not about words but about spelling.

This one talks about "the utter irrationality of British spelling", commenting on the somewhat controversial views of John Wells, a professor of phonetics and president of the Spelling Society, before going on to discuss in detail the arguments for and against spelling reform. Professor Wells argues:

"Let's allow people greater freedom to spell logically," adding, "Have we really
nothing better to do with our lives than fret about the apostrophe?"

You can read more about Professor Wells' (Wells's?) views in another recent article, which focuses on - among other issues - the use, misuse and abuse of the apostrophe. This third article adds further detail to the same story.

To round off this posting on language change and people's attitudes towards it, you might like to have a look at this article, which reports on some of the new slang words that have earnt their place in the pages of the latest Oxford English Dictionary of Modern Slang. The only thing I'll say is that I cannot be held responsible for the image that they've chosen to accompany their story, nor for the feelings of revulsion that are certain to ensue. Enjoy.

Advertising dinosaurs of the pre-PC age

Blog entries, eh? Nothing for nearly two weeks and then three come along all at once. Please forgive the dearth of postings of late - I've been a very busy chap.

Anyway, hot on the heels of our recent (AS level) class discussions of the representations of subjects and audiences in adverts, I happened upon this article while scouring the net for tasty morsels. I offer no comments (I wouldn't dare), but I think you'll find them particularly interesting as a window on the way we used to be when it came to gender politics. Prepare to be amazed/infuriated/amused* (*delete as applicable).

Rents think Teenglish website is bare nang, blats

...or something. If you thought that 'malt' was something used in making beer, 'rare' was a way of cooking steak and 'flossing' was that thing the dentist is always nagging you to do, then you need the Teenglish Jargon Buster. Okay, maybe you don't actually need it, but your parents might, as this story in the Daily Mail tells us.

The jargon buster is a feature of the gotateenager website hosted by Parentlineplus, the purpose of which is to "help break down the language barrier" between parents and teenagers. What is interesting about this website is that it aims to keep on updating the dictionary of 'Teenglish', inviting contributions from parents in order to do so. This is particularly important given the extreme transience of this particular type of slang - it changes more rapidly, probably, than any other type of non-standard or colloquial usage, so websites like this are useful for linguists like us if we want to keep track of this high-speed language change as it occurs. After all, some of the words that appear in slang dictionaries like this one are out of date almost as soon as they are published ("phat", anyone...?).

War of the words

As the campaign for the American Presidency gathers pace, the candidates and their 'people' are keener than ever to find something - anything - to use as a weapon against their opponents. In the wake of yesterday's outcry about Barack Obama's 'lipstick on a pig' comment comes a fresh accusation of racism against supporters of John McCain.

The argument revolves around the use of the word 'uppity' by two separate Republican politicians in reference to Obama and his wife and to a black news reporter, as reported here. A spokesman for the two Republican politicians argued that they had "simply evoked a word that by definition described [their] demeanor as being superior, arrogant and presumptuous". However, supporters of Obama have been quick to point out that the word has a racially-loaded history and that its use by the Republicans is far from innocuous. This article explains the background to the use of the word:

The phrase “uppity (N-word)” was used to let a black person know he was out
of his “place.” It was used on black people during the civil rights movement, who refused to give up seats on buses and who moved into segregated neighborhoods, as well as black people who used proper English. It was likely the last phrase heard by freedom riders in Mississippi before they were killed and buried in an earthen dam.

Whether or not the Republicans were conscious of this history is unclear. What is clear, though, is that language really is a 'loaded weapon' and should be handled with extreme caution!

it wz me wot dn it lol

Linguists have played an important role in the science of forensics for many years, using their knowledge of the structures and patterns of language use to identify the origins of 'mystery voices', construct pictures of the social background of suspects and even expose falsified written statements. Until recently the forensic linguist's evidence has been mainly in the form of tape recordings and written documents, but this news report explains how linguists are now beginning to focus on the language of electronic media such as text messaging.

The article comments that people "choose their own text language "rules" - which they tend to use throughout all their messages", and explains that it is therefore possible to spot a 'fake' message sent by someone masquerading as someone else (as was proven to have happened in the murder case on which the article focuses). The article goes on to say that "forensic linguists can also build a "sociolinguistic" profile of the author: they can give an idea of a texter's gender or age... women tend to be inter-personal while men make arrangements".

So it would seem that the language of electronic communication varies in the same ways and according to the same factors as spoken language does.

