Chapters

Chapter 1: Language?

1.a Use of ‘literally’: Look at the following article. Do you think there is a ‘correct’ way to use ‘literally’? Why? Can the internet ‘break’ a language?; Triska, Zöe (2012) ‘Annoying Words: The Word “Literally” Is Literally Overused’, Huffington Post, 12 March: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoe-triska/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; The following are a few more sites to explore the controversy around ‘literally’:; Inman, Matthew (2014) ‘Literally’, The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally [accessed 17 July 2014]; Skurie, Jaclyn (2013) ‘The Literal Truth About the Word Literally’, National Geographic News, 16 August: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Wolf-Wylie, W. (2013) ‘It’s official: the Internet has broken the English language’: http://o.canada.com/2013/08/12/ [accessed 17 July 2014]

1.b Gossip as a crime: These are the texts referred to in Chapter 1 when discussing whether certain language acts could be a crime. Is there a point where what looks like ‘gossip’ should become a criminal offence? How would you draw this line?; Look closely at Patrakar (2013). Is it easy to tell that it is satirical? Which features of language would you point to in order to argue that it is?; ABC (2012) ‘Fiji Gossip Warning “Dangerous”’, ABC Radio: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/ [accessed 26 September 2013]; Patrakar, Pagal (2013) ‘Government to give licenses for rumor mongering’, Faking News, 9 September: http://www.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2013/09/government-to-give-licenses-for-rumor-mongering/ [accessed 26 September 2013]

1.c English dialects: Use the following written and spoken resources to explore the variety of accents and dialects found in English. What features do you notice? Do any of the varieties strike you as unusual in relation to your own variety?

Written texts and sources

Dictionary of Regional American English: http://dare.wisc.edu/
Macquarie Dictionary of (Australian) English: www.macquariedictionary.com.au/
Singlish Dictionary: http://www.singlishdictionary.com/

Resources with sound files

Survey of English Dialects, British Library: http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/
‘Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK’. Multimedia pages at the British Library: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html
The Speech Accent Archive. English accents from around the world. George Mason University: http://accent.gmu.edu/
A Tour of the Accents of the British Isles, Andrew Jack, 7 April 2014: http://kottke.org/14/04/

YouTube resources

25 Aussie slang words [warning – this film contains some words you may find offensive]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation
Sampling of Indian English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9arM_agKFA

1.d Is it a language?: John McWhorter has authored a set of materials to explore this question. What do you think of these languages? Are they real languages? What about languages developed by linguists for films?; McWhorter, John (2013) ‘Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na’vi real languages?’ [video file], 26 September: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/; Jennifer (2010) ‘Fictional Languages in Film: The Linguists Behind Na’vi, Sindarin, Klingon and Ulam’, Beyond Words, Language Blog, 5 March: http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words [accessed 16 July 2014]

1.e Is it a word?

Anne Curzan outlines what is and what is not a word. She also discusses how dictionaries are constructed and used. She also refers to the American Dialect Society ‘Word of the Year’.

Curzan, Anne (2014) ‘What Makes a Word “real”?’ [video file]: http://www.ted.com/talks/ [accessed 28 June 2014]

American Dialect Society, Words of the Year: http://www.americandialect.org/woty [accessed 28 June 2014]

1.f Sign language: BSL QED. Here you can find information about the structure of British Sign Language and about Deaf culture: http://bslqed.com/ [accessed 30 July 2014]; The BSL Zone. Here you can access a range of films and videos by and about users of British Sign Language: http://www.bslzone.co.uk/watch/ [accessed 30 July 2014]; Deaf Culture, a resource from PBS (Public Service Broadcasting in the USA) providing a good introduction to sign language and Deaf Culture: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/soundandfury/culture [accessed 30 July 2014]; Hand Talk, an online resource about American Indian Sign Language: http://pislresearch.com/ [accessed 30 July 2014]; There is an interesting training video designed for American Police Officers to educate them about interacting appropriately with deaf people. You can watch it here:; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9aNpMRHH2c [accessed 8 December 2014]; This is a short blog post about audism.; Cigarroa Bell, Noelle (2010) ‘What is Bigotry Against Deaf People? Audism’, Deaf Echo: http://www.deafecho.com/2010/12/ [accessed 30 July 2014]; The following gives an excellent account of Sign Language in a particular context, explaining why a young girl is such a successful storyteller.; Okrent, Arikia (2014) Why This Young Girl Is a Masterful Storyteller in Sign Language, Slate 3 January: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/ [accessed 30 July 2014]; The National Science Foundation in the US has produced some useful material about sign language. You can find it here:; National Science Foundation, Special Reports: Sign Language: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/sign.jsp [accessed 30 July 2014]

1.g Correcting language: In Chapter 1, we made a distinction between description and prescription. What kinds of arguments do you find in the following links that relate to this?; Brown, Jessica (2014) ‘Why grammar lessons should be renamed “understanding language”’, The Guardian, Mind Your Language Blog, 11 July: http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2014/jul/11/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Freeman, Hadley (2014) ‘Humanity’s future depends upon good grammar’, The Guardian, Books Blog, 2 May: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/may/02/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Nunn, Gary (2014) ‘Good grammar saves lives – and rescues friendships’ The Guardian, Mind Your Language Blog, 27 June: http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2014/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Peters, Mark (2014) ‘Ammon Shea’s Anti-Peeving Manifesto is Bad News for Bullies’, Visual Thesaurus, 27 June: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dogeared/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Rundell, Michael (2014) ‘What are the Correct Rules of English Grammar?’, British Council Blog, 2 June: http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2014/06/02/what-are-the-correct-rules-of-english-grammar/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Yankovic, ‘Weird Al’ (2014) Word Crimes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/ [accessed 18 July 2014]; Having considered the arguments, look at this YouTube video of the comic persona Ali G and American journalist Andy Rooney. What features does Rooney object to? Why? How does he do this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg-imSRIkYc

1.h Smashing prescriptivism: There is a very creative Twitter personality, the Linguistics Hulk. You can see his tweets on language, linguistics and prescriptivism at @linguisticshulk on Twitter.

