Writing about a topical language issue Technology Friday

Writing about a topical language issue. Technology Friday 22 January 2021

Exam Specification • Section B of your Component 01 Exam: Exploring Language • 2 hr 30 mins exam • Focuses on an issue or concept related to language in use. You are expected to: • Present and explore your ideas and attitudes towards language issues through short pieces of original writing • Engage with a range of topical language issues • Critically explore a range of language issues, evaluating and responding to the underlying attitudes towards language and language users • Shape your writing to match the genre, mode and context specified.

Exam Specification • You will be given a statement and then asked to write a written response for a particular audience, purpose and context. ‘Modern Technology is destroying the English Language. ’ • Write a short talk to be delivered to a non-specialist, reasonably well-educated audience, which critically engages with the statement and persuades the audience of a particular point of view.

Starter • Write a list of the type of technologies you use to communicate in a typical week. Consider: • Whether you use different technologies for different purposes and audiences. • The affordances and constraints of these technologies. • The ways in which you adapt your language choices dependent on the technology…. . For example, do you change your spelling and grammar when sending text messages?

Starter Ystrdy I went 2 th shops cuz I wz hungry lol Hi m 8, wuu 2? Nuffin, wbu? Bz, brb K

Research on Technology • Later in the lesson, you will be writing a speech about how advances in technology could be dangerous. • Read the article. • Discussion focus: q New technology/potential future technologies. q How it may negatively impact the world (language/intelligence/individuality/control/etc. ) q Try to focus on one or two ideas; you will only have about 500 words (must be engaging)

Language and Technology • The role of technology on the production, reproduction, exchange and consumption of texts in the 20 th and 21 st centuries has provided greater language choices in some situations alongside limited expression in others. • The speed of technological development has affected lexis, grammar, orthography (spelling conventions) and phonology. • David Crystal, a renowned linguist, states that the internet is the largest collection of English vocabulary that has ever existed. • New words or neologisms traditionally take up to 10 years to become embedded into the language but today, a new word can be introduced and embedded within a few days.

Telephone Conversations • Although the telephone predates digital technology, the discourse structure of the telephone still influences the way we communicate in digital form. • Schlegoff (1986) presented a pattern for the opening and closing of telephone conversations: q. Summons/answer q. Identification q. Greetings sequence and initiating communication q‘How are you’ sequences with phatic talk to consolidate connections. q. Pre-closing and closing: metatalk that focuses on the act of talking such as ‘enough talk for now’ and phatic talk such as ‘it’s been so good to catch up’ and discourser markers such as ‘well’, ‘anyway’.

Schlegoff (1986) • Schlegoff argued that although the discourse structure might appear ordered, it was often a creative collaboration between speakers shaped by the context of the call. • Erving Goffman (1984), however, suggested that an interaction order was evident in every point of discourse such as telephone openings. • Sacks, Schlegoff and Jefferson (1974) identified rules within conversational discourse that apply at each transition relevance place (TRP) or the next turn-taking point. • Without paralinguistic signals, turn-taking is triggered through intonation, questions, hesitations, interruptions, overlapping and discourse markers such as back channelling. • Grice’s Maxims of quantity, quality, relevance/relation and manner are important for a successful discourse.

Task • Read the text, a transcript of a telephone conversation between two female friends. • Annotate the transcript using Schlegoff’s framework of analysis, as well as your previous understanding of linguistic features. • You can also consider your knowledge of language and gender.

Technology’s Evil Influence • You need to get used to taking a partisan approach (strong stance or view) to the topics we will be discussing which is both considered and engaging. • You should consider unusual or interesting angles from which to approach a topic. • Spend 5 minutes jotting down your ideas on the point above (title). • Share.

Royal Association of Doom-Mongers • You should now prepare to give a speech to the above convention regarding technology. • In your speech, you will lay out a nightmare scenario caused by technology. • This should be rhetorically powerful but should also be humorous given the invented audience.

Exam Style Question • ‘Technology is ruining the language’. • Write a short editorial article for a broadsheet newspaper, which critically engages with the statement and persuades the audience of a particular point of view.

Homework • How has technology’s influence on music altered our language? • Research the above title • Find songs/words/phrases that have influenced society