Friday, March 22, 2013

Who cares?

Who cares about English? While this is a question I'm increasingly asking myself - especially when I get given A level essays two weeks late, written on Hello Kitty notepaper and handed in with a cheery "It's crap!" - this post isn't part of my usual moaning about students these days and the need to do lots of work for the exam. Well sort of...

Who cares about English? This time, the question isn't aimed at the heavens, but at a panel of experts and kind-of experts. And the answer of course should be, "We all do", or at the very least, "I don't really care, but I can do a very good impression of caring for the purposes of my exam".

Anyway, have a look here where you can watch (and read the answers from) a panel discussion between four language lovers, including one of my favourite people, Henry Hitchings, and the rather unfortunately named Prudence Raper, from the almost as unfortunate Queen's English Society.

The questions they're addressing in this discussion are:“What are the effects of social media, such as Facebook, on English?” and “What is English, given that it is spoken in so many different countries?”, which are exactly the kinds of things a soon-to-be-revising A2 student should be thinking about.


Black British English vs MLE

The latest episode of Lexis is out and it features an interview with Ife Thompson about lots of issues connected to Black British English, i...