1.i Key concepts: This website provides short introductions to several scholars and ideas covered in this book. You might find them useful as a reference tool and as an example of the creative presentation of complex ideas: http://www.theorycards.org.uk/main.htm

Chapter 2: Language, thought and representation

2.a Animal noises: In Chapter 2 we discussed the arbitrariness of the representation of animal noises in various languages. Here you can find a table of animal noises as represented in various languages:; http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/ [accessed 18 June 2014]
2.b Political correctness: A letter writer to the Buffalo News argues that ‘political correctness’ is simply ‘civility’ (http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/), while others understand it as a form of ideological indoctrination that erodes freedom (http://www.delcotimes.com/opinion/20140109/).; Political correctness generates a great deal of debate. Here are some websites to explore the arguments people make. Make sure you look at the comments made on these articles too.; Cohen, Nick (2014) ‘Spastics, cretins and the political correctness of the right’, Spectator Blogs, 23 June: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-cohen/2014/06/; Telegraph (2011) ‘The A to Z of Political Correctness’, The Telegraph, 15 May: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/8513876/ [accessed 28 June 2014]; West, Ed (2014) ‘Political correctness gone mad – and even madder – and even madder’, Spectator Blogs, 2 May: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/edwest/2014/05/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; What is the argument made in the Think B4 You Speak campaign? How is the material framed? Do you think it is convincing?; Think B4 You Speak: http://www.thinkb4youspeak.com/ [accessed 28 June 2014]
2.c Sapir-Whorf: words for snow: Here are some online resources to explore the concept of linguistic relativity and determinism. Compare the claims made with Pullum’s paper on the Great Eskimo Snow Hoax. Do you find the following reports credible? A recent piece by Pullum that discusses particular articles about this topic is below (Pullum, 2013). Why do you think this idea is so attractive?; de Boinod, Jacot (2014) ‘Cultural vocabularies: how many words do the Inuits have for snow?’, The Guardian, 29 April: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/29/ [accessed 28 June 2014]; Pullum, G. (2013) ‘Bad science reporting again: the Eskimos are back’, Language Log, 15 January: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4419 [accessed 28 June 2014]; Wilton, Dave (2011) ‘Are there really hundreds of Eskimo words for snow?’, Oxford Dictionaries, Blog, 6 January: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/01/ [accessed 28 June 2014]
2.d Language and thought: Moss’s short article also has a good short film embedded in it which explains the connection between language and thought.; Moss, Laura (2014) ‘Does the language you speak influence how you think?’, 9 June: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Lera Boroditsky explains her research in this field in the following article:; Boroditsky, Lera (2009) ‘How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?’, Edge, 6 November: http://edge.org/conversation/; The following is a short article describing some research about how blind people use colour terms. Do the findings surprise you? What does it tell us about how people understand and use language?; Love, Jessica (2014) ‘Describing a Visual World Without Vision: On blindness and language’, The American Scholar: http://theamericanscholar.org/describing [accessed 16 July 2014]
2.e Language diversity: The following article explores the way English continues to borrow from other languages.; Durkin, P. (2014) ‘The International Swap Trade in Useful Words’, BBC Magazine, 13 February: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26137419 [accessed 18 June 2014]
2.f A perceptual trick: The McGurk effect is an intriguing phenomenon. What we hear depends on what we see. In the following article, you can experience it for yourself.; McCulloch, Gretchen (2014) ‘When Your Eyes Hear Better Than Your Ears: The McGurk Effect’, Slate, 27 June: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/06/27/ [accessed 16 July 2014]
2.g Language and thought discussed in popular culture: The following is a link to a comedy sketch by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in which they discuss linguistics. ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie ... Tricky Linguistics’:; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw [accessed 25 June 2014]
A paper for lecturers: This paper might be useful to instructors preparing lectures on linguistic relativity. Steele, Tracey (2003) ‘Sex, Culture, and Linguistic Relativity: Making Abstract Concepts Concrete’, Teaching Sociology, 31(2): 212–20

Chapter 3: Language and politics

3.a Don’t do politics: At the start of the chapter, we refer to a British campaign encouraging people to vote. Slinky Pictures created the campaign for the UK Electoral Commission. You can watch it here:; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ame0j8jbMY4
Slinky Pictures’ work is archived at http://vimeo.com/slinkypictures; Walker, D. (2004) ‘Can cartoons animate voters?’, BBC News, 17 March: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3513658.stm [accessed 18 June 2014]
3.b Occupy Movement: The extracts that we examine to introduce linguistic strategies and techniques in persuasive language were taken from the following:; Occupy Movement (2012) ‘The “GlobalMay manifesto” of the International Occupy assembly’, The Guardian, 11 May: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/11 [accessed 17 July 2014]; See also:; The Occupied Times, London, an online publication. http://theoccupiedtimes.org/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Occupy Wall Street, http://occupywallstreet.net/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
3.c Reality TV: Reality television includes a range of programmes. Part of its appeal is that it seems to be real and unmediated. But in fact, it is highly constructed. Charlie Brooker, a satirical commentator from the UK, explains how ‘reality’ television is put together (2007):; Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe: Reality TV Editing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI [accessed 17 July 2014]; You can explore some of the issues around reality programming by consulting the following:; Biressi, Anita and Nunn, Heather (2005) Reality TV: Realism and revelation, New York: Wallflower Press; Holmes, S., and Jermyn, D. (eds) (2004) Understanding Reality Television, New York: Psychology Press; Thornborrow, Joanna and Morris, Deborah (2004) ‘Gossip as strategy: The management of Talk about others on reality TV show “Big Brother”’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 8(2): 246–271
3.d Toys activity: The gendering of toys is not uncommon, but there have been recent campaigns arguing against it. You can explore the arguments made in the following links:; Boyle, Sian (2013) ‘Barbies for girls, cars for boys? Let toys be toys and get them gender neutral presents this Christmas’, The Independent, 17 December: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment[accessed 12 June 2014]; Let Toys be Toys Campaign: http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Sherman, A. M. and Zurbriggen, E. L. (2014) ‘“Boys can do anything”: Effect of Barbie play on girls’ career cognitions’, Sex Roles 70: 195–208; Khazan, O. (2014) ‘How Barbie Affects Career Ambitions’, The Atlantic, 14 March: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/ [accessed 19 June 2014]; Mawson, Rowena (2014) ‘Stop shops sorting toys by gender, says equalities minister’, The Guardian, 27 June: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/ [accessed 28 June 2014]; (See also website activity 6.d)
3.e Silly citizenship: Hartley refers to the ‘JK Wedding Entrance’ dance when he writes about ‘silly citizenship’. You can watch it here:; JK Wedding Entrance Dance (2009)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0&feature=kp [accessed 17 July 2014]
See also http://jkweddingdance.appspot.com/; There are many examples of Silly Citizenship publicly available. Look at some of the following and consider how much they engage in political action. Are they effective or are they just entertaining?; The Colbert Report: Comedy Central: http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: HBO: http://www.hbo.com/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver; The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/; Mock the Week, BBC: http://www.mocktheweek.tv/; Crikey: www.crikey.com.au; The Shovel: www.theshovel.com.au; Faking News: http://www.fakingnews.firstpost.com/; For academic research that deals with similar issues, you might like to explore:; Burwell, C. and Boler, M. (2014) ‘Rethinking Media Activism through Fan Blogging: How Stewart and Colbert Fans Make a Difference’, in Ratto, M. and Boler, M. (eds), DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media, Massachusetts: MIT Press: 115–26.; Kahne, J., Middaugh, E. and Allen, D. (2014) ‘Youth New Media, and the Rise of Participatory Politics’, YPP Research Network Working Paper #1, March: http://ypp.dmlcentral.net/sites/default/files/ [accessed 18 June 2014]
3.f Hashtag politics: Do you think it’s possible to have an effect on politics by using Twitter? The following is a link to a project exploring ‘hashtag politics’ a way of conducting political action on Twitter: http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/hashtag-politics/; ABC News (2010) ‘The Conversation: Understanding “Hashtag Politics”’ 20 September: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/tcot-drives-tea-party-republican-message-social-media/ [accessed 19 June 2014]; Davis, Bud (2013) ‘Hashtag Politics: The Polyphonic Revolution of #Twitter’, Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research 1(1): 16–22