More grammar gripes

Following their report on Tesco's decision to re-label their "10 items or less" checkouts (as discussed in my recent Less is more blog posting), BBC News on-line magazine has published a 'rogues gallery' of the 20 most hated grammar crimes, as identified by its readers. Have a look at the list and see whether you feel as strongly about these misuses of language as some people apparently do. Perhaps you have some additional gripes of your own that don't get a mention here...

CONGRATULATIONS...

...on choosing to take the most exciting*, useful** and just plain excellent*** A level course known to human beings. We'd just like to take this opportunity to say "welcome" to all our new AS English Language students, and "welcome back" to those of you starting your second year of English Language at Strode's.

The purpose of this blog is to help you to keep up to date with current news articles, websites and other resources that focus on aspects of English Language and that will support your learning. The blog is updated by members of the English Language team on a regular basis, so please do log in as frequently as possible. If you've got something to say about the issues raised in one of the blog entries, please do feel free to post a comment. Similarly, if you happen to come across an interesting language-related resource/website/news item somewhere and you think other students would benefit from accessing it, then please email the details to your teacher at jjones@strodes.ac.uk, nwhillans@strodes.ac.uk or telliott@strodes.ac.uk and we'll post it up.

*probably
**no doubt about this one
***well, we like to think so

Less is more

The language police are on patrol again - and this time they've got Tesco under surveillance. As this BBC News article explains, there are those who object to the grammatical inaccuracy of the "10 items or less" sign that appears on some checkouts, arging that 'fewer' is the correct term to use in this context:

Both words are used as comparatives - fewer meaning "a smaller number of", less
meaning "a smaller amount or quantity of"... Fewer should be used when you are
talking about items that can be counted individually, for example, "fewer than
10 apples". Less is correct when quantities cannot be individually counted in
that case, e.g. "I would like less water".

So we return once again to the presecriptivist debate. Grammatical pedants (and I hold my hands up to being one of them on this particular occasion, the confusion between 'less' and 'fewer' being one of my own language 'niggles') strive for technical accuracy, while their more linguistically liberal counterparts might argue that nobody is confused by the supposedly inaccurate "10 items or less" so why bother about it? All good fuel for the language debates furnace.

Just hanging around

While trawling through today's news pages for interesting material for the blog, this editorial article jumped out at me. Now, if the sentence that I've just typed fills you with horror because of its sheer grammatical ineptitude, then you will probably be in agreement with David Mackie's views on the hanging participle (AKA the dangling participle). And if you didn't see anything wrong with my first sentence then it would be worth your reading Mackie's article to find out what it is about this construction - and others like it - that many people find so abhorrent.

The problem (as far as the strictest rules of grammar are concerned) is as follows: the first clause's present participle verb form 'trawling' appears in that clause without an agent (the 'do-er' of the verb), so it is assumed (again, by the strictest rules of grammar) that the agent of the verb in the second clause (the 'editorial article' that 'jumped') is also the agent of the particple verb in the first clause - there being no other agent mentioned (in this example, at least). The 'while' in the first clause supports this, implying as it does that one action ('to trawl') takes place alongside another action ('to jump'). Now, because these two verbs actually have different agents ('me' and the 'editorial article' respectively), the construction is, strictly speaking, ungrammatical. With me so far?

Now, those of you that are still awake and still reading at this point in the argument might well be thinking 'What does it matter? It's obvious from the context that it wasn't the 'editorial article' that was doing the 'trawling' - and not just because it is an inanimate object'. That might be what some of you are thinking... others of you might be thinking 'Shut up Jones, I'm bored now - and anyway, haven't you got anything better to be doing during your summer holidays than sitting at your computer writing dreary blog entries about grammar?'. Well, in the interest of preserving self-esteem I won't address the latter of these hypothetical comments (and no, it's not because the answer is 'no'), but in answer to the first comment I would say that I agree... to an extent. Certainly editorial articles don't do much at all in the way of physical action (although by means of personification we have seen them 'jumping out', but we'll leave that to one side for now), but what if the agent of the second verb had been a person - for example 'While trawling through today's news pages for interesting material for the blog, the missus brought me a cup of tea'. Now it's not clear who was doing the trawling - me or my long-suffering other half. See the confusion... and the source of the prescriptivists' consternation?

Grammatical pedantry or reasonable cause for linguistic outrage? Admittedly this is a debate with a very narrow focus, but it's the kind of thing that comes up all the time when considering language attitudes, as we will be in unit ENA5. It's up to you to decide where you stand.

