Abby Buckingham's English Language Blog

"3 Reasons You Wouldn’t Believe My Ex Abused Me – And Why They All Mean You Should" https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/08/why-you-wouldnt-believe-i-was-abused/ This is a powerful, emotional article written from the perspective of a woman who suffered abuse at the hands of a romantic partner and how she feels no one understands her because she doesn’t conform to the ‘typical’ symptoms of abuse that society pushes onto us. Abuse is often painted as a black and white thing that is always in plain sight, however this article aims to inform and educate readers on how this is not the case and how people refuse to accept that. Unless someone has a black eye then people don’t believe they are being abused and therefore don’t believe them on what abuse actually looks like under the bruises on the surface, this means the abused isn't listened to and no one believes other victims who come forward with similar stories. This is a cycle the writer intends to end.

Homophobia In 2018 | Time For Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anD9ZrMJT8k "I should be holding a hand but I'm holding shame instead." This is a poem about the public's reaction to two men holding hands in a park and how they have to debate with each other whether a goodbye kiss is worth the ridicule that they will experience if anyone sees it. It is read out in a video by a gay male noticing everyone that is staring at him and his partner. The partner is intentionally not focused on or kept off of camera at first to represent how when the males are too busy being aware of everyone else, their eyes are drawn away from each other which is not how it should be when you're together. This piece is simultaneously powerful and informative and offers an alternative view to homophobia when it states that it is 'Time for Love".

Discuss the idea that men and women use language differently Answer 1: The idea that men and women use language differently is a very controversial and ever-growing topic. Many linguist experts – for example the women who came up with the three Ds model (dominance, deficit, difference) – have launched studies into language and gender in an attempt to try and find out if women and men really do speak differently and whether that is due to society or biology. However, all the results are different suggesting that the answer to whether men and women use language differently is not definitive. Table 1 is a table that shows how many times men and women speak and interrupt during a meeting. It shows that, in this particular meeting, the women spoke less than the men did and for less time. The man who spoke the least (Man E – 11.3 turns) still spoke more than three of the women did (women A, B and C). This suggests that women don’t speak as much as men do. Robin Lakoff’s deficit mode...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09yddxh Points: Rise of the internet has led to a huge increase in political discussion - social media campaigns can swing elections and increase partisan dealignment Inclusive use of 'we' in papers- sometimes this is 'we the newspaper' and sometimes it is 'we the people' - both can obscure individuality, either for the public or for the writers Passive 'it is said that' or 'people say that' - a device that never states who is actually saying that but makes people believe that it is a popular opinion Imperatives and dropping of auxiliaries - leaves no room for doubt Two types of truth - sincerity and accuracy - sincerity is now valued more - 'we feel passionate about it' encourages people to share n the passion and does not necessarily include accuracy Donald Trump - use of emotion makes people listen - 'So take America' is not necessarily grammatically correct but is sincere Language re...

Articles Relevant to young people today that AQA might choose: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/09/investing-jobs-women-gender-pay-gap - The gender pay gap isn't the half of it: our economy runs on women's unpaid work Sandi Toksvig Mon 9 Apr 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/09/young-people-cheated-skills-jobs-brexit-education  - Young people are being cheated of the skills needed to get good jobs Polly Toynbee Mon 9 Apr 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/10/simpsons-apu-stereotype-racism-south-asian-fans  - Defending the Apu stereotype again? Maybe The Simpsons has run its course Shuja Haider Tue 10 Apr 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/09/about-the-boys-tim-winton-on-how-toxic-masculinity-is-shackling-men-to-misogyny  - About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny Tim Winton Mon 9 Apr 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/10...

Is English Language Changing and does Misusing it Make you a Lesser person? Another way of looking at differences between Standard English and other forms of English as that they are evidence of change https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/english-changing http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/changing-voices/ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/commonly-confused-words https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/10/03/continuous-tenses/ https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-mispronunciations-that-make-you-sound-stupid/ stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/language-correctness-corruption-and-doom/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th-fronting

Accent and Dialect revision sheet You must:   (in no particular order!) 1.     Learn the research/theories, and remember that how they connect and contrast in relation to the question should be the focus of your answer.   Have examples, quotes, statistics and know if the research was reliable. 2.               Briefly the theories are as follows: Cheshire (Reading Study) – she found that boys use more non-standard English than girls as a result of group pressure. Also it depended which social group children belonged to. Labov (Martha’s Vineyard Study) – locals strengthened their dialect (to emulate local fishermen) in order to differentiate themselves from tourists (covert prestige). Labov (Fourth Floor Study) – the pronunciation of /r/ (the rhotic r) is associated with higher status in USA. Giles (Capital Punishment study) and/or ComRes survey – rur...