What we should all know about Dyslexia.

http://www.aapos.org/resources/learning_disabilities_/

Compulsory Education. The 3 R's.

Compulsory Education.

‘Elementary Education Act’ 1880 insisted on compulsory education attendance from 5 – 10 years of age. This was difficult for poorer families as it was tempting to send them to work to earn extra income. Attendance officers visiting homes of the children who didn’t attend proved to be ineffective. Children under 13 who were employed required a certificate to show they had reached the educational standard. 13 years later in 1893 came the ‘Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act’. This raised the minimum leaving age to 11. Later in the same year, the act was extended as well for the blind and deaf children, who previously had no means of education. The act was then amended in 1899 to raise the school leaving age up to 12.

The 3 R’s.

The 3 R’s refers to the foundations of a basic level education program within schools; reading, writing and arithmetic. Originally this phrase came from a speech made by Sir William Curtis in 1795. Reading and writing in modern education is literacy. This is having the ability to understand ideas expressed through words. Anything to do with numbers is numeracy.

1930s - 1970s texts

1940s toothbrush advert 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=1940s+toothbrush+advert&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=sm_iUtKAI66y7Abo0ICYBg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=929#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=rHlG21l5vysN8M%253A%3BqshQdkQNhC47nM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ffarm3.static.flickr.com%252F2726%252F4396012134_bc4eae3025_m.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fflickrhivemind.net%252FTags%252Fpepsodent%252FInteresting%3B500%3B229

The purpose of this advert is to persuade people to buy the tooth brush. The audience targetted are adults with families. It uses an expert opionion to do so 'dentist' and talks about the 'straight line' design to make it seem professional.

 

 

 

 

Harold Macmillan speech (Conservative Prime Minister of the UK from January 1957 - October 1963.)

Harold Macmillan's "Wind of Change" Speech

Made to the South Africa Parliament on 3 February 1960:

It is, as I have said, a special privilege for me to be here in 1960 when you are celebrating what I might call the golden wedding of the Union. At such a time it is natural and right that you should pause to take stock of your position, to look back at what you have achieved, to look forward to what lies ahead. In the fifty years of their nationhood the people of South Africa have built a strong economy founded upon a healthy agriculture and thriving and resilient industries.

No one could fail to be impressed with the immense material progress which has been achieved. That all this has been accomplished in so short a time is a striking testimony to the skill, energy and initiative of your people. We in Britain are proud of the contribution we have made to this remarkable achievement. Much of it has been financed by British capital. …

… As I've travelled around the Union I have found everywhere, as I expected, a deep preoccupation with what is happening in the rest of the African continent. I understand and sympathise with your interests in these events and your anxiety about them.

Ever since the break up of the Roman empire one of the constant facts of political life in Europe has been the emergence of independent nations. They have come into existence over the centuries in different forms, different kinds of government, but all have been inspired by a deep, keen feeling of nationalism, which has grown as the nations have grown.

In the twentieth century, and especially since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been repeated all over the world. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power. Fifteen years ago this movement spread through Asia. Many countries there, of different races and civilisations, pressed their claim to an independent national life.

Today the same thing is happening in Africa, and the most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different places it takes different forms, but it is happening everywhere.

The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.

Well you understand this better than anyone, you are sprung from Europe, the home of nationalism, here in Africa you have yourselves created a free nation. A new nation. Indeed in the history of our times yours will be recorded as the first of the African nationalists. This tide of national consciousness which is now rising in Africa, is a fact, for which both you and we, and the other nations of the western world are ultimately responsible.

For its causes are to be found in the achievements of western civilisation, in the pushing forwards of the frontiers of knowledge, the applying of science to the service of human needs, in the expanding of food production, in the speeding and multiplying of the means of communication, and perhaps above all and more than anything else in the spread of education.

