Year 12 Homework w/c 25/1/16

Sorry everyone - been a while since I wrote on here. I will get back into the habit.

This week we have rounded off our introduction to the topic of language and gender. We have discussed different ways in which society is sexist (both a historical perspective and more recent examples) and how this is mirrored by the language we use. We have learnt the difference between sex and gender, and we have discussed the topicality of the word 'transgender': this is a fast-moving area of language study! We have discussed the concept of socialisation and we have touched on the theories of language and thought (Sapir and Whorf). Finally, we have looked at a range of texts (both modern and older texts) and analysed how the different genders are represented within these texts.

We have learnt the terms: androcentric, derogatory language, pejoration, semantic derogation, lexical asymmetry, subordinate, promiscuous. 

See here to recap our lessons this week:
Lesson 1
Lesson 2

Homework: due Tuesday lesson (group I share with Mrs Morgan) / Thursday lesson (group I share with Miss Moody)

Your next assessment is a writing task. Question 3 of paper 2 asks you to write an article for a non-specialist audience. This means that you are writing for the general public, not A-level language teachers or students, therefore you should assume no prior knowledge of English Language study.

Task: Write an opinion article in which you discuss the issues of gender representation in modern texts. Before you start you should state your intended audience.

Homework (suggested time 2 hours)

1.  Go to the language section of The Guardian website: https://www.theguardian.com/science/language
2. Read a selection of articles. Have a browse around. Read what takes your fancy. There are articles on there about accents, gender, children’s language (a Y13 topic).
3. Choose one that you like the look of and a) summarise it in bullet points, or one neat little paragraph (like we did in class) b) what do you notice about the way the article is written? Underline at least three language features that you recognise from today’s lesson, or that you think are good examples of language to use in this type of article. Label them if you can (eg uses first person plural pronoun… uses modal auxiliary verbs…)
4. Draw together your notes from the last 3 lessons. We have covered a variety of ideas and you have been given some handouts to read. Make sure you have read them. Using your chosen method (bullet points, mind map) compile some ideas that you might want to use in your article. 

Still got time to spare?! Deborah Cameron (an important gender theorist we will be studying after half-term) has written a response to the debate this article refers to on her blog. It would be a useful read: https://debuk.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/a-rabid-feminist-writes/