Chapter 4: Language and the media

4.a Manufacture of consent: In 1992, a documentary about Chomsky and Herman’s book was made by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa6NflkW3Y [accessed 17 July 2014]
4.b Obamacare vs the Affordable Care Act: In Chapter 4 we discussed Jimmy Kimmel live, a show broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (http://abc.go.com/shows/jimmy-kimmel-live) in which he asked people whether they preferred Obamacare to the Affordable Care Act. You can watch the extract of the show here:; Kimmel, J. (2013) ‘Six of One – Obamacare vs the Affordable Care Act’, Jimmy Kimmel Live, 1 October: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gA8lHApG0 [accessed 10 December 2014]; The following links discuss the same issue:; Hamblin, James (2013) ‘Some Americans Say They Support the Affordable Care Act But Not Obamacare’, The Atlantic, 1 October: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/some-americans-say-they-support-the-affordable-care-act-but-not-obamacare/280165/ [accessed 3 January 2014]; Johnson, A. (2014) ‘Obamacare or Not Obamacare’, National Review Online, 21 March: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/373925/obamacare-or-not-obamacare-andrew-johnson [accessed 19 June 2014]
4.c Media hoaxes: Because we tend to believe what we see on the news and what is reported in the media, creating a hoax of some kind using the mass media occurs from time to time. Consider the following texts. What features should we pay attention to in order to determine whether a report is real or not? What makes reports seem credible? What would you look for to determine whether a story was true or not? You might like to look at some of the fake news sites in the website for Chapter 3 and compare them with ‘real’ stories.; Libin, Scott (2005) ‘Falling for Fake News’, Poynter, 15 March, updated 2 March 2011: http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/leadership-management/what-great-bosses-know/35400/falling-for-fake-news/ [accessed 19 June 2014]; Vincent, James (2013) ‘Fake “waterproof iPhone” ad tricks users into destroying their smartphones’, The Independent, 24 September: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/fake-waterproof-iphone-ad-tricks-users-into-destroying-their-smartphones-8835952.html [accessed 17 July 2014]; You may enjoy a hoax from 1957 about spaghetti farms. At the following link, you can see the original film item:; BBC (2008) On This Day, 1 April: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm [accessed 17 July 2014]
4.c. Fake hashtags: Hashtags are not immune from fakery. Broderick’s text discusses one example. Do you think this is acceptable? Is all fair in politics? Does the medium in which the language is used make a difference?; Broderick, Ryan (2014) ‘Here’s How a Fake Feminist Hashtag Like #EndFathersDay Gets Started and Why It’ll Keep Happening’, Buzzfeed, 16 June: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/end-fathers-day-and-feminist-troll-accounts [accessed 17 July 2014]
4.d Tweets misunderstood: Twitter users have developed a range of ways to signal specific meanings and activities. The following gives a handy guide to the semiotics of Twitter.; Sheets, Connor Adam (2013) ‘What Do #FF, #TBT, #GFF, FOH, RLRT and Other Twitter & Instagram Hashtags & Terms Mean?’, International Business Times, 16 January: http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-ff-tbt-gff-foh-rlrt-other-twitter-instagram-hashtags-terms-mean-1021098 [accessed 16 July 2014]; Note that these hashtags and acronyms aren’t the only source of misunderstanding.; BBC News (2012) ‘Caution on Twitter urged as tourists barred from US’, 31 January: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312 [accessed 12 June 2014]
4.e Media and truth: Hoaxes and manipulation in the media (as elsewhere) come up against the argument that they mislead the public. Do you think the media has a responsibility to only report the facts? Is this possible?; Do you agree with John Pilger in the following piece (a transcript of a statement read on BBC radio)?; Pilger, John (2014) ‘Is the media now just another word for control?’, Media Reform Coalition, 3 January: http://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/media-now-just-another-word-control-john-pilgers-today-programme-statement [accessed 16 July 2014]
4.f Online news gallery: Because many newspapers now have websites, a new genre of the online news gallery has been made possible. The online news gallery is a set of pictures which may, or might not, tell a story. The online news gallery is a form made possible by the changes in both production and consumption of web-based material. Until fast internet became generally available, it didn’t make a lot of sense to include a lot of data heavy information like pictures on web pages. Caple and Knox (2012) argue that online news galleries appear to be particularly popular among ‘editors, readers, and photographers’ (2012: 208) but they nevertheless think it is important to ask questions about what these galleries do. Is it ‘just that people like to look at images, or do these galleries exploit the semiotic potential of the world wide web to tell stories in a new way?’ (2012: 208) They make a distinction between ‘online news galleries’ and ‘photo essays, picture stories, portfolios, verbal news stories, and other verbal texts’ to discover whether these galleries do tell a story (2012: 208).; Caple and Knox describe ‘online news galleries’ as ‘sequences of images’ (2012: 208). The viewer is instructed to view the images in a particular order, seeing only one at a time perhaps.; Caple and Knox examine photo galleries, paying attention to the text (including captions and headings) that accompany the images and to the sequential ordering of all these elements. They argue that while it is possible to construct a story using visual means, the authors of such sequences still need to pay attention to the structures of texts with which we are familiar. Such a structure may be one that moves temporally, from beginning to end, or one that seeks to provide focal points with other images providing contrasts or elaborations to these. Such structures are not always followed, however, making it difficult to construct a story or any coherent whole from these galleries.; Nevertheless, ‘Online news galleries offer new possibilities for storytelling’ and while ‘They are not a genre, [they] do allow for the development of new genres’ (Caple and Knox, 2012: 232). This is clear from the kinds of analysis they undertake.; Caple, H. and Knox, J. S. (2012) ‘Online news galleries, photojournalism and the photo essay’, Visual Communication, 11(2) 207–36
Activity: Find an online news gallery. These are common in online newspapers and involve a series of photos. Use the following table to describe the images.; You’ll probably find that the images in some galleries don’t tell a story at all. Rather, they present some visual representations of new stories covered elsewhere.; Some examples of online news galleries:; Otago Daily Times, New Zealand: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/galleries; The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/photos; CBC, Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/news/photos
4.g Same story, different venue: Bateman, Delin and Henschel (2006: 155) provide a set of features which should be examined in the analysis of multimodal texts (whether in hard or soft copy).; Identify a story and find coverage of it in a variety of outlets. For example, find a printed edition of a newspaper and look at the same story on the world wide web on a computer, on a tablet and on a smart phone. Think about the constraints of each kind of format and see if you can find features in the layout of the story that seem to be connected to the technology used.; Bateman, J. A., Delin, J. and Henschel, R. (2006) ‘Mapping the Multimodal Genres of Traditional and Electronic Newspapers’, in T. D. Royce and W. L. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, pp. 147–72. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
4.h Times of India links: The content of Table 4.2 was derived from the sites below. You can read the originals yourself and see what other similarities and differences you can find. What might account for these differences?; Arora, Kim (2014) ‘Penguin to Destroy Copies of Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus”’, The Times of India, 11 February: [accessed 12 June 2014] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/; Singh, Smriti (2014) ‘Penguin Pulls out Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus” from India’, The Times of India, 12 February: [accessed 12 June 2014] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/

