Classic Style in writing

This is probably the cleanest Intro to writing in 'classic style' that's out there.

The idea is that when you write, you imagine a scene of 'joint attention' -- where the reader is an equal to you, and 'sees' what you 'see' (even if this is abstract or linguistic); your job is to point out elements of interest and pass on context, motivations and observed details which your partner may not otherwise have noticed, or may not perhaps mark the significance of, in the expectation that they will understand and agree, but without the presumption of anything that's necessary for what you want to point out.

That's to say that classic style isn't patronising, but is explicit; it isn't ostentatiously technical and academic, but it is accurate; it isn't just stating the obvious, but it is thorough; it isn't handwaving and casual, but it is concise.

These qualities make it a good style for essays and exams. Caveats: in an exam, you should think with your pen, rather than plan silently in your head and then attempt to commit a perfect performance to paper of only the conclusions you're certain about. Tentative alternative readings are welcome and gain marks -- this is exploration and evaluation at work. Classic style aims for a polished and confident statement of the simple truth; and in English, often ambiguity is inescapable, and polishing is a task for coursework.

http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2011/06/24/op-ed-by-the-authors-of-clear-and-simple-as-the-truth/

Forensic Linguistics

A long read, and some graphic details, but an excellent account of the work of forensic linguists with a number of striking example cases. 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/words-on-trial

Internet language

Not a bad article, here, though it's not watertight -- no mention of creative emoticons of the type used in the headline, for instance -- and could do with a clearer model of language functions: it tantalisingly refers to 'interpersonal' communication, but this is just an empty premodifier, I think -- rather than, accurately, noting that most of the forms mentioned really do focus on managing the tenor of Internet discourse, showing feelings and managing human speech roles in the absence of tone, expression and gesture. 

http://gizmodo.com/is-the-innanet-ruining-teh-english-language-_o-1680686542

The definite article in decline...

Interesting, if somewhat dubious, research. The example given from the political speeches is inconclusive -- Obama is taking quite a different sort of opening tack from Washington. Perhaps it is broad rhetorical approaches that are changing; there's nothing inherently 'formal' about 'the', though it'd be informal to use a lot of ellipsis, which might include eliding the definite article. (For instance, if I'd started sentence two of his post 'Example give from political speeches...')

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/15/definite-article-radical-decline-last-century-research?CMP=fb_gu

Lesson Blog for AS and more...

Don't forget about the existence of the Park Language Lesson Blog, which is presently tracking AS lessons, and has archives of A2 Language Diversity and Child Language Acquisition lessons from previous years.


Invaluable for revision for A2s especially, and crucial to follow for current AS students -- just put your email in the box in the upper right corner (they may send you a confirmation email, so check your inbox!) and you'll have a summary of each topic winging its way to you a couple of days after the lesson -- I usually update on Mondays and/or Thursdays.

Medieval Tube Map

Fascinating to see the development of place names over the centuries -- and especially interesting identifying those places which couldn't have their modern names, because they are now named for things or people that didn't exist then...

http://londonist.com/2014/12/the-medieval-tube-map.php

Coffee and Chocolate -- 17th-century style.

This is a beautifully typeset advertisement for a coffee-house in London, extolling the benefits of coffee and chocolate for health 30 years after they were introduced to England. 

http://houghtonlib.tumblr.com/post/98737463496/click-here-for-a-zoomable-high-res-image-and-read

Poetry Words

Some interesting findings from this simple frequency-count project: http://www.robertpeake.com/archives/6676-top-poetry-words.html

The simple, human-experience words are striking; but also the fact about the frequency in poems of words unique in the corpus.

Colour Words Research

Amazing visualisation of research comparing English and Chinese words for colour. Interesting for the way they break down and classify the words, and very beautifully presented. 

http://muyueh.com/greenhoney/?utm_content=buffer552f3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Multilingual onomatopoeia

Nyan-nyan, boo-boo, guf-guf, goro-goro-goro. 

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/17/animal-noises-in-different-languages?CMP=fb_gu

Twitter search and analytics

Great find from A2 student Jess: this site enables you to search Tweets and other social media posts, and gives automated graphs of changes in usage over time. Great tool to gather language data, though remember that you need to do the thinking and choose your searches very carefully -- and this stream of data is always-changing.


http://topsy.com/

Dialect Blog

A useful guide to some key features of accents on this blog -- check the menu bar at the top for US, Irish and UK accents. Some omissions, but glance at the comments for helpful discussion of these.


http://dialectblog.com/