HELP! How does one ENGLANG?

[recess]

Hey guys! Can you share how you studied/study for Englang and memorise the metalanguage?

I can memorise the terms for my other subjects quite well, but just can't get the same passion or the motivation for metalanguage, eventhough Englang is one of my fave subjects.

[TheAspiringDoc]

Ok I'm doing 3/4 this year, so I'm no expert, but:

-it's all about practise
-you don't need to get watertight definitions for terms in Lang; you'll never be asked for a definition. Just know the general meaning for each term (which you'll quickly pick up through exposure), and learn the EFFECT each each linguistic strategy has on a discourse. For example the use of diminutes (e.g. Dave-O) reduces the formality and increases social solidarity, helping to establish closeness and rapport and reflecting the users' casual but close relationship.
-read through assessor reports for a general overview of what's important

P.s. 1/2 is pretty annoying, CLA acquisition is really irrelevant to 3/4 (albeit interesting)

[recess]

Thanks , I'm doing Englang 3/4 this year too rip

[Bri MT]

I learnt the eng lang metalanguage through having a list of all terms that I would go back to and try and define all the terms from memory and give an example.
As you practice or gets quicker to do it so it's not very time consuming after the first few tries.

I also liked to think about why that was the term for it,  consider etymology etc. which aids memory

[exit]

More exposure is always better

I reckon theres some metalangauge that is quite difficult so I see where you are coming from. I didn’t know the difference between Coherenc and cohesion for a while and just slowly grasped it ‘naturally’

In my opinion, using the metalanguage in short answer questions and analytical commentaries regularly solidified it in my brain. It is a good idea to find a good system of memorising metalanguage Some ideas: creating glossary/tables, regularly reading various metalanguage notes, create tests, think of examples for each metalanguage. You don’t need to memorise specific definitions

[strawberry7898]

I support what others have mentioned, first write down a quick definition in your own words then write down an example of each term, if there's any terms for which you struggled, ask your teacher or ask here on the forums. Next, try to apply the terms, whenever you see a billboard or ad or whatever, try to explain the language in it using the metalanguage. Maybe even sit down with your list next to you when you do analytical commentaries and short answer, eventually some of the words should register into your memory and you should be able to remember them without having your list with you. To make life even easier, maybe start grouping them into formal and informal language, or spoken and written language, and according to the AOS rather than just have them grouped by subsystem. However, be careful with this as you might get to a point where you don't notice things that weren't on your grouped list.

Hope that helps

[Joseph41]

Hey guys! Can you share how you studied/study for Englang and memorise the metalanguage?

I can memorise the terms for my other subjects quite well, but just can't get the same passion or the motivation for metalanguage, eventhough Englang is one of my fave subjects.

Hey recess! Glad to hear you broadly enjoy English Language; in my opinion, it's the very best VCE subject availble.

There's a fair bit of metalanguage to learn, and you're right: some of it can be pretty difficult. In fact, there are two full pages of it listed on pages 17 and 18 of the study design. It's actually pretty good of VCAA to do this; they could have easily just had the terms scattered throughout the entire study design.

Having this list of terms gives you a great opportunity to get your notes (and knowledge) sorted. Throughout the year, I worked on a metalanguage glossary of sorts. I've only skimmed the posts above, but I'd imagine this advice is pretty consistent. I think the key for me was having relevant examples, and then linking those examples in my mind to the concepts I was learning. So for sentence structure, for example, my examples were all based on footy, which I knew really well and was heavily interested in. I never forgot those example sentence structures, because they weren't just ones that I had rote learnt, but ones I made up myself. If you have one really solid example for each piece of metalanguage, you're well on your way.

If you're struggling for motivation, try linking what you're learning to what you see and hear around you. Trust me: it's actually a whole heap of fun being able to linguistically analyse the ways in which your friends speak.