Chapter 5: Linguistic landscapes

5.a Exploitation of convention: Ryan Laughlin, who kindly provided Image 5.8, is an artist who has created other works. You can see them here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28017515@N03/sets/72157617259403472/ [accessed 20 June 2014]; Examine Ryan’s work and look closely at the use of conventional semiotic codes. How are these exploited in a creative and humorous way?; All images (c) 2009 Ryan Laughlin, http://rofreg.com
5.b Graffiti: The following images were photographed by Evans at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Why do you think people write on monuments like the Eiffel Tower? How old do you think such writing has to be before it too is a ‘historical monument’?
5.c Courtesy Campaign: The Singapore Courtesy Campaign that Lazar examined has now been taken up as part of the Kindness Movement. But in the following links you can see some of the images and signs that have been used, as well as learn about the current Kindness Movement.; Do you think this a good thing for government to be doing? Would you be more likely to be nice to people as a result of such a sustained campaign?; Singapore Kindness Movement: http://kindness.sg/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Singapore Visual Archive (2011) Singa the Courtesy Lion: http://visualarchive.sg/?p=652 [accessed 20 June 2014]; You can see material from the 1984 Courtesy Campaign here:; Remember Singapore: http://remembersingapore.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/singapore-campaigns-of-the-past/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
5.d What does it mean?: Sometimes it’s hard to know what a sign is communicating. This may be because of the conventions it uses or where it is placed. What possible interpretations could be made of the following?
5.e Multilingual signs: Sometimes multiple languages are used not to address specific audiences but to do something else. Consider the two images below. They were in a Japanese garden in Canada. What does the use of Japanese communicate here? Who is it for?
5.f Not here: In Chapter 5, we discussed the way signs structure space, allowing some activities and not others. As a result, people can be excluded from a space. Who is excluded from the spaces in which the following signs were found? Why?; A recent campaign in London was very successful in challenging the exclusion of some people from some places. You can follow what happened by looking at the coverage below.; Saul, Heather (2014) ‘“Homeless” spikes outside London flats spark outrage on Twitter’, The Independent, 7 June: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homelessness-spikes-outside-london-flats-spark-outrage-on-twitter-9506390.html [accessed 16 July 2014]; RT (2014) ‘London Mayor Johnson calls for “ugly, stupid anti-homeless” spikes to be removed’, 10 June: http://rt.com/uk/164952-anti-homeless-spikes-remove/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Williams, Rob (2014) ‘Tesco removes one-inch “anti-homeless” spikes from outside central London Metro store after activities threaten days of protest over measure’, The Independent, 12 June: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tesco-removes-oneinch-antihomeless-spikes-from-outside-central-london-metro-store-after-activists-threaten-days-of-protests-over-measure-9533089.html [accessed 16 July 2014]; Have you noticed similar structures where you live? What do you think they are designed to do? Are they successful?
5.g Other signs: Signs are a versatile media. Because of the range of semiotic codes they can draw on and because of the way their meaning depends on where they are placed, a wide range of communicative purposes can be found in signs.; They may be self-referential, being made to comment on themselves or open to interpretation in this way.; They may be placed in a paradigmatic string, to form a sentence of signs.; Signs may be playful.; Signs might also be part of silly citizenship.

