English Language
Selected English Language resources
Here are some examples of relevant materials and resources currently available through this site. Such materials may take the form of reports on events or on projects, Newsletter/WordPlay articles, or Case Studies. With your help, we aim to increase the breadth and variety of these resources over the following months. Our object is not to compete with but to complement those offered by the Languages Linguistics and Area Studies Subject Centre.
Stylistics and Literature / Language crossovers
Watch a video of Prof Ron Carter
presenting a plenary address from
the Subject Centre's 2003 conference
As a meeting ground for Language Studies and Literary Studies, Stylistics have been the subject of several events and projects. The productivity of bringing together forms of teaching drawn from both disciplines is briefly examined in a report on the Teaching on the Language-Literature Border event held in Sheffield in May 2005. A follow-up event was held at the University of Central Lancashire in May 2008. And Helen Day’s ongoing project ‘Learning on the Language-Literature Border’ examines ways of helping ‘lang lit’ students move between the elements of their degree. The Subject Centre, together with Richard Steadman-Jones (Sheffield University) is involved in editing a special pedagogic issue of the PALA journal Language and Literature (due September 2011).
Relevant too, though conceived within a more historical frame, is the ‘Word Webs’ project which aims to demonstrate how a knowledge of vocabulary, and of the ways words develop and interrelate, can illuminate the study of texts and the cultures in which they are embedded.
History of the Language
Old English online coursepack
This project involved the development of an online coursepack centred around the Old English 1st-year paper at Oxford bringing together texts, images and secondary material to assist teaching and learning.
Learning and Teaching with the Thesaurus of Old English and http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/oeteach/oeteach.html
This project exploits the potential of the electronic version of the Thesaurus of Old English by offering an online package containing subsets of data, notes on its use, and background information necessary for its interpretation. It was explored in a Newsletter article, ‘Learning with the Online Thesaurus of Old English’.
Wessex Parallel Web Texts: Developing an On-line Tutorial
The Word Webs project demonstrated how a knowledge of vocabulary, and of the ways words develop and interrelate, can illuminate the study of texts and the cultures in which they are embedded. Through the use of electronic resources, it explores two major linguistic areas of relevance to students of English Language and Literature: (1) The growth of the English vocabulary, and (2) The vocabulary of literature.
Transition
For some time, university schools and departments have needed to get a better picture of recent trends, changes and developments in the study of English Language in the A Level curriculum. Angela Goddard’s and Adrian Beard’s report establishes a comprehensive overview, providing helpful survey data and indicating significant conceptual distinctions in the ways in which English Language is studied. Paper copies are also available on request from the English Subject Centre.
Benchmarking
There is a discussion of the English Subject Benchmark in our resources area. While the English Benchmark makes some mention of Language study, English Language programmes are likely to need to draw on both the English Benchmark and that for Linguistics.
Eco-linguistics
The project ‘Awareness into action: linking learning with research in ecolinguistics’ explores how students can undertake research into the ecological dimensions of language use. Arran Stibbe reflects further on this project and its relation to an English degree in ‘Reading and Writing Society: the role of English Subjects in Education for Sustainability’.
The Student Experience
Read the runner-up essay to the 2008 student essay competition by English Language student Tom Hammond.
This project at York St John created a careers resource specifically for English Language graduates.
This case study describes an attempt to adapt the facilitation technique known in the business world as ‘Open Space’ to higher education, in particular to a second year English Language module ‘Language and Gender’.
The student as well as the lecturer and teacher experience was surveyed as part of the Beard and Goddard report As Simple as ABC.