Early signs of language

It is a widely-made observation among language acquisition specialists that babies who are deaf and/or whose parents are deaf frequently sign their first word at a much earlier age than hearing children speak theirs. The average age at which hearing children say their first word is about 12 months, whilst deaf children have been known to make their first meaningful sign as young as 3 months old. According to this article published in today's Sun newspaper that 'record' has now been broken by a two-month-old baby who reportedly makes the sign for 'milk' when she is hungry.

It is not entirely clear why deaf babies generally sign earlier than hearing babies speak, but for my money one of the most plausible arguments centres on issues to do with basic articulation: as a baby having to learn how to control the various parts of your own body, it is arguably far easier to co-ordinate your hands and make meaningful signs than it is to position all of the 'precision apparatus' that makes up your vocal tract (tongue, teeth, lips etc.) and make accurate, meaningful speech sounds.

You say tomato...

In her editorial column in today's Guardian Siobhan Butterworth brings a well-worn language debate out for another airing. The debate focuses on the use (or rather misuse) of the phrases "bored of" and "disinterested in", among others. Butterworth gives a clear explanation of the 'correct' (as prescriptivists would have it) uses of these phrases and of the debates surrounding their misuse, but ultimately makes her own - more descriptivist - views plain by observing that "at some point we have to let go and accept modern usage or risk sounding clumsy, or worse, pompous".

Arguments like these about changes in what is considered to be 'standard' usage are the stuff of which Language Debates (ENA6) and the Language Change element of ENA5 are made, so it's worth considering your own views on these issues.

Shows potential but lacks the necessary application...

I found this article rather amusing - it's about the language of school reports and how it has changed over the course of the last few hundred years. Charlotte Moore, the writer of the article published in yesterday's Guardian, clearly has her tongue planted firmly in her cheek when she discusses the differences between the language of her 10-year-old son's 21st century report and that of the school reports of the likes of Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Stephen Fry (actually Stephen Fry hasn't been given a knighthood, but surely it can only be a matter of time...?).

Putting the article's humorous approach to one side for a moment, though, it does make some important points about language and representation, and about changes in language that can probably be attributed to the PC movement. For 'relaxed', suggests Moore, read 'bone idle', while if your teacher describes your behaviour as 'challenging' it is highly likely that you are considered to be something of a pain in the proverbial. Moore argues that these kinds of linguistic changes have arisen out of schools' fears of litigation, but it's debatable whether such changes in language really change the way people interpret the message. Determinists would, of course, say that they do, while their reflectionist friends would argue that the changes in language are symptomatic of changes in the way in which educationalists think.

Have a look at the article and decide for yourself. You might also want to have a look at some of your own recent school or college reports and have a go at interpreting the language along the lines suggested in the article!

Time to call time on "chav"?

Smells like another language debate is in the air. In an article published in yesterday's Guardian Tom Hampson calls for the word 'chav' to be banned. His argument is that this word is "offensive to a largely voiceless group and – especially when used in normal middle-class conversation or on national TV – it betrays a deep and revealing level of class hatred". He goes on to say that "the common use of the word chav creates a sense that this type of discrimination and stereotyping is acceptable and legitimate", arguing that in fact the word is no less offensive than any number of racist or otherwise bigoted terms that most of us, thankfully, would never even dream of using. Hampson's plea is that we should "not replace the racist or bigoted language of the past with a new set of words that are just as hateful", and that we should, in fact, ban the word 'chav' altogether.

But not everyone agrees with this solution to the problem. In a response to Hampson's article publshed in today's Guardian Unlimited, Zoe Williams argues that banning words like 'chav' is pointless, because this does not address the real issue - i.e. the inherent snobbery amd prejudice that the word reflects. In an attack on the methods adopted by the PC movement in the 1980s and 1990s, Williams says that "the old strategies of striding around, banning bad words, did their job, but have had their day". Expressing what amounts to a reflectionist viewpoint (remember this from Language and Representation?), Zoe Williams is arguing that language reflects our views rather than shaping them (as a determinist would argue), and that the problem is not really the word itself (although she does agree that it's not a very nice word) but the bigoted attitudes of the people who use it.

Why not have your say? Post a comment below, or start a new thread in the VLE discussion forum.

Is modern language a load of hyperbolics?