Chapter 6: Language and gender

6.a Gender neutral pronouns: There have been a range of suggestions of gender neutral pronouns over the centuries. You can find a comprehensive list here. Why do you think these suggestions were not adopted?; Baron, Dennis: ‘The Epicene Pronouns: A Chronology of the Word that Failed’: http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Earlier versions of this list appeared in his article ‘The Epicene Pronoun: The Word That Failed’, American Speech 56 (1981): 83–97 and his book Grammar and Gender (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986); To see a blog about the debate:; Gender Neutral Pronoun (2010): http://genderneutralpronoun.wordpress.com/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; You might be interested in this recent development in Canada. Do you think schools will be more inclusive because of this? Do you think there is an argument for all students to be referred to as ‘xe’ without having to specifically request it?; BBC News (2014) ‘Canada: Schools axe “he” and “she” in favour of “xe”’, News From Elsewhere, 18 June: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27904621 [accessed 27 June 2014]; Brean, Joseph (2014) ‘Vancouver School Board’s genderless pronouns – xe, xem, xyr – not likely to stick, if history is any indication’, National Post, 17 June: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/17/ [accessed 27 June 2014]
6.b The trouble with Ms: Ms is a baffling title for many people. Read Browning’s and Zimmer’s articles and see whether you think this misunderstanding is warranted.; Browning, Anna (2009) ‘Mrs? Or is that Ms, Miss?’, BBC News, 20 March:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7952261.stm [accessed 17 July 2014]; Zimmer, Ben (2009) ‘More Ms.-teries of “Ms.”’, Vocabulary, 23 October: http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/more-ms-teries-of-ms/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
6.c Stereotypes: Listen to the following story from NPR (National Public Radio) about Lego made for young women. What do you think about the gendering of toys? (See also website activity 3d.); Ulaby, Neda (2013) ‘Girls’ Legos Are A Hit, But Why Do Girls Need Special Legos?’, NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/28/196605763/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
6.d Everyday sexism: Recently, a number of campaigns have sought to highlight the way women are subjected to sexism on a daily basis. Explore the following sites. Do the experiences reported surprise you? What does it tell us about society? What kinds of resources are women using to object to this treatment?; Everyday Sexism: http://everydaysexism.com/
#YesAllWomen on Twitter
SlutWalk: http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/; It is not only women who are subject to everyday abuse of this kind.; Hess, Amanda (2014) ‘Smile, Baby! A New Study Shows How Often Women and Gay Men Are Sexually Harassed on the Street’, Slate, 3 June: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/06/03 [accessed 17 July 2014]
6.e Resisting sexism: There are many ways of highlighting and resisting sexism. Look at the following materials and try and identify the strategies they use. Are they successful?; Mirkinson, Jack (2013) ‘Megyn Kelly Demolishes Erick Erickson, Lou Dobbs Over Sexist Comments’ [video], The Huffington Post, 31 May: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/megyn-kelly-erick-erickson-lou-dobbs_n_3367571.html [accessed 17 July 2014]; Walmsley, C. (2014) ‘Feminist hotline revolutionises the art of avoiding pick-up artists’, The National Student, 20 June: http://www.thenationalstudent.com/International/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Feminist phone line: http://feminist-phone-intervention.tumblr.com/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Go to Amazon.com and search for Bic pens for women. Read the reviews of this product. What are these authors doing?; http://www.amazon.co.uk/BIC-For-Her-Medium-Ballpoint/dp/B004FTGJUW [accessed 17 July 2014]
6.f Gender activity: Look at the quotations below. Do you think they are sexist? Who might have said them? When do you think they were said or published? Search the internet for quotes of a sexist nature that are from this year. Are you surprised by the number of current sexist quotes you can find? What can we learn about societal hierarchies from this?
6.g Men are from Mars?: Read the following articles. What do they presuppose about the way men and women use language and other forms of communication? You should pay close attention to the linguistic choices used to determine both semantic and pragmatic presupposition (as discussed in Chapter 3). What stereotypes do these stories draw on? Do they cite any sources for the facts asserted?; Cossar, Vicki-Marie (2009) ‘How Women Can Crack the Code’, Metro, 2 November: http://metro.co.uk/2009/11/06/how-women-can-crack-the-code-593163/ [accessed 22 June 2014]; Holman, Rebecca (2014) ‘How to speak “Menglish” – the language “only men” understand’, The Telegraph, 31 January: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/ [accessed 22 June 2014]; van Edwards, Vanessa (2013) ‘3 Tips For Women To Improve Their Body Language At Work’, Forbes, 21 May: http://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2013/05/21/ [accessed 22 June 2014]; Welchlin, Kit (2013) ‘Do Men and Women Speak Different a Language?’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fwpRrl56s [accessed 22 June 2014]
6.h Dude: Watch the following beer advertisement. How many meanings of ‘dude’ can you identify? What is it that changes the different meanings of ‘dude’?; Bud Lite (2007) Dude: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMSSe7cOvA&feature=kp [accessed 17 July 2014]; See Kiesling (2004) for a nuanced linguistic discussion of the differences.; Kiesling, Scott F. (2004) ‘Dude’, American Speech 79(3): 281–305
6.1 Science and sexism: In July 2014, Science magazine produced a cover showing women, in very short dresses, with their faces not included in the shot. Read the following responses to the cover and see if you think there is a problem with sexism in science. You can see the cover reproduced in most of the articles.; Chakrabarty, Prosanta (2014) ‘A Terrible Cover of Science Magazine & An Example of The Power of Today’s Social Media’, 16 July: http://aguidetoacademia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Drugmonkey (2014) ‘Does Science magazine actually sell many copies at the newsstand?’, 16 July: http://scientopia.org/blogs/drugmonkey/2014/07/16 [accessed 17 July]; Slantist (2014) ‘Science Magazine Uses Trans Sex Workers As Bait’, 16 July: http://slantist.com/trans-sex-workers-science-magazine/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Waldman, Katy (2014) ‘Science Has a Gender Problem. Science Just Made It Worse’, Slate, 17 July: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/07/ [accessed 17 July 2014]

