A2 Laptop Lesson

Afternoon A2

Today you can start with some terminology games on this website. Spend around 20 minutes having a go - they will refresh your memory on linguistic terminology you may have forgotten.

Next, browse a few online dictionaries. Choose a word and look at the entry for this word over several dictionaries. Do it a few times and look at a range of words (formal/technical/colloquial etc.) and look at the list of conventions that are used and think about this - how do they help the audience to gain a full understanding of the word and its uses? You can use Urban Dictionary too, and look at the comments. You might get a dictionary entry in the exam, but it will be a long one like the Oxford English Dictionary online (not the same as the Oxford Dictionary Online) which is a subscription service - so you need to have a good pragmatic understanding of dictionary conventions when we look at them in class. Note the conventions down on your blog.

When you finish this, log in to Cambridge Elevate and search for chapters 16-22 which are on Language Change, and work through these independently. The texts you can get in your Language Change question will be from 1700 in and as we learned on Tuesday you will have 2 questions, one is a single text and one is a comparison, and they could either be diachronic or synchronic.

After this, if you still have time, find an article that displays prescriptive attitudes to language change. Annotate it with which of Aitchison's metaphors for prescriptive attitudes are evident and explore how the attitudes are communicated. Put a summary on your blog as we will be looking at this in tomorrow lesson.

Enjoy!