Chapter 2

  1. There has never been an academy to regulate the English language. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of such an authority?
  2. Should regional speech forms be allowed in written schoolwork, or should only forms of the national standard be acceptable?
  3. Having considered some social aspects of language use in Britain, take the language of another country, and discuss the following: Which is the ‘correct’ or ‘prestige’ accent? What attitudes do people have towards speakers of regional accents and minority languages? Are some speakers stigmatised? d) Are regional varieties of the national language found in advertising, the mass media and certain types of role in films and plays, and what connotations do they carry?
  4. Observe and describe how multilingual speakers switch from one language to another in different contexts. Focus on the social and situational factors that influence language choice.
  5. Listen carefully to the varieties of speech you hear spoken in buses, bars and other public places. Does language use vary according to the region, social background, gender and educational level of the speaker? If so, what are the distinctive features? Choose one example and research it carefully, illustrating your answer with published studies.
  6. There is a saying among linguists that ‘a language is a dialect with an army and navy’. What do you think this means, and to what extent is it true?
  7. Phone and email text messages are commonplace in all languages. The following extract was composed by John Mullan of University College London. Look at it and translate it into standard English. Would it be useful to reform the spelling system like this?

    Dnt u sumX rekn eng lang v lngwindd? 2 mny wds & ltrs? ?nt we b usng lss time & papr? ? we b 4wd tnking + txt? 13 yr grl frim w scot 2ndry schl sd ok. Sh rote GCSE eng as (abt hr smmr hols in NY) in txt spk. (NO!) Sh sd sh 4t txt spk was ‘easr thn standard eng’. Sh 4t hr tcher wd b :) Hr tcher 4t it was nt so gr8! Sh was :( & talked 2 newspprs (but askd 2 b anon). ‘I cdnt bleve wot I was cing! :o’ -!-!-! OW2TE. Sh hd NI@A wot grl was on abut. Sh 4t her pupl was ritng in ‘hieroglyphics’.

  8. Use the internet to find the words to the famous song ‘Auld Lang Syne’by Robert Burns. Translate it into modern English, and find the music to accompany it. What can you discover about its historical and social significance?
  9. Cricket has given birth to a number of idioms such as ‘it’s not cricket’, a ‘sticky wicket’, ‘knocked for six’, ‘caught out’, ‘play with a straight bat’ and ‘play the game’, which are all commonly used in everyday English. Look up their meanings, and make appropriate sentences. If your first language is not English, does it contain any similar metaphors concerned with sport?
  10. If your first language is not English, how has that language been affected by English in recent years? Is diversity and change good for a language? What are the possible advantages and disadvantages?

Books

Baugh, A. and Cable, T. (2002) A History of the English Language, 5th edn, London: Routledge.

Blake, N.F. (1996) A History of the English Language, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Bryson, B. (2001) Mother Tongue – English and How It Got That Way, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Coates, J. (2004) Women, Men and Language, London: Routledge.

Crystal, D. (2010) Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, D. (2012) English as a Global Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Honey, J. (1997) The Story of Standard English and its Enemies, London: Faber and Faber.

Hughes, A. and Trudgill, P. (2012) English Accents and Dialects, London: Routledge.

Kay, B. (2006) Scots: The Mither Tongue, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.

Leith, D. (1997) A Social History of English, London: Routledge.

Montgomery, M. (2008) An Introduction to Language and Society, London: Routledge.

Sutcliffe, D. (1982) British Black English, London: Blackwell.

Wells, J.C. (1982) Accents of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Journals

There are many journals that deal with applied and theoretical aspects of English and other languages of the UK, especially the teaching of English. Some of the themes in this chapter are primarily sociolinguistic; that is they deal with language evolution and change in a social context. Some sociolinguistic journals are as follows (all are available online):

Journal of English Linguistics

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology

Journal of Sociolinguistics

Language in Society

Text and Talk