Chapter 7: Language and ethnicity

7.a Language tests: Many countries now have language tests for migrants. Read the following article. Do you think the demands on migrants are reasonable? Does your country require such tests?; Feneley, Rick (2013) ‘Morrison talks up English tests to qualify for citizenship’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013 [accessed 23 June 2014]
7.b Racist jokes: Racism may be expressed through what is ostensibly humour. Is this acceptable? What do you think of Okolosie’s argument that it is not? You might like to consider whether sexist jokes are subject to the same limits (see Sunderland 2007).; Okolosie, Lola (2013) ‘Telling a racist joke in front of a black friend doesn’t make it audacious fun’, The Guardian, Comment is Free, 1 October: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/01/racist-joke-black-friend?CMP=twt_gu [accessed 17 July 2014]; Sunderland, J. (2007) ‘Contradictions in gendered discourses: feminist readings of sexist jokes?’ Gender and Language, 1(2): 207–28
7.c Emerging identities: In the US is, ‘nerd’ as an identity category has existed for a long time. ‘Nerd’ has typically been a category associated with European Americans. Recently, however, this category has been associated with African Americans. Look at the following and see if you can determine why ‘nerd’ is only now available as an identity category for African Americans. Black Girl Nerds: http://www.blackgirlnerds.com/ [accessed 23 June 2014]; Toby, Mekeisha Madden (2012) ‘The rise of the black nerd in pop culture’, CNN, 31 March: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/31/showbiz/rise-of-black-nerds/ [accessed 23 June 2014]; Black Nerd Blogspot: http://blacknerdsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/ [accessed 23 June 2014] Bucholtz, M. (1999) ‘“Why be normal?”: Language and identity practices in a community of nerd girls’, Language in Society, 28(02): 203–23
7.d Zimmerman trial: Rachel Jeantel was a witness in US trial of George Zimmerman. Mr Zimmerman was being tried for murder, for killing a young black man in Florida called Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claimed he was acting in self-defence. Rachel Jeantel was talking on her mobile phone with Trayvon just prior to his death and was therefore the only ‘witness’ to his death. During her testimony, a great deal of attention was given to her language use and behaviour on the stand.; Compare the following two texts. How do they differ? In what ways are they the same? Why was Ms Jeantel’s language discussed? Do you think it would have been discussed if she spoke Standard American English?; McWhorter, John (2013) ‘Rachel Jeantel Explained, Linguistically’, Time, 28 June: http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/28/rachel-jeantel-explained-linguistically/ [accessed 23 June 2014]; Rickford, John (2013) ‘Rachel Jeantel’s language in the Zimmerman trial’, Language Log, 10 July: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5161 [accessed 23 June 2014]
7.e Coca Cola ad: Read Zimmer’s account of the reaction to Coca-Cola’s multilingual advertisement that was broadcast during the Superbowl in the US. Comic group Garlic Jackson created a version in response. What comment do you think Garlic Jackson’s version is making about the original?; Garlic Jackson advertisement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18mS4cLPOb8&list=TLnOQTv54cCKEUAapEcSFwSyuq6zDRHxWZ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Griner, David (2014) ‘Here’s That Coke Ad, Now in Klingon, Dothraki and Pig Latin: Comedy troupe gets even more inclusive’, Adweek, 5 February: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/heres-coke-ad-now-klingon-dothraki-and-pig-latin-155502 [accessed 23 June 2014]; Zimmer, Ben (2014) ‘Coca-Cola’s multilingual “America the Beautiful”’, Language Log, 3 February: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10142 [accessed 23 June 2014]
7.f Hashtags and race: In Chapter 4 we discuss hashtags and trending. You can explore the kinds of topics that become popular topics in social media by looking at the following website. You can then further explore the controversy by looking at the hashtags on Twitter. You may find similar discussions and controversies about ethnicity on Twitter. Which hashtags become trends and which do not? Why do you think some are more popular than others?; BBC (2014) ‘How two friends started a hashtag race row’, BBC News Magazine, #BBCtrending, 14 February: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26179642?ocid=socialflow_twitter [accessed 23 June 2014]; Zimmer, Ben (2015) ‘In a First, the Word of the Year is a Hashtag: "#blacklivesmatter"’, 10 January, Vocabulary.com http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/in-a-first-the-word-of-the-year-is-a-hashtag-blacklivesmatter/ [accessed 15 January 2015]
7.g Desi: In Chapter 7 we discussed research in California of South Asian heritage high school students. You can explore some of the other realisations of Desi identity by looking at:; Zimmer, Ben (2013) ‘Here She Comes, “Desi” Miss America’, The Wall Street Journal, 27 September: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/ [accessed 23 June 2014]
7.h Jafaican: Over the last ten years, there has been a great deal of discussion about a variety of English used in the UK called ‘Jafaican’. Read the following stories and describe the variety, who uses it and how it is evaluated.; Ashton, Emily (2006) ‘Learn Jafaikan in two minutes’, The Guardian, 12 April: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/apr/12/research.highereducation [accessed 23 June 2014]; Braier, Rachel (2013) ‘Jafaican it? No we’re not’, The Guardian, Mind Your Language blog, 30 August: http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2013/aug/30/ [accessed 23 June 2014]; Pullum, G. (2011) ‘Jafaican doesn’t exist’, Language Log, 28 August: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3392#more-3392 [accessed 23 June 2014]; West, Ed (2011) ‘“Jafaican” may be cool, but it sounds ridiculous’, The Telegraph, Blog, 7 June: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100091088/jafaican-may-be-cool-but-it-sounds-ridiculous/ [accessed 23 June 2014]
7.i Style shifting: Look at the following video. Can you hear the change in styles? The style switch seems to be led by topic. Compare the discussion of school (3.15) and being a mummy’s girl (3.55). What differences do you notice? Is there a pattern throughout the video of where each speaker uses different styles? Latoya’s mother is bidialectal. How does she use her mastery of two dialects to construct her social identity?; LaToya Forever (2012) ‘Meet my Caribbean Mum’, 4 July: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9thWe3JKv8 [accessed 23 June 2014]
7.j Jamila Lyiscott: three ways to speak English: Look at the following film. What is Jamila saying in this film? How does this connect to the theories of language and ethnicity discussed in Chapter 7? How does Jamila use variation in language to convey her point? Which three varieties does she use? Why does she have these varieties? What meanings do they have? Is this crossing or something else?; Lyiscott, J. (2014) ‘3 Ways to Speak English’, TED Talks, 19 June: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9fmJ5xQ_mc&app=desktop [accessed 17 July 2014]; Zac Cheney-Rice provides some extracts and some commentary on Jamila’s performance.; Cheney-Rice, Z. (2014) ‘This Brief Talk Brilliantly Explains What Black People Hear When White People Call Them “Articulate”’, Identities.Mic, 2 July: http://mic.com/articles/92657/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
7.k Reverse positions: A good way of figuring out whether something is racist (or sexist or prejudiced in some way) is to imagine the words or sentiment directed at another group. This is exactly what the following video does. Do you think it makes the point effectively?; BuzzFeed (2014) ‘If Latinos said the stuff White people say’, 12 July: http://www.buzzfeed.com/abefg/if-latinos-said-the-stuff-white-people-say [accessed 17 July 2014]
7.l Other resources: Code Switch is a blog about ethnicity curated by a team of journalists who cover race, ethnicity and culture. The blog provides written and audio reports focussing on race, ethnicity and culture in the USA.; National Public Radio (NPR) Code Switch: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/ [accessed 23 June 2014]

