Where are we at?

[thushan]

Hey guys - Term 1 Holidays. Where are we at in terms of (Don Watson would kill me for using that) our study? And anyone who is frowning at my title, I know you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition.

At my school we've covered Area of Study 1 and looked at the various English varieties in Australia and attitudes etc. Atm we're looking at grammar, but I've gone further and tried to dissect jargon, slang, euphemism/dysphemism and I'm now tackling doublespeak. Using mindmaps to do this.

Problem is, when looking for examples in the paper, I see what I think is doublespeak, but I'm not sure whether the doublespeak was intentional, unless the journalist was in support of the actions described in the article...OK i may sound like a dumbass here but your thoughts?

[helenv]

Hmm, at our school we've covered Area of Study 1 as well and we doing jargon/slang/euphemism/dysphemism now too.

I was just wondering: how are you tackling doublespeak using mindmaps? Also how would you dissect jargon/slang/euphemism/dysphemism? Just wondering. 

I'm not sure how you would find doublespeak in the paper, I've just searched it up on the internet <-- pretty sure that's not the right way to do it!

I don't know about the journalist thing (I would suggest something except I'll sound crazy and stupid) but I'm just pretty much finding examples of politicians who doublespeak.

Sorry, wasn't much help!

[thushan]

Haha, um what I did was split say jargon into categories of "function" "features" and "attitudes" and then branched out from there and linked the three themes. So like, i list the features of jargon, and then link to "function" by saying how the features are conducive to function etc etc.

[schnappy]

We have our first SAC coming up, on ethnolects and identity (AOS1)

[Ghost!]

We've had two SACs so far, the first a simple language test that wassssss, way back in week two I think. The second was a fortnight ago and was an essay on variation according to user, was pretty happy with my marks scored roughly 41-42 out of 50.

Over the last week we started discussion on jargon, slang and euphemisms/dysphemisms.

How are people finding EL as a subject so far? Difficult, easy enjoyable?

Personally, I really enjoy EngLang because I find the course work interesting and somewhat more relevant to my own life in comparison to other studies.

[Hodgeyhodgey]

So far we've done AOS1 and had the first SAC which was split into 3 different sections and completed over 3 modules. A 60min metalanguage test, 3 text responses and a 500 word essay on varieties of english (teenspeak, ethnolects, aboriginal).
I think my marks were 52?/60, 44/50 and 43/50. Don't quote me on those because I can't remember what my actual marks were :/

Either way, it turned out to 87% or something, second highest in the class. Not doing any extra work over the holidays because I'm not too interested in english, I'm just planning on working hard and getting As/A+s on SACs and winging the exam haha

[thefeminist]

Just finished AOS1 - our SAC was comprised of two hurdle tasks (S/N) and then an essay on an ethnolect using a pre-done case study. The hurdle tasks were on attitudes towards AusE over time and the differences in AusE accents.

We didn't get any holiday homework (thank god!), but quite a few of us are attending free Monash lectures, which are good prep for AOS2. Planning on doing a few practice essays before school (and homework) starts up again, but apart from that, it's all good.

I absolutely love englang! It's probably easier for me because I'm studying linguistics, but our teacher is really awesome and makes it engaging. Unfortunately, he also makes it so engaging you don't actually feel like you're learning, so when you think back, you can't really remember a thing ==;;

[thushan]

Yeah, our first SAC was a lot more mundane - it was simply a set of extended response questions based on AOS 1...got 23.5/25 (47/50) which was okay I guess, least I was rank 1 though

Englang IS awesome! Only issue is that if your teacher isn't capable of controlling the class...like my teacher tries, and I think he knows his stuff, but I dont think he's very good at teaching a class in general - I resorted to seeing him out of class. Least he marks essays really harshly - so I always have room for improvement...

[golden]

Just finished AOS1 - our SAC was comprised of two hurdle tasks (S/N) and then an essay on an ethnolect using a pre-done case study. The hurdle tasks were on attitudes towards AusE over time and the differences in AusE accents.

We didn't get any holiday homework (thank god!), but quite a few of us are attending free Monash lectures, which are good prep for AOS2. Planning on doing a few practice essays before school (and homework) starts up again, but apart from that, it's all good.

I absolutely love englang! It's probably easier for me because I'm studying linguistics, but our teacher is really awesome and makes it engaging. Unfortunately, he also makes it so engaging you don't actually feel like you're learning, so when you think back, you can't really remember a thing ==;;

UMEP Linguistics - nice!