Someone recently said that modern society has turned into one giant marketing campaign.
OK, nobody has actually said that, but if they had said it then it's almost certain that what they'd have meant by this is precisely what journalist Finton O'Toole argues in today's edition of The Irish Times. In his opinion piece, which you can read here, O'Toole claims that hyperbole is "rampant" in our modern language. Using a rather topical metaphor he refers to this as "the inflation of language, the hyping-up of the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into the epic".

What O'Toole is saying is that we seem to no longer talk about everyday things in neutral terms, but instead we feel the need to 'big everything up'. No longer do we talk about sporting fixtures... instead we see 'epic battles' of 'heroic proportions' between 'the legendary X' and the 'almighty power that is Y'. Whilst the kind of examples that I've just given are really quite harmless, O'Toole does make a point about some arguably (albeit unintentionally) more offensive uses of hyperbole. And although he concludes his argument with the deliberately ironic hyperbolic observation that the use of such language is "horrific, cataclysmic, disastrous and apocalyptic", O'Toole's real - and very serious - conclusion is that "this relentless hyperbole is corrosive". It seems to me that the logic of his argument cannot be contested: if we use all our superlatives up on everyday matters, there won't be any left to use when talking about those events that are truly 'awesome' or public figures who really are 'iconic'.

Far be it from me to try to influence your views, but I have to say that I don't entirely disagree with O'Toole's argument (thought I'd redress the balance with a bit of litotes there...).

What do you think?

Siarad Cymraeg...?

There's a bit of a language debate going on in the pages of the WalesOnline website this week. It's all about the proposals to expand the provision of Welsh-medium education in Cardiff, as reported here earlier this week.

In 2003 the Welsh Assembly Government published its National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales, but only recently has a coherent strategy for Welsh-medium education been established. This has resulted in an increase in the number of schools teaching primarily (or, in some cases, solely) through the medium of Welsh.

The strategy has polarised the opinions of people living in Wales. In an opinion piece published in the South Wales Echo yesterday, Dan O'Neill speaks out against the "language loonies" and argues that the average citizen of Cardiff is "being bulldozed and bullied into a culture no-one here cares much a damn about". Mr O'Neill's view is that speaking Welsh is of little real benefit to anyone, and he argues that "our schools should be used for all-round education, they should be preparing kids for a tough life... they should not be pandering to a Welsh-speaking elite".

Today's South Wales Echo features a response to Mr O'Neill's opinion piece, written by Meirion Prys Jones, chief executive of the Welsh Language Board. Mr Prys Jones argues that there are "many advantages to being able to speak two (or more) languages... children are able to enjoy two (or more) cultures, and are able to mix and communicate with a wider variety of people". He also points out that "the fact that parents continue to campaign for more Welsh-medium and bilingual provision proves how successful the education is in these schools", citing studies that "show that children who study through the medium of Welsh do just as well, if not better, at school".

Interesting debate... and the stuff of which ENA6 is made! Watch the pages of WalesOnline over the next few days - you can bet there'll be more people pitching in with their own views on the matter.

Is 'fashion' undergoing new trends or going down the maxi?

Maybe it's because the fashions are going around a time loop and keep coming back (-and I should know because I was wearing maxi dresses back in....ah no, that would be giving it away!) that fashion writers are finding new fashions in language instead. Lisa Armstrong clearly had a good time writing her article for the Times today - check it out here. Spot the uses of the word 'fashion' and the 'on trend' use of fashion terms - what do you think? Is she being creative and genuinely using 'fashion' in new ways or is she recycling? Mind you is the latter a good thing too? After all green is the new black!

Storm Brews over Translation Proposals

They say there's no accounting for taste, and this is never more true than when talking about views on language use. Ask ten people to identify what they consider to be the most heinous 'language crime' and you'll probably get ten different answers. Different people's attitudes towards language use are as varied as their tastes in music or their favourite colour... and just as hard to account for.

Take, for example, the polarised reactions to plans to translate the Bible into Patois, the unofficial language of Jamaica. As reported in this article that appeared in last week's Telegraph, there are those who welcome the proposals, arguing that Patois is a "powerful tool of communication" among the vast majority of Jamacians and that there is "nothing wrong with translating the Bible into someone's native tongue". Those who oppose the plans, however, claim that "errors could be made, and essentially what is translated is not necessarily reflecting the true meaning of the Scriptures".