Chapter 8: Language and age

8.a Age and appearance: Look at the following website and images. What ideology is challenged here? Is the challenge successful?; Cohen, Ari Seth: Advanced Style http://advancedstyle.blogspot.co.uk/ [accessed 23 June 2014]
8.b Banning ‘youth’ language: A school in South London wanted to ban the use of particular words and phrases. Look at the following articles and the comments they generated. What do you think of the school’s initiative?; BBC News (2013) ‘Slang banned from Croydon school to improve student speech’, BBC News, 15 October: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24522809 [accessed 24 June 2014]; Fishwick, Carmen (2013) ‘London school bans pupils from using “innit”, “like”, and “bare”’, The Guardian, 15 October: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/15/london-school-bans-pupils-slang-innit [accessed 23 June 2014]; You can test your knowledge of British Youth language here:; Tobin, Lucy (2009) ‘Pimp Your Vocab’, The Guardian, 15 September: http://www.theguardian.com/education/quiz/2009/sep/15/youth-language-vocab-quiz [accessed 24 June 2014]; Here you will find an article about youth slang in the US.; Kid Zoom (2013) ‘Wonkette’s Teen Korner for Teenz: YOLO Swag Twenty-Three Skidoo Edition’, Wonkette, 10 August: http://wonkette.com/525233/wonkettes-teen-korner-for [accessed 24 June 2014]
8.c Like: ‘Like’ is used in a variety of ways, as a quotative and a discourse marker. Read the following and see if you can set out what people don’t like about it.; Hitchens, C. (2010) ‘The Other L-Word’, Vanity Fair, 13 January: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/01/hitchens-like-201001 [accessed 24 June 2014]; Winterman, Denise (2010) ‘Teen slang: What’s, like, so wrong with like?’, BBC News Magazine, 28 September: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11426737 [accessed 24 June 2014]
8.d Children and swearing: The following story discusses an article by Jay and Jay about children and swearing. Follow the link to listen to the story. What assumptions are made about people who do swear? Does it depend on the person’s identity or the context of talk? Who is ‘allowed’ to swear?; National Public Radio (NPR) (2014) ‘“Like Little Language Vacuum Cleaners”, Kids Suck Up Swear Words’, All Things Considered, 20 April: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/20/304957688/like-little-language-vacuum [accessed 17 July 2014]; Jay, K. L. and Jay, T. B. (2013) ‘A Child’s Garden of Curses: A Gender, Historical, and Age-Related Evaluation of the Taboo Lexicon’, The American Journal of Psychology, 126(4): 459–75
8.e Digital divide: In Chapter 4, we mentioned the digital divide, the idea that there is a division in society between people who have access to the world wide web and those who do not. This article discusses the digital divide in terms of age.; Garrington, Christine (2014) ‘Does digital by default exclude older people?’, Society Central, 19 June: http://societycentral.ac.uk/2014/06/19/does-digital-by-default-exclude-older-people/ [accessed 28 June 2014]
8.f Youth language: Young people are often accused of using slang. Read the following article written by the Malaysian Minister for Education and Law. What do you think of his argument? Do you think what he urges will prevent young people using language differently?; Rajah, Indranee (2013) ‘Excuse my bad, it’s a grammar twerk’, Malaysian Insider, 16 October: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/excuse-my-bad-its-a-grammar-twerk-indranee-rajah [accessed 17 July 2014]; Rajah gives as an example some lyrics from a popular song. Can you think of other songs he may have used? What do those lyrics do with English? What is the effect of this?
8.g More youth language: You can take a quiz here to measure your fluency in British youth language of 2009.; Tobin, Lucy (2009) ‘Pimp your Vocab’, The Guardian, 15 September: http://www.theguardian.com/education/quiz/2009/sep/15/youth-language-vocab-quiz [accessed 17 July 2014]
8.h Elderly abuse: A report in the UK from the Commission on Improving Dignity in Care for Older People argued for better treatment of elderly people when they are in hospital or undergoing medical care. Watch the following and read the text beneath the film to see if you can find linguistic evidence of age discrimination.; Channel 4 (2012) ‘Patronising the elderly like “racist or sexist abuse”, Channel 4 News, 29 February: http://www.channel4.com/news/patronising-the-elderly-like-racist-or-sexist-abuse [accessed 17th July 2014]

Chapter 9: Language, class and symbolic capital

9.a What class are you?: You can see which class you would belong to in the US or in the UK at the following websites:; Here you can see where you fit in terms of occupation, income, wealth and education when compared to the population of the US.; Tse, Archie and Werschkul, Ben (2005) ‘How Class Works’, The New York Times, 15 May: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html [accessed 17 July 2014]; At this website, you can see where you fit in the new British class system by answering just a few questions, a small set of those asked in the real survey.; BBC (2013) ‘The Great British class calculator: What class are you?’, BBC News, 3 April: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973 [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.b Representations of class: In Chapter 9 we discussed the criticism of George Osborne’s use of language. Watch some footage of George Osborne giving his speech to the warehouse employees. Do you agree that his speech sounds unusual?; ITN (2013) ‘George “Mockney” Osborne: Chancellor in Estuary accent shocker’, 3 April: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1mbxFsp2x0 [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.c Playing with class: The following is a compilation of comedy sketches by British comedians Armstrong and Miller. What is the source of humour here? Pay attention to the different aspects of language variation they exploit.; Armstrong and Miller (2010) ‘The Armstrong and Miller Show – WWII Pilots 1’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_b1Y-Rl_Uo [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.d Scotland: The following film instructs people how to ‘correctly’ pronounce ‘loch’. What do you think about the man’s claim that this is the proper way to pronounce this word?; Scottish Geeks (2013) ‘How to Pronounce Loch’, 24 April: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRiWBRS3OC8 [accessed 17 July 2014]; Jane Stuart Smith and her colleagues spoke to teenagers from Maryhill. In the following special news report, you can find out more about Maryhill. You can also hear a range of Scottish English in this report.; Evening Times (2010) ‘Inside Glasgow: Maryhill’, 1 March: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWMXdUWc8C8 [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.e Names and social class: Listen to the following podcast about names and social class. Do you think the argument is convincing? Will this change the way you think about people because of their name?; Freakonomics (2013) ‘How Much Does Your Name Matter? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast’, 8 April: http://freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.f Coffee and class: In 2013, a supermarket in the UK started a customer loyalty scheme that entitled card holders to one free hot drink a day (instead of points, coupons or vouchers). Some customers reacted badly to this. Read the following to find out why. Is class specifically mentioned in these articles? What terms are used to describe people and their behaviour? Is this related to class?; Tadeo, M. (2013) ‘Waitrose faces middle class revolt over free coffee loyalty card’, The Independent, 30 December: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Stevens, Jon (2013) ‘The Waitrose Coffee Revolt: Regular customers complain that free drink offer “attracts too many chavs”’, Daily Mail, 30 December: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2530902/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.g Bogans: Read the following article. Pay attention to what it has to say about ‘bogans’ but also look for other issues we have considered in this chapter and throughout the book (e.g. commodification of identity, gender, and so on).; Kate (2009) ‘Australia’s Top 10 Bogan Hotspots: Frankston misses out’, Moving to Melbourne Blog, 11 August: http://www.moving-to-melbourne.co.uk/news/697/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.h Class in Hong Kong: There has been a great deal of debate about what class means in Hong Kong. Look at the following news reports and see if you can identify any themes covered in Chapter 9. What are suggested as indicative of class? Compare the reports with research about language attitudes and social class (Lai 2010).; Kui-Wai, Li (2013) ‘How to define the “middle class”?’, China Daily, 15 March: http://epaper.chinadailyasia.com/focus-hk/article-142.html [accessed 17 July 2014]; Lai, M. L. (2010) ‘Social class and language attitudes in Hong Kong’, International Multilingual Research Journal, 4(2): 83–106; Ngo, Jennifer (2013) ‘Dollars – not coffee – define social status, say Hongkongers’, South China Morning Post, 5 September: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1303450/ [accessed 17 July 2014]; Xueying, Li (2013) ‘Hong Kong asks: What does it mean to be middle class?’, The Nation, March 16: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Hong-Kong-asks [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.i Chips: Researchers have examined the language on packets of potato chips/crisps. They argue that this is related to class and authenticity. Why is potato chip marketing related to class? Can you connect this with the discussion of social class in Chapter 9? Are there other products that are marketed in the same way?; Freedman, J. and Juraksy, D. (2011) ‘Authenticity in America: Class Distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising’, Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies 11(4): 46–54; Keller, Sarah Jane (2011) ‘Enticing words printed on bags of potato chips have a lot to say about social class, Stanford researchers find’, Stanford News, 30 November: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/potato-chips-class-113011.html [accessed 17 July 2014]
9.j Educational issues: This news article discusses some of the challenges involved in teaching children from a variety of social backgrounds. What words are used to describe levels of educational attainment? How does this affect your understanding of the issue? What experts are consulted to explain this issue (see Chapter 4)? Compare the report to the research (Demie and Lewis 2011) to see how faithful the news report is to the original research.; Garner, Richard (2014) ‘Exclusive: Poor white pupils need extra help with English’, The Independent, 26 June: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news [accessed 26 June 2014]; Demie, Feyisa and Lewis, Kirstin (2011) ‘White working class achievement: an ethnographic study of barriers to learning in schools’, Educational Studies, 37:3, 245–64

