Well there's me saying that my daughter and grandson need their heads screwed on, when I do too!! It wasn't Ryan who left all that prescriptivist stuff here but my daughter, Kim! A senior moment, I think that's what the PC brigade call it. I personally don't mind the term, it's a bit of a laugh really, but Mary hates it, says we need to stand up for ourselves. Not sure I can be bothered, I'll admit I don't like being patronised, but where do you draw the line? It was Ryan who was talking about representation in the media, I think Kim did something similar last year. Coronation Street had a wonderful character, Blanche she was called, not afraid to speak her mind, but put her great-grandson in front of her and the battle-axe disappeared, shame the actress died, I liked Blanche. We don't see enough people of my age group on tv and when we do they are all battleaxes or Victor Meldrew types harping on about 'how they (the young) have never had it so good', bah, it's cobblers. Frost was good, but I like dectective programmes I like to try and guess who did it, keeps my mind working I suppose and we are constantly being told that by the doctors and our children.
It was in the paper a while ago that there are more people over the age of 60 in this country than under the age of 16, yet it is the kids who get the attention of the press and the government. More youth centres to keep them off the streets and more education, well what about us? Closing village halls and social groups because there is not enough funding. You don't see older people on street corners at night drinking and swearing though do you? Perhaps we should, perhaps we need to behave more anti-socially to get the attention we deserve, but I suppose they would just cart us off to the old folks home and leave us to dribble into our Horlicks. It's not right, just because I am getting on a bit doesn't mean I want to do less. I have a good circle of friends and I use a mobile phone, do my Tesco's shopping online, oh yes I am a silver surfer. Ryan wants me to join Facebook. I told him that I am a bit past all that, but I use MSN or Skype to chat with relatives in Australia and Canada, and why not it is free after all, and I am all for value for money. Thinking about it Mary is right I should stand up for myself, just because I am older doesn't mean I have lost the ability to voice my opinion.
Kim goes a bit to far though, she is all for equality and anti-racism, wrote stuff praising Islam last year, why would she want to do such a thing? Well I asked her and actually maybe she had a point, but I don't trust women wearing those burkha things, it's not right in our country, they came here and should abide by our laws. Kim said we can't think like that anymore. Globalisation she says, people move around the world more. If my Jack was here he would tell them to 'bugger off back to where they came from' and tell Kim that she was talking rubbish, but I can see her point of view. Everyone has the right to live how they choose I suppose. Can't think all Muslims are bombers and terrorists any more than all teenagers are drug-taking binge-drinking no hopers. Both Kim and Ryan say that the media gives us stereotypes and because that is what we are told most of us think it is true. I know the Daily Mail is a bit harsh on certain groups so I think that my family might be right. We all need to be a bit more open-minded and a bit less judgemental, well that's my opinion. It's the same with Ryan, a lovely boy, but he scared Betty out of her wits, he dresses as a Goth, I think that's right, dyes his hair has all these piercings, even his tongue, frightened the life out of her. He must look intimidating I guess to people who don't know him, but like I say he's a lovely boy really.
Along with the prescriptivist stuff I found a book 'The Myth of Mars and Venus' by Deborah Cameron, that was an interesting read to say the least. Apparently there are linguists, I'm getting good with these terms now, that think men and women use different languages. Nonsense, I read the book just out of curiosity, didn't understand some of it, but I have to agree with Deborah Cameron that this Mars and Venus stuff is just a load of tosh! Women talk more than men, ha, they should come down the Bingo on Thursday nights, then they would see who talks more! Yes men and women are different, that is staringly obvious, as I found out on my wedding night, but that we speak differently, no I don't accept that. Never had any problems 'communicating' with Jack, he probably thought I nagged a bit, but he would walk mud all over the kitchen right after I'd mopped the floor. One of these researchers said we should think of men and women as 'different but equal', hmm I'd agree with that, but not in everything. As Deborah Cameron states "difference of class, race, ethnicity and culture make a difference to what is seen as 'normal' behaviour for women or men" she is right. I would not expect to see some upper class woman working as a cleaner, or someone like me working in the city, there are these expectations that everyone is used to, it's like stereotypes I suppose, we feel more comfortable putting people into boxes to deal with them, rather than seeing them as a person in their own right. Blimey, it's all rubbing off on me this stuff, my opinions might be changing a bit, perhaps what I really need is some clarity.
