EnglishatKnutsford

Ideas to think about:

• An Investigation into the ways in which male and female writers covertly use gendered language in writing their ‘Dream Journey’ Original Writing.

• ‘Bush for Brains’ An Investigation into how George Bush uses language to justify military action on Afghanistan.

• ‘Transformers…Robots in Disguise’ An Investigation into the changes within children’s television programming over ten years.

• ‘The writers and illustrators [of comics and books] portray their own ideas of the real or an ideal world, showing implicit discrimination by sex’ – Just Like a Girl, Sue Sharpe, Penguin, 1976. To what extent do the differences in language used in two children’s annuals written in 1963 portray such gender bias?

• ‘Notorious Nanny in Child Death Shocker’ – An Investigation into how Judge Hiller Zobel’s summing up speech could have influenced the jury’s final verdict in the case of Louise Woodward.

• An Investigation into the content of teen magazines. Do they inform of the risks involved in sex or do they use sex as an entertainment strategy.

• An Investigation into the use of Politically Correct language. A comparison of Enid Blyton and J.K. Rowling.

• An Investigation into whether the presentation of the Royal Family in the press has changed from the 1950’s to the present day.

• ‘Those Who Can…Teach’ – How do teachers use different linguistic techniques to command authority in the classroom.

• An Investigation into how the Middle East Crisis was reported in a Lebanese as opposed to an English newspaper on June 21st 2002.

• ‘The Thatchill Speech’ – An Investigation into Margaret Thatcher’s 1982 Falkland and Winston Churchill’s June 1940 Battle of Dunkirk speeches.

• ‘Ooh er…Missus…No!’How has Political Correctness changed language use in comedy movies, with reference to the ‘Carry On’ films from 1968 and 1992.

• How does Tony Soprano use language to try to retain power with the women in his life and gain power over his psychiatrist?

• ‘Kung Fu Fighting in Saipan’ – How does the tabloid press attempt to influence public opinion when writing about national football teams?

• Graham Norton: Comedian or Chat Show Host? How does Graham Norton use language to create comedy within the chat show framework?

From Alan Thomas:

• Grandparents' language.

They were born in Jamaica, are black and speak BVE. Grandmother's job in UK involved more talking with British people; grandfather worked in a mill. Aim was to look at style change, i.e. choices from speech repertoire as they both spoke about childhood. Assumption was that they were more self-conscious at the start of the taping, and more relaxed at the end. To what extent did they style-shift, how, and were there differences between them that might be linked to gender?

• 1908 news feature on the future of the monarchy; comparable text published at the time of the Queen Mother's death. Similarities and differences?Why?

• Teachers' comments on A-Level work from Humanities and Sciences. Treated as the final part of IRF exchanges. Differences and similarities? Why? (Gender angle considered but poor data for this, so abandoned.)

• (For weak student): agony aunts' replies in a range of female magazines, in the context of creating a persona appropriate for the target readership.

• Football commentating: professional treatment of parts of a match, contrasted with amateurs covering the same events (BSky B, I think.)

• The ability of a four, five and six-year old to re-tell the story of The Lion King video.

• Asian family talking at home: code switching and mixing - individual repertoires related to social history, triggers for choice of main language (defined as underlying grammar), nature of switching and mixing.

From Paul Barnes

 

• Has text messaging changed society, language and communication?

• How language varies with age and generation.

• The different linguistic features apparent in radio and television rugby

• commentaries.

• A study of Estuary English.

• The language of 'Only Fools and Horses.'

• The language of the Sixth Form Common Room.

• The 'opening language' of women's magazine advertising.

• A study of the Luton accent and dialect.

• Language differences between football reports in 1932, 1952, 2001.

• Drama's debt to Greece for its technical terms.

• Three pieces of military oratory from three wars.

• How different London attractions are sold by their publicity.

From Norman Madden

 

• Talking Text: A study of emerging language forms in text messages and on Internet Relay Chat [a highly technical and detailed study by a very able student]

• Teacher-pupil interaction: a study of two English teachers taking lessons with year 7 and year 11 classes – the student investigated the different language strategies used by the teachers to deal with students of different ages.