Chapter 10: Global Englishes

10.a Global English: The estimates of how widely English is spoken around the world vary. The British Council provides some answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the use of English, learning English and its role.; http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-faq-the-english-language.htm [accessed 16 July 2014]; You might be interested in figures reporting how much different languages are used online. What might be the reasons for these different levels of use? You may find some answers in the BBC article.; O’Brien, Jane (2012) ‘Learn English online: How the internet is changing language’, BBC News Magazine, 14 December: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20332763 [accessed 16 July 2014]; Word Bank Blog (2011) ‘What Languages Do People Use Online?’, 9 September: http://globalsem.wordbank.com/global-marketing/online-languages/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Here you’ll find more information about the languages people use online: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm [accessed 16 July 2014]; Finally, this article has some information about Twitter and language choice:; Keating, Joshua (2013) ‘Top Countries on Twitter’, Slate, 10 January: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/01/10/ [accessed 16 July 2014]
10.b Urban language diversity: While many nations consider themselves monolingual, multilingual societies are found around the world. This diversity has led researchers in sociolinguistics to call for attention to ‘superdiversity’. The first set of links help you explore the linguistic diversity that is found especially in urban centres. The references below can be consulted for more information about superdiversity. In short, superdiversity acknowledges that the traditional ways of identifying people (class, gender, age, ethnicity) are not inclusive or stable enough to reflect current social hierarchies. Scholars urge us to take notice of the particularity of human experience in order to fully understand what people are doing with language.; von Ahn, Michelle, Lupton, Ruth, Greenwood, Charley and Wiggins, Dick (2011) ‘Languages, Ethnicity and Education in London’: http://www.restore.ac.uk/UPTAP/wordpress/wp-content/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; A map of tweets by language in New York: http://ny.spatial.ly/; For more information about this research see Cheshire, James (2013) ‘Mapped: Twitter Languages in New York’, spatial.ly, 20 February: http://spatialanalysis.co.uk/?p=3978 [accessed 16 July 2014]; Ting, Inga and Walters, Conrad (2014) ‘Sydney’s Melting Pot of Language’, Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/sydney-languages/index.html [accessed 16 July 2014]; Blackledge, A., Creese, A. and Takhi, J. K. (2013) ‘Language, Superdiversity and Education’, in de Saint-Georges, I. and Weber, J.-J. (eds) Multilingualism and Multimodality, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers: 59–80; Blommaert, J. (2013) Superdiversity, Ethnography and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity, Bristol: Multilingual Matters; Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) ‘Language and Superdiversity’, Diversities 13(2): www.unesco.org/shs/diversities/vol13/issue2/art1 [accessed 16 July 2014]
10.c Language in India: The following articles and news reports set out the different pressures and policies at work in India with regard to language use and language policy. Do you think language policy should be determined by government with reference to what citizens think? Find out how many languages are spoken in India. Why do you think the focus is on Hindi and English?; BBC (2014) ‘#BBCtrending: Is there a distinctive “Indian English”?’, BBC News, 27 June: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-28062387 [accessed 16 July 2014]; India Today (2014) ‘Hindi Language: Congress opposes push, warns of backlash’, India Today, 20 June: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/hindi-language-congress-opposes-push-warns-of-backlash/1/367779.html [accessed 16 July 2014]; Jeffrey, Craig (2014) ‘English explodes in India – and it’s not just Hinglish’, BBC News Magazine, 30 June: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28054460 [accessed 16 July 2014]; Nelson, Dean (2014) ‘Indian officials ordered to ditch English for Hindi’, The Telegraph, 20 June: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/ [accessed 16 July 2014]; Zee Media (2014) ‘Committed to promoting all languages of India: Union Home Ministry’, Zee News, 19 June: http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/ [accessed 16 July 2014]
10.d English mania: Watch Walker’s talk and then read the comments posted by people from China. Do you think there is an English mania? Is this a positive or negative thing?; Walker, Jay (2009) ‘The World’s English Mania’, February: http://www.ted.com/talks/ [accessed 17 July 2014]
10.e Will English always be global?: The linguist Professor David Crystal talks about the state and future of Global English. Does the content of his talk surprise you?; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kvs8SxN8mc (British Council, Serbia) [accessed 17 July 2014]
10.f Scots language in Scotland: Here you can explore Scots and hear examples of what it sounds like. The link takes you to an article about time, but you can explore the site from here. Do you think this is a language related to English or not? What do you base this on? When looking at the material on numbers and time, you might like to revisit the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis we covered in Chapter 2.; Scots Language Centre, ‘Numbers and Time’: http://www.scotslanguage.com/Numbers_and_Time [accessed 17 July 2014]

Chapters

Chapter 1: Language?

Written texts and sources

Resources with sound files

YouTube resources

Chapter 2: Language, thought and representation

Chapter 3: Language and politics

USA

United Kingdom

Australia

India

Chapter 4: Language and the media

Chapter 5: Linguistic landscapes

Chapter 6: Language and gender

Chapter 7: Language and ethnicity

Chapter 8: Language and age

Chapter 9: Language, class and symbolic capital

USA

UK

Lochs

Glasgow: Maryhill

Chapter 10: Global Englishes

London

New York

Sydney

Scholarly papers on Superdiversity