At the heart of this controversy lies a very common language debate. Many people are of the opinion that there are certain places in which standard English should be preserved - and, along with law, medicine and the world of education, the Bible is one such place. It's important to bear in mind that Patois is an unofficial language (English being the official language of Jamaica) and, as the article tells us, "only recently have the middle and upper classes been speaking it in public". So it would seem that this debate boils down to the age-old battle between prescriptivists and descriptivists, a fight between those who wish to preserve the standard form of language in formal contexts such as the Bible and those who see language variation as inevitable, desirable and part and parcel of everyday life.

So what do you think? Should texts like the Bible be translated into non-standard linguistic varieties? Should we do the same with, say, Shakespeare, or legal documents, or school and college text books? I'd be interested to hear your views... please feel free to express them in whatever linguistic variety you prefer.

Who wants to be a Millionaire?

Apparently the English language does... and according to the Global Language Monitor it will achieve its ambition on 29th April 2009, for that is when this group of "linguistic experts" predict that the one-millionth word will be coined in our language.

This article in today's edition of the Scotsman tells us that at the last count there were 995,844 words in the English language and that the GLM have calculated that "a new word is created every 98 minutes". Now, leaving aside for the moment the obvious question 'How exactly have they calculated this?' (and, if you want to be cynical, 'Why?'), the GLM's observations do raise some interesting points if we think back to the subject of last week's Custard Creams and Muffin Tops post. You'll remember that this post looked at the list of new words that had been added to the latest edition of the Concise OED, noting that "it's always interesting to see which words the dictionary makers deem worthy of an entry in their latest edition". Bearing in mind that this new edition of the Concise OED updates the edition published two years previously, using the GLM's figure of one new word every 98 minutes, a grand total of 10,726 (and a half) new words will have entered our language in the time between the publication of these two editions (and yes, I really did spend my time working that out...). Surely this begs the question why only a handful of these new words have made it into the dictionary?

Perhaps this points to the transience of many of the new words and phrases that enter our language, and/or to the fact that the use of many coinages is restricted to relatively small groups and specific contexts. Some of the comments that have been posted in response to the Scotsman article have some interesting things to say about this.

Custard Creams and Muffin Tops

Where can you see slebs, neets and non doms all in the same place? The new edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, that's where.

It's always interesting to see which words the dictionary makers deem worthy of an entry in their latest edition. Of the vast array of slang terms and coinages that burst onto the English language scene in any given year, those that are chosen for a place in print offer a fascinating insight into the issues, fads and fashions that are currently of the greatest significance in society. Whether the accolade of appearing in the dictionary points to - or even encourages - the longevity of a given term is another matter though; while I feel safe predicting that custard creams are here to stay, I can't imagine that muffin tops as a linguistic term will last much beyond the fashion that gives rise to this physical attribute.

Yesterday's Daily Telegraph published the full list of new words added to the 11th ediiton of the Concise OED. Have a look and let us know which other current words and phrases you think should be added to the dictionary.

On the other hand...

In yesterday's Relatively Speaking post I talked about some research that seemed to offer evidence in support of the theory of linguistic relativity. As part of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, this theory makes the assumption that language and thought are inextricably linked and that one cannot exist (in the form that we know it) without the other. The evidence from the study pointed towards the conclusion that language and thought cannot be separated.

Simple enough? Apparently not. An article appearing yesterday on the Wired Science blog network reports on the findings of a recent language study carried out by psychologist Susan Goldwin-Meadow. The study focuses on the translation of simple sentences into hand gestures and observes that speakers of SVO language (those whose sentences follow the order of subject-verb-object - e.g. Bill eats cake) almost universally switch the order to subject-object-verb when communicating with their hands only. So in the example I've just given, someone communicating by gesture would probably point at Bill, then point at cake, then mimic the action of eating. Goldwin-Meadow claims that this suggests "the independence of language from thought". What she's saying is that the structure of language cannot be an immediate product of our thought processes because our gestures almost always fall back on a different structure. This, of course, completely contradicts the conclusions of the study I was discussing in yesterday's blog - but it does support some of the key theories of language acquisition that we're going to be exploring for Unit 6 (ENA6) of the A2 course and in Unit 1 (ENGA1) of the new AS level course. Have a look at the article and see what you think.

Welcome to AS English Language!

A very warm welcome to all our new AS English Language students!

We hope you've found Introduction Day useful and that you've had a chance to get a feel for what AS English Language is going to be like. Obviously with only 25 minutes to talk to you about English Language we've barely been able to scratch the surface of the course, but we'd like to think that we've given you a flavour of the range of fascinating areas of investigation and analysis in which you'll be engaging when you begin studying AS English Language in September.