• Has there been a change in female conversational behaviour since the studies carried out in the seventies and eighties?

• Gender differences: investigating the social conversation of small mixed groups of five year olds and fifteen year olds.

• The use of regional accents in television advertisements.

• How does the language of 6th formers vary between the common-room and classroom situations?

• Who actually interrupts more in conversations, males or females?

• An investigation into the use of minimal responses and interruptions in male and female conversational behaviour.

• Speech and language disorders and the effect they have on children’s interaction skills and behaviour.

• An investigation into the language differences between males and females in Year 7

• Do male 4 or 5 year olds show more authority in their speech than female 4 or 5 year olds?

• An investigation into gender differences in caretaker/caregiver speech.

• Comparing persuasive and rhetorical features in the speeches of two party leaders: Tony Blair and John Major at their party conferences in 1996.

• The language of TV weather reports [a weak project in the end]

• Comparing the language used in feature articles in magazines aimed at women and magazines aimed at teenage girls.

• How is power displayed in the language of political interviews on radio?

• The language of sports articles in the tabloid and broadsheet press.

• What the language of articles in New Musical Express and The Melody Maker tells us about the target audience for these papers.

• How language varies in the coverage of the same news story in the press and in radio and TV journalism.

• A comparison of narrative writing by year 7 and year 10 pupils.

• The balance of spoken and written features in text messages.

• The conversational nature of chat room exchanges

• A comparison of the conversational behaviour of young adult speakers in single-sex and mixed-sex conversations.

• Investigation of contemporary attitudes and responses to swearing: are there gender differences in the use of and responses to swearing?

• How a male teacher modifies his language to suit classes of different ages in order to maintain authority and power in the classroom.

• How do two stand-up comedians exploit language to make us laugh? [study of routines by Jasper Carrott and Eddie Izzard]

• What are the linguistic features of jokes which aim to ridicule or stigmatise certain social groups?

• The representation of political leaders in broadsheet newspapers.

• The language of charity advertising.

 

From AQA, via Norman Madden

Every year, the exam board makes all staff teaching the course assess a sample of previous coursework investigations. Below I list the topics covered in the last few years. WARNING: some of these topics are too generalised and lack a specific language focus so the final marks were low but they do indicate some of the range of possible things to investigate.

2003

• Investigation into the Language of Radio Telephony in General Aviation

• The Writer’s Bench – an investigation into the jargon and mannerisms within a subculture (study of an internet forum created for graffiti artists)

• Investigating gender differences in male and female text messages

• An Investigation of the Development of Children’s Writing between Year 3 and Year 6

2001

• An Investigation exploring the language features in female single-sex conversations

• The Language of Romance: a comparison of the language of romance in Pride and Prejudice (1813), At the Villa Massina (1958), The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous (1993)

• Comparison of the language devices used to create humour in Pulp Fiction and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

• What evidence is there to show that gender differences in language are present at an early age? A study of the language of two 3 year olds, one boy and one girl.

 

2000

• An investigation into the Child Language Acquisition of a Three Year Old and a Five Year Old

• How do speakers adapt their language when speaking to an adult with learning difficulties?

• Language Use in Internet Chat Rooms

• Yorkshire Dialect – Are We Running Out of Time to Save It?

1999

• Social class as portrayed through the language of popular soaps

• The command styles of the four Star Trek captains

• Fresh legs here! An examination of my own market stall patter

• Analysis of Internet language

1998

• Comparison of two TV adaptations of Pride and Prejudice with the original

• Is playground talk in 8 year olds different from classroom language and how far does teacher talk affect classroom language?

• Translation – comparison of different translations of the same text by two people with different levels of expertise in the two languages

• A comparison of the language of Pride and Prejudice and Pemberley [ a ‘sequel’ to the Jane Austen book written by a modern novelist]

1997

• Analysis of language use in children’s books – comparing how the language of two books is targeted at the child audience

• The language of A Clockwork Orange

• The Language of Teenage Girls’ Magazines

• Ideology and the Sun newspaper