Kim says determinism does that, it's part of political correctness. Apparently determinism is the idea that you can change how people think by changing how they talk. That's why we say 'a person of colour' now and not just black or brown. 'Wop', 'wog' and 'paki', my Jack would have said, looking back I suppose he was quite racist, but that was just his way. You can get into trouble for saying things like that these days. Doesn't stop that Gordon Ramsay though, perhaps the PC crowd should have a word with him about the language he uses. 'F-Word' is right, I can't watch it, and I don't really think much of him as a chef, I prefer that lovely Rick Stien. There is reflectionism too, it is kind of the opposite to determinism. Reflectionists say that the way that you speak is just a relfection of how you think, so I suppose my Jack was a reflectionist, think he might have been proud of that, he always said you should call a spade a spade. These terms were thought up by Sapir and Whorf, they did a study on it, might look it up on the web later. Right now though I need to go and peel some spuds, oh no maybe that is politically incorrect, so I had better go and de-robe the potatoes, after all they do wear jackets.
Wednesday 22 December 2010
Tuesday 21 December 2010
(Monologue) Meet Kit - talking 'Dorian Gray' and prescriptivism
My youngest daughter and my oldest grandson both need their heads screwed on tighter. The pair of them keep leaving their books here. I am starting to think that they are doing it on purpose now, but I did give myself away a bit. They both know that I tend to read some of the stuff they leave and often ask me what I think, actually it is quite nice to be asked my opinion. I don't always understand it, but it is sometimes better than what is on the telly, all 'reality' shows and as for that Simon Cowell, well really, I think there must be a picture of him somewhere under the reference 'God complex'. My daughter is studying English, she is doing her second year of A-levels for language and literature and doing well, I had never thought of her as much of an academic but she is doing OK. Ryan, my grandson, is in his first year for A-levels, quite an arty lad and is also doing literature but is doing film and media studies too, which sounds like bit of an easy option to me.
Kim left her copy of 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' the other day, it's by Oscar Wilde. Never thought much of him, he was homosexual, oh no that's not right, I have to say 'gay' now, don't get me started on that political correctness rubbish. Anyway I wasn't sure about reading it, Kim says she is using it for her coursework, and I just thought I would read the first few pages. Well it would be easier to read if she hadn't scribbled all over it, annotations she calls them, her father would have been furious. He hated it if anyone so much as turned down the corner of a page. I did like one line she highlighted, in a hideous yellow; 'The portrait would be the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul' I rather liked that, very poetic and it sums up the story quite well, I could hardly put it down, and the ending was quite sad really, but I did enjoy it.
I found out something about the English language I never knew before, it is called prescriptivism. Apparently there are these linguists who want to protect English from changing. Seemed a lot of twaddle to me. It stemmed from Ryan leaving an article written by John Humphrys, yes him on the telly, he hosts Mastermind now, but he is no Magnus Magnusson. Well in this article he said that texting is destroying our language, he reckoned it is 'pillaging our punctuation, savaging our sentences and raping our vocabulary', personally I think that is a bit strong, but I do think it is not doing our language any good. Young Ryan always has his phone in his hand, forever texting or using that Facebook, and I think his English is quite poor, but not because of texting, but because the government has made a mess of our education system. Reading, writing and arithmetic, that is what I was taught, but it's all that literacy and numeracy skills now. Yes they need some history and geography and the sciences are important, plus these days a foreign language is useful too, so why are they teaching them the economics of Outer Mongolia when most youngsters cannot even spell 'necessary'.
