Please could you indicate where I will find the work you completed for me during the cover lesson when I was unwell on 30th September, and the research you undertook on prescriptivism/descriptivism?

Language and Technology

research source
Key points:

the examiners advise them to study: the variety of language forms insofar as they are affected by

• the technological medium used for communication (e.g. telephone, radio, television, computer);
• the social functions that such media perform in both interpersonal and mass communication;
• historical and contemporary changes, where appropriate.

In particular, the guidance says, candidates should examine

• everyday functions and activities in context
• discourse features.

The examiners suggest that candidates should consider:

• advantages, sometimes called affordances or potential capabilities, enabled by such technology;
• constraints, as in entering text on a phone or keyboard;
• how technologies such as text chat and answer phone messages show features of interaction more commonly associated with spoken conversation.
• A second caution stresses the need for balanced answers - general comment needs to be related to specific details in the texts, while attention to these specific details needs to be illuminated by reference to theory and general ideas about language that they exemplify or challenge.

"

The study or use of electronic processes for gathering and storing information and making it available using computers.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Harlow, 2003

The use of computers and other electronic equipment to store and send information
Cambridge Learner's Dictionary, Cambridge, 2002 "
 

 Technology's link to language:
All technology influences language, in ways that are not always obvious. The development of transport systems, for example, leads people to move around so that language forms used in regional varieties may move into other regions. We use a metaphor such as "all guns blazing" to suggest the idea of an action performed with energy or aggression - so the technology of weapons extends the usage of everyday speech or writing.

Since technology is a means to extend man's reach, then it is necessarily connected to language, in the sense that both natural languages and technologies will be important in enabling us to do all sorts of things in almost any area of human activity. For example, we use aeroplanes to fly people and goods around the world. And we try to make this safer and more efficient by developing an air-traffic control system. That's language and technology working together for the common good. (And English is the language used in that system globally.)


Technology in use:
This uses one kind of technology (radio communication) to support use of language in conversations in an adapted form of international English, that pass on information derived from other technologies (radar, weather-forecasting systems), to the users of yet another set of technologies (the pilots of aircraft).

This may help us to distinguish between the technology in itself, and the things we do with it, from a linguistic perspective. In terms of modelling our ideas about technology and language, we may think

• first of the different technologies (printing, telephony, radio and TV, e-mail and so on)
• and only then about what we do with them.

Alternatively, we may think first of the kind of language interactions we make, and then of the technologies that enable this. In this kind of model, we might usefully think of

• levels of openness and privacy - is the language used in a public or restricted context?
• ownership of the communications - does an interaction or any of its results belong to anyone and if so, in what way?
• topology - are these one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many interactions, or something else?

Make-up/Skin Care blog post style models

Tanya Burr's blog (skin care tag) : http://tanyaburr.co.uk/?blog=blogs/archive/category/skincare/index.aspx
 Zoella's (Zoe Sugg) Blog (hair product review): http://www.zoella.co.uk/2013/09/my-new-favourite-hair-product.html

On both of these blogs they both maintain a friendly and informal tone. Both reviewing wither new products that they've been using or products that they've been loving for ages, they come with an experienced opinion on both products.
Through looking at these, I feel that it would be easier for me to write about a skin care product that I have been using for a while and that I would reccommend, then maybe do an additional post about how I apply my makeup on a daily basis.

Guided Study Activities- Graphology

"Find examples of iconic and symbolic signs, explaining their use and the context in which they occur."



Twitter

The Twitter logo can be noticed and recognised by near enough everyone and if this is new to you, where have you been sincee 2006?
Twitter is now the most used social networking site along side Facebook and Instagram.

We live in a world full of images, objects and artifacts that delight, excite and stimulate our visual senses. Logos help represent all that the marketing of an entity has promised in a single visual statement. The "Bird in a blue sky" logo for twitter immediately says "efficient, modern, simplistic" and more. The logo speaks volumes about an entity without needing to say a word.

Fairy Tale Ideas

Snow White: leaving home then moving in with 7 random men
                      women have no self confidence (talking mirror)
Beauty and The Beast
Cinderella
Alice in Wonderland:
The Little Mermaid: Disobeying your parents gets you what you want

all disney princesses in one house, all freaking out
snow white can't handle being around all the girls
sleeping beauty cant sleep
cinderella's OCD kicking in
goldilocks
repunzel
jazmin

Tips For Writing A Short Story

Helpful links: 

1. Write a Catchy First Paragraph
2. Develop Your Characters
3. Choose a Point of View
4. Write Meaningful Dialogue
5. Use Setting and Context
6. Set up the Plot
7. Create Conflict and Tension
8. Build to a Crisis or a Climax
9. Deliver a Resolution

•You will find it very useful to collect ideas for your story. Little snippets of information that you can expand on are key when getting started.

•When developing your characters, make sure you know way more about them than you're ever going to write about, this allows you to write about them properly.

•Decide who is telling the story; First, Second or Third person.

• Start small, and go for detail.

• Learn to look and use objects around you for inspiration.

• Try to use suggestiveness and gestures to give a sense of character and story.

• Research : avoid making factual errors when you describe an object or place.

• Beginnings and endings should have a powerful impact – try to revisit them.

• Work on your dialogue - by listening whenever you are with other people.

• Read some of your writing out loud - How does it sound?

• Get straight into the story. Something has to happen.

• Look at a critical point in someone’s life or focus on heightened moments.

• Make sure the story is carefully observed and quickly told.

• Leave the reader thinking - perhaps with a surprise twist.

How Am I Finding English?

The first bit of this half term went rather slowly, but that's expected since we were covering the basic grammar techniques.

Nevertheless, it was definitely helpful to go over grammar that I haven't been taught recently. Although, I'm still bound to make gramatical errors, especially with the lack of autocorrect on this blog.

 We've also been looking at how to link two texts together using linguistic methods to help us out with out exam in the summer. Mr Clifford came up with a very creative idea; to plant different texts all around the room and then to trust us with balls of string, and link each text with another. This then made the class room into a very interesting maze, looking something like this:

So far I can say that I've been enjoying English Language and I'm almost looking forward to starting the coursework since that sounds interesting. If we have more lessons that involve turning the classroom into a maze, we'd be onto a winner.