As I have said, the growth of national consciousness in Africa is a political fact, and we must accept it as such. That means, I would judge, that we've got to come to terms with it. I sincerely believe that if we cannot do so we may imperil the precarious balance between the East and West on which the peace of the world depends.

The world today is divided into three main groups. First there are what we call the Western Powers. You in South Africa and we in Britain belong to this group, together with our friends and allies in other parts of the Commonwealth. In the United States of America and in Europe we call it the Free World. Secondly there are the Communists – Russia and her satellites in Europe and China whose population will rise by the end of the next ten years to the staggering total of 800 million. Thirdly, there are those parts of the world whose people are at present uncommitted either to Communism or to our Western ideas. In this context we think first of Asia and then of Africa. As I see it the great issue in this second half of the twentieth century is whether the uncommitted peoples of Asia and Africa will swing to the East or to the West. Will they be drawn into the Communist camp? Or will the great experiments in self-government that are now being made in Asia and Africa, especially within the Commonwealth, prove so successful, and by their example so compelling, that the balance will come down in favour of freedom and order and justice? The struggle is joined, and it is a struggle for the minds of men. What is now on trial is much more than our military strength or our diplomatic and administrative skill. It is our way of life. The uncommitted nations want to see before they choose.

The main purpose of this speech is to inform but slightly to persuade and the targetted audience is South African adults.

1970s leaflet

The purpose of this leaflet is to inform but mostly to persuade voters, which are the auidence who to vote for.

1930’s school outfit advert

The main purpose of this advert is to inform and persuade its audience (parents and carers of school children) to buy their products.

	1950s formal letter

 

The purpose of this letter is inform a man called John.

Language Borrowing

The famous novel Ivanhoe, by Sir Walker Scott is set in England. A couple of generations after 1066. French spoken by the new masters was beginning to flood the English Language. Two Saxon peasants were complaining about the way English names of things were getting switched to fancy French names. For example swine becomes pork.

Speakers of English are borrowing words from French called loanwords. Although copying would be a more appropriate name. People who use English have borrowed dozens of other languages all through history. The French languages own predecessor is Latin.

Following words were borrowed from Latin at a very early date; anchor, angel, butter, candle, cap, cheese, circle, copper, cup, dish, kettle, master, mint, noon, offer, pear, rule, school, seal, sock and tile. (And more).

These words have been assimilated into the language, its now hard to realise they were once aliens.

A few of the thousand of words borrowed from the French just after the Norman conquest in 1066: adorn, boil, boot, coat, collar, cover, crown, curfew, dinner, feast, fry, govern, jail, just, peace, peasant, pleas, prison, raisin, state, stew, story, treasurer, treaty.

English continued to borrow from the French. A few that are more recent and are a lot more easier to identity are; baguette, beige, cafe, camouflage, chauffeur, chiffon, consommé, croissant, déjà vu, entrepreneur, garage, limousine, maitre d, rendezvous, resume.

Historically developed from Latin	Later borrowing from Latin
Chef ‘head’	Capital ‘capital’
Chien ‘dog’	Canin ‘canine’
Livre ‘free’	Liberte ‘liberty’
Maison ‘house’	Mansion ‘mansion’
Mere ‘mother’	Matricide ‘matricide’
Noel ‘christmas’	Natal ‘native’
Nombre ‘number’	Numeral ‘numeral’

Early borrowing from French	Later borrowing from Latin
Crown	Coronation
Heir	Inherit
Navy	Navigate
Peace	Pacify
Royal	Regal
Rule	regulate

Early borrowing from Latin	Relatively recent borrowing
Bishop	Episcopal
Cheese	Casein
Dish	Disk
Mint	Monetary
Wine	viniculture

A few examples of borrowing twice from French:

Aid	Aide
False	Faux
Feast	Fete
Suspicion	Soupcon
View	Déjà vu

Sometimes we find a word that’s been shuttled busily back and forth between two languages. Germanic word that became our ward was borrowed into French a long time ago as garder and then this word was borrowed back as guard. Recently it’s been borrowed again as garde.