Anyway, these prescriptivists reckon that our language is being damaged by all these changes, so I decided to do a bit more reading, another article of Ryan's. There's this one woman, Jean Aitchison, who says that there are metaphors used to describe language changes. One was the 'damp spoon', that made me chuckle, I mean really, putting a damp spoon in a sugar bowl is very sloppy and that is what she said the prescriptivists think too, that sloppiness and laziness create negative changes in the language. The second one was the 'infectious disease' where we pick up bits and pieces from other languages or cultures and it 'infects' our language, and changes it. That's a bit much, just think about those words we use that are part of our language that are clearly not English, we couldn't have 'deja vu', I suppose that might now be a flashback or is it a flashforward? What about restaurants, no more 'al a carte menus'. I saw a bit in one of the books I was reading about this chap, Richard Vestegan, who wrote in 1606 that if we returned all the foreign words in our language English would be; 'left little better than dumb or scarcely able to speak anything that should be sensible' he was right and perhaps John Humphrys should take that into consideration before he is left up the watery landmark without a twig to navigate. (Up the creek without a paddle)
The last metaphor was the 'crumbling castle' which suggested that at sometime in the past English had been perfect. I might not know that much about the history of the language, but I do know my history, we had Romans, Celts, Vikings and then the Normans all invading the country, they made changes to the language, how else would everyone have communicated? This castle idea is such rubbish, and the older grammarians in the 1700's suggested that English grammar should be like that of Latin. How could they have used a dead language, no-one speaks Latin now or even back then, how could we add new words and phrases to it if English was like Latin. New technology has created all these new words, what would we have 'phoneii mobilus' instead of mobile phone? That idea is just daft to me. Ryan says that my opinions don't make me a descriptivist though, which is someone who embraces language changes. I do agree that all this texting does lead to poor spelling, and those acronym thingys, you know that 'lol' don't help much. There is another linguist, David Crystal, who says that you have to know what goes in the word to leave out the letters, he thinks that the kids can spell when necessary and it is just a kind of slang they use with their friends. Well I might be in my seventies, but I do have a mobile phone, I do not miss out letters, or over use punctuation marks, smiley faces indeed, when I send text messages. Though if I think about it I am not sure my friends would understand them anymore than I do. Language change happens everyday, somethings we hear about and some we don't, the arguments can be interesting, but I must admit that occasionally it is all just Greek to me.
Kim left her copy of 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' the other day, it's by Oscar Wilde. Never thought much of him, he was homosexual, oh no that's not right, I have to say 'gay' now, don't get me started on that political correctness rubbish. Anyway I wasn't sure about reading it, Kim says she is using it for her coursework, and I just thought I would read the first few pages. Well it would be easier to read if she hadn't scribbled all over it, annotations she calls them, her father would have been furious. He hated it if anyone so much as turned down the corner of a page. I did like one line she highlighted, in a hideous yellow; 'The portrait would be the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul' I rather liked that, very poetic and it sums up the story quite well, I could hardly put it down, and the ending was quite sad really, but I did enjoy it.
I found out something about the English language I never knew before, it is called prescriptivism. Apparently there are these linguists who want to protect English from changing. Seemed a lot of twaddle to me. It stemmed from Ryan leaving an article written by John Humphrys, yes him on the telly, he hosts Mastermind now, but he is no Magnus Magnusson. Well in this article he said that texting is destroying our language, he reckoned it is 'pillaging our punctuation, savaging our sentences and raping our vocabulary', personally I think that is a bit strong, but I do think it is not doing our language any good. Young Ryan always has his phone in his hand, forever texting or using that Facebook, and I think his English is quite poor, but not because of texting, but because the government has made a mess of our education system. Reading, writing and arithmetic, that is what I was taught, but it's all that literacy and numeracy skills now. Yes they need some history and geography and the sciences are important, plus these days a foreign language is useful too, so why are they teaching them the economics of Outer Mongolia when most youngsters cannot even spell 'necessary'.
