Dan Clayton and his English Language Blog

Dan Clayton- Language and Gender
http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.co.uk/


Here are some links that address language and gender from a representation perspective.


Slutwalks
Everyday Sexism
Pyramids of Egregiousness
Calm down, dear


How language and gender make the news.
 The Guardian and Mail Online report the same story, use different sources, experts and language techniques to frame their views.
 Not only do you get a good sense of how language can be part of a wider battle about gender roles and social inequality but you also get a lesson in language discourses.

What is meant by 'discourses'? If you want to get academic about this topic here's what the linguist Paul Baker has to say about it in his book about language, gender and sexuality.

Useful links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08cr6wf
http://ed.ted.com/on/J8K2Y1qP
http://ed.ted.com/on/BKYwjkkg
write questions -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdCjKH5IKJ8
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/07/how-to-write-an-essay


Dan Clayton links
http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.co.uk/
http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/tackling-nea-language-investigation.html

What do you mean by language? Which frameworks/language levels will you analyse? Will your focus be on lexis & semantics, syntax & morphology, phonology, pragmatics, discourse structure, graphology, interactional features, or a mixture of these? Will it be specific features of language within these headings, such as adjective use, tag questions, hedging, narrative structures etc? Think carefully about defining what you mean by language. We will probably need to see both depth and range to award the highest marks.

Which people? You can't make blanket generalisations about women and men, boys and girls, young and old, so think carefully about whose language you might want to explore. If you set out to 'prove' that women do x and men do y, you'll probably come unstuck because different people behave very differently in different situations. Be aware of this and be tentative and exploratory in your approach.

Which texts and which times? Think very carefully about the texts that you select. Why are you choosing these texts to analyse? What's your rationale for looking at (say) advertising of hair care products for women rather than shirts for men? What do you expect to change in the language used to advertise them and why might this be happening? Which time periods are you going to select and why? Do you expect major changes to have taken place over 20 years? It's possible with some products, but a longer time frame might give you more to work with.

Which newspapers? Which sections of them? From which times? What kinds of immigration? Don't assume that all papers have consistent lines on these issues. Some of them will argue different positions on the same day, depending on who is writing the piece. Think about delving into older, archived articles; there are loads of really interesting ones online and they might give you some useful reference points. How will you explore the idea of representation and what it means? Will this mean that particular frameworks are more useful than others?

Which people and which forms of social media? Twitter is not the same as Facebook and web forums are very different to Instagram. Narrow it down and think about what it is you want to explore.