How do people use language to "style" themselves - to take on a particular persona or juggle between personae in interaction with others?

You are encouraged to reflect on your own experience, use your own examples, report views and cite examples from both the course material and other sources.

Question:

How do people use language to "style" themselves - to take on a particular persona or juggle between personae in interaction with others?

You are encouraged to reflect on your own experience, use your own examples, report views and cite examples from both the course material and other sources.

Student notes:

• This TMA is to be written in between 1400 - 1500 words.
• The main source of study material for this TMA topic is Chapter 3 of the textbook The Art of English: literary creativity and Readings A and B in the same chapter.
• There is also relevant material in the E301A Study Guide (Unit 3, pp. 29-41).
• The accompanying CD-Rom Bands: 7 (Messing with style), 8 (Language crossing) & 10 (Performance and performativeity) are useful too.
• Any other external resources you find relevant.
• Students are welcome to provide views and examples from their own cultural/linguistic background. These will be considered as an added asset.

Bibliography:

Suggested Resources:

1. Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of Talk, Oxford, Blackwell.

2. Hebdige, D. (1984) Subculture: The meaning of style, New York, Methuen.

3. Hewitt, R. (1986) White Talk Black Talk, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

4. Rampton, B. (2005) Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents, Manchester, St. Jerome Press; 1st ed. London, Longman.

Learning Outcomes (extracted and slightly adapted from: www.open.ac.uk):

These outcomes represent an initial draft that will need to be refined as the course develops. The course provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate the following learning outcomes:

1. Knowledge and understanding: You are expected to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

a) How English (and other languages) may be used creatively, both in everyday and more literary texts and practices;

b) The diverse forms that creativity/verbal art may take in English; how these relate to the affordance (being able to do or provide something without unacceptable or disadvantageous consequences) of different modes and media, genres and social/cultural contexts.

c) The role of different participants - authors, designers, audiences (listeners, readers, viewers) - in the construction of ‘artful' texts and practices;

d) Different theories of creativity/verbal art, including those that focus on ‘local' interactional functions and those that appeal to more general explanations - socio-psychological, neurological, evolutionary;

e) Different theoretical and analytical approaches to the study of English/language (including those that privilege texts, those that privilege contextualized language practices, those that insist on a critical approach to texts/practices) and the relative strengths and limitations of these approaches.

f) A wide range of terminology for describing English language texts and
practices.

g) How your learning in different parts of the course may be integrated according to the central conceptual strands of the course: how meaning is collaboratively produced through spoken, written and multi-modal communication; the relationships between language and context, language and identity, language and social/cultural diversity, language and power.

2. Cognitive skills: You are also expected to:

a) Critically evaluate the strengths and limitations of particular theoretical and analytical approaches to the study of language.

b) Apply different approaches to the study and analysis of spoken and written language (including linguistic/textual approaches, ethnographic and practice-based approaches, semiotic and multimodal approaches, literary approaches and critical approaches).

c) Describe and analyze both relevant formal properties of spoken and written texts and how these are used for a range of purposes by speakers and writers.

d) Use appropriate terminology to describe and discuss specific theories, concepts and evidence.

e) Synthesize different points of view, and personal research data in order to reach your own conclusions.

f) Relate theoretical concepts to concrete experience.

3. Key skills:

a) Read academic and other texts critically, identifying and evaluating positions and arguments.

b) Develop research skills, including the ability to gather, sift and organize material and to evaluate its relevance and significance.

c) Use ICT, including the Internet, to access information.

d) Select and synthesize the main points of information, or of an argument, from a variety of sources.

e) Exercise critical judgment about sources of evidence.

f) Develop good practice in the acknowledgement of source material and in the presentation of bibliographies, using appropriate academic conventions.

g) Construct a coherent argument, supported by evidence and clearly focused on the topic under discussion.

h) Present written work to a high standard using the appropriate register and style.

i) Evaluate your own writing, and respond to feedback about improving the effectiveness of writing.