If you'd like to find out more about some of the issues on which you'll be focusing in the course, then make sure you log on to this blog over the summer holidays, as we'll be updating it whenever we come across anything that we think our students will find interesting and useful for your studies.

As we mentioned at Introduction Day, you will also find it very useful to buy or borrow a copy of Language: the Basics by Larry Trask and dip into some of the recommended chapters before you start the course in September. This book is available at the click of a mouse from Amazon or play.com. You'll find chapters 1, 2, 3 6, 7 and 8 the most useful. You might also find English Language Revision Express helpful as an indication of the key areas of study on the AS English Language course (again available from Amazon or play.com). This revision guide makes it very clear which topics are relevant for which exam board (we do AQA Specification A at Strode's - click here if you want to have a look at the detailed specification).

The other thing you can be doing to prepare yourself for the course is to READ anything and everything. Whilst there are no set texts for this course (as there are with AS English Literature and AS English Language and Literature), we will be studying a wide range of short texts covering a multitude of genres with a view to identifying linguistic patterns within them, so you can give yourself a headstart now by immersing yourself in a variety of texts. As a student of English Language you will need to become familiar with a range of linguistic styles, so get reading everything from newspapers (both broadsheet and tabloid) to magazines to websites to horoscopes to adverts to the back of Cornflakes packets etc etc. All types of language are fair game on this course!

Finally, if you have any questions about the course, then please do contact either Jason Jones at jjones@strodes.ac.uk or Nicky Whillans at nwhillans@strodes.ac.uk.

Have a great summer, and we look forward to seeing you in September!

Relatively Speaking

A number of interesting articles appeared in the world media last week about some of the consequences of being bilingual. Whilst the study of second language acquisition and use is not part of your AS/A2 course, the issue of language and representation is, and as you know, one of the key theories that helps us to think about the relationship between language and thought is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

If you remember, there are two strands to Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf's thinking: the theory of linguistic determinism suggests that language determines thought, while the theory of linguistic relativity proposes that if language determines thought, then different languages determine thought in different ways. You might recall that Ed 'n' Ben (as I like to think their respective mothers would have called them) cited the Hopi language as an illustration of their theory: Hopi lacks tense constructions, and so Sapir and Whorf argued that Hopi speakers conceived of the notion of time in very different ways from speakers of European languages.

Many linguists have since discredited the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, but this article would seem to offer compelling evidence in support of the theory of linguistic relativity. The article reports on a recent study of bilingual speakers, the results of which suggest that fluent speakers of more than one language have different personalities depending on the language they are using. The academics who carried out the study say that

language can be a cue that activates different culture-specific frames,

which is pretty much the point that Sapir and Whorf were making all those years ago. Interesting stuff...

Yoof slang sucks. End of.

This week's copy of the Huddersfield Daily Examiner (everyone's No.1 local paper) features a letter from a rather disgruntled Mr Dennis R Fisher, who makes some heart-felt observations on the 'state' of modern youth slang.

On the one hand Mr Fisher acknowledges that "language naturally changes and evolves over time", but at the same time he observes that "we are now beginning to sound like a nation of infantile losers and potato heads". At the heart of Mr Fisher's argument, it seems, is his view that the English language is being 'eroded' by a generation of speakers whose desire to be just like their favourite celebreties extends to mimicking their linguistic behaviour.

Have a look at the letter and let us know your views - is the English language being damaged beyond repair, or is this just another stage in its natural evolution? If you have something you'd like to say about this topic, why not post a thread on the VLE discussion forum?

Welcome to the new AS/A2 English Language Blog!!

Greetings English Language students, and welcome to the very first posting on this brand new English Language Blog. The idea of the blog is that we will post up current news articles, websites and other resources that focus on aspects of English Language and that will support your learning.

The blog will be updated on a regular basis, so please do log in as frequently as possible. Similarly, if you happen to come across an interesting language-related resource/website/news item somewhere and you think other students would benefit from accessing it, then please email me the details at jjones@strodes.ac.uk and I'll post it up.

Remember, the wider your knowledge of English Language issues, the better you are likely to do in your exams and coursework. Whilst it would be unscientific and a tad immoral to assert that there will be a direct correlation between the number of times you log into this blog and the grades you ultimately achieve in your English Language course, you'll definitely learn a lot by accessing the links we post up. So go on... get blogging!