Anyway, these prescriptivists reckon that our language is being damaged by all these changes, so I decided to do a bit more reading, another article of Ryan's. There's this one woman, Jean Aitchison, who says that there are metaphors used to describe language changes. One was the 'damp spoon', that made me chuckle, I mean really, putting a damp spoon in a sugar bowl is very sloppy and that is what she said the prescriptivists think too, that sloppiness and laziness create negative changes in the language. The second one was the 'infectious disease' where we pick up bits and pieces from other languages or cultures and it 'infects' our language, and changes it. That's a bit much, just think about those words we use that are part of our language that are clearly not English, we couldn't have 'deja vu', I suppose that might now be a flashback or is it a flashforward? What about restaurants, no more 'al a carte menus'. I saw a bit in one of the books I was reading about this chap, Richard Vestegan, who wrote in 1606 that if we returned all the foreign words in our language English would be; 'left little better than dumb or scarcely able to speak anything that should be sensible' he was right and perhaps John Humphrys should take that into consideration before he is left up the watery landmark without a twig to navigate. (Up the creek without a paddle)
The last metaphor was the 'crumbling castle' which suggested that at sometime in the past English had been perfect. I might not know that much about the history of the language, but I do know my history, we had Romans, Celts, Vikings and then the Normans all invading the country, they made changes to the language, how else would everyone have communicated? This castle idea is such rubbish, and the older grammarians in the 1700's suggested that English grammar should be like that of Latin. How could they have used a dead language, no-one speaks Latin now or even back then, how could we add new words and phrases to it if English was like Latin. New technology has created all these new words, what would we have 'phoneii mobilus' instead of mobile phone? That idea is just daft to me. Ryan says that my opinions don't make me a descriptivist though, which is someone who embraces language changes. I do agree that all this texting does lead to poor spelling, and those acronym thingys, you know that 'lol' don't help much. There is another linguist, David Crystal, who says that you have to know what goes in the word to leave out the letters, he thinks that the kids can spell when necessary and it is just a kind of slang they use with their friends. Well I might be in my seventies, but I do have a mobile phone, I do not miss out letters, or over use punctuation marks, smiley faces indeed, when I send text messages. Though if I think about it I am not sure my friends would understand them anymore than I do. Language change happens everyday, somethings we hear about and some we don't, the arguments can be interesting, but I must admit that occasionally it is all just Greek to me.
English Language @ SFX: The grumbling appendix of prescriptivism
English Language @ SFX: The grumbling appendix of prescriptivism: "'The teaching of English has left most pupils with nothing but a random and often erroneous understanding of the components of language.' So..."
article on prescriptivism care of sfx language blog
article on prescriptivism care of sfx language blog
English Language @ SFX: English, Englishes, Elves and Latin
English Language @ SFX: English, Englishes, Elves and Latin: "There's a good introduction by Michael Rosen to the role of English as a world language in the BBC News magazine this week. He looks at the ..."
BBC news article listed on SFX language blog about the globalisation of English well worth a read!
BBC news article listed on SFX language blog about the globalisation of English well worth a read!
What this blog is for.
I have created this blog to help me with my English Language revision. It will cover, from A-level English Language, topics such as representation, child language aquisition and my own ideas and opinions on gender debates, prescript and descriptivisms and the history of the English language.
To aid me I am also going to write monologues, a task given to me in a recent class and I found it a useful tool and surprisingly easy to write. So let me introduce you to 'Kit', she is in her mid -seventies and based on my two now sadly departed grandmothers. She has a daughter called Kim, based on me and a grandson, Ryan, who is based on one of my fellow students. Both her grandson and daughter are taking A-levels in English Language and Media Studies and keep leaving books at her house, and Kit keeps reading them! Her opinions are not necessarily my own. Kit can be racist, homophobic and down right rude, but she is a character expressing sometimes stereotypical, blinkered views of the world. The opinions expressed by Kit may mirror prescriptivists or be she might be wildly against the idea that Mars and Venus is just a myth.
I will list books I have read where I have researched my points and also websites and other articles I have found useful and insightful while studying English language.
To aid me I am also going to write monologues, a task given to me in a recent class and I found it a useful tool and surprisingly easy to write. So let me introduce you to 'Kit', she is in her mid -seventies and based on my two now sadly departed grandmothers. She has a daughter called Kim, based on me and a grandson, Ryan, who is based on one of my fellow students. Both her grandson and daughter are taking A-levels in English Language and Media Studies and keep leaving books at her house, and Kit keeps reading them! Her opinions are not necessarily my own. Kit can be racist, homophobic and down right rude, but she is a character expressing sometimes stereotypical, blinkered views of the world. The opinions expressed by Kit may mirror prescriptivists or be she might be wildly against the idea that Mars and Venus is just a myth.
I will list books I have read where I have researched my points and also websites and other articles I have found useful and insightful while studying English language.
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