Spoken Language Essay Plan

GCSE task:

Topic - Social attitudes to spoken language:

What the examiners want to see - reflect on some aspects of your own idiolect (personal way of talking) perhaps include some criticisms of it made by adults.

Task: An exploration of how my own idiolect varies when talking to different people, and reflecting on the effect of this variation.

Transcribe

2 brief (no more than 8 lines per transcript) conversations where you ask for help with your homework. One should be with your teacher, the other should be with a friend.

Analyse the transcripts in class:

1. Mark on all examples of overt prestige, received pronunciation, Standard English, Jargon, idiolect, slang, elision, initialism, phatic talk, fillers, sociolect and paralinguistic features.

2. Analyse the effect these might have on the relationship you have in each case.

3. With the features you use with your peers, which are criticised by adults and why. Why do you use them? What effect does it have on the communication with your friends?

Plan your essay: 1000 words

Intro: introduce the idea that everyone has their own idiolect and suggest what factors might combine to create this.

Explain that people promote parts of their idiolect/ hide others depending on the person they are talking to and how they want to be perceived.

Explain that you are going to look at your own idiolect by analysing two different conversations you have had, one with a peer and one with a teacher and that you are going to analyse why this might be.

Paragraph 1 – looking at speech to teacher

Pick one aspect of speech you have used, explain what this shows about how you were trying to present yourself. Pick one aspect of speech that shows how your teacher has responded to you and explain this.

Paragraph 2 – looking at speech to teacher

Pick two aspects of speech you have used, explain what this shows about how you were trying to present yourself. Pick one aspect of speech that shows how your...