English is loaning to French on such a scale that the French coined the derisive term franglais.

A language can borrow not only content words but also function words such as pronouns, prepositions and ways of phrasing things.

All languages borrow from others and any lotion of ‘pure language’ is a myth.

Language change articles

harry ritchie - the guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/13/literally-broken-english-language-definition - Have we literally broken the English language? Well, no, but the redefinition of 'literally' leaves it in a rather awkward state. Perhaps it's a word best avoided for the moment

- Literally is the most misused word and now changed definition.
- Not just in a literal manner or sense but also now literally can be used to acknowledge strong feeling or empphasis.
- Didnt break language, just proved that language is organic - is it slipping out of control?
- Even when the word is used correctly, often a surprise to the listener.
- Not much we can do with the word other than avoid it completley.
- Literally been playfully abused since the time of Walter Scott, in 1827 before the electric light.
- Used to be fun and surprising in the 1800's, its getting a bit old now.
- Word has picked up lots of baggage, talking like a teenage girl for a decade.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10971949 - How the internet is changing language.

- 'To Google' has become a universally understood verb and many countries are developing their own internet slang, not everyones up to speed with the language change.
- In April 2010 the informal online banter of the internet-savvy collided with the traditional and austere language of the court room.
- "Rickroll is a meme or internet kind of trend that started on 4chan where users - it's basically a bait and switch. Users link you to a video of Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up,"
- "The internet is an amazing medium for languages,"
- "Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly."
-  "Computer slang is developing pretty fast in Ukraine,"
- For English speakers there are cult websites devoted to cult dialects - "LOLcat" - a phonetic and deliberately grammatically incorrect caption that accompanies a picture of a cat, and "Leetspeak" in which some letters are replaced by numbers which stem from programming code.
- Txt spk , one language change that has definitely been overhyped is so-called text speak, a mixture of often vowel-free abbreviations and acronyms, says Prof Crystal.
- "People say that text messaging is a new language and that people are filling texts with abbreviations - but when you actually analyse it you find they're not," he said.
- Stephen Fry once blasted the acronym CCTV (closed circuit television) for being "such a bland, clumsy, rythmically null and phonically forgettable word, if you can call it a word".


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/11/capitalism-language-raymond-williams - Be a user, not a cconsumer: how capitalism has changed our language - Capitalism is altering our language - and Raymond Williams saw it coming more than 50 years ago.

- According to a report by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles, English has become a peculiarly capitalist language – though they don't quite put it like that.
- Some academics would rather not use the c-word. What has happened over those 200 years was the rise to dominance of capitalism, which obviously changed, and changes, our language and thinking.
- The researchers discovered a more algorithmic and superficial version of something that the Welsh socialist writer Raymond Williams had already tried to uncover – the way that English had become a class language, where loaded words (and, as he often pointed out, pronunciations) were accepted as "standard".
- In Communications (1962), Williams looked more closely at the use of martial metaphors in the press – "bomb", "hit", "battle", "bout" – macho terms that immediately attempt to determine the reader's opinion on a given subject without explicitly doing so. In The Long Revolution, Williams also took a closer look at the word "consumer", a word we now use entirely unthinkingly to describe the "consumption" of everything from shoes to food to health care.

- Even a word as central to the current debate as "austerity" comes with its own bias: originally from the Old French austerite meaning "harshness or cruelty", it carries in Britain also a positive meaning, being associated with the self-restraint at the expense of the public good which was required by the wartime economy, when nowadays it is used to justify policies that effect the exact opposite. But to reveal the pernicious assumptions behind these professedly innocuous words will take more than a sophisticated search engine.
 

 

 

link to the guardian - its time to challenge the notion that there is only one way to speak english and links to radio 4 word of mouth baby talk

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/31/one-way-speak-english-standard-spoken-british-linguistics-chomsky

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mfwjz