Presentation

Requirements A five minute presentation with a minimum of 6 slides Group size maximum of three Everyone has a speaking role Interaction with audience a must: presenters must ask at least three questions of the audience or set them a short task.

Content Largely determined by the topic you choose. However, some discussion of context(s) will be central to all presentations, e.g. relate discussion of language to social changes. Examples must be used to support and clarify points. When dealing with lexis, conduct proper research into words using tools such as the OED to find etymologies etc. Incorporate findings into your presentation.

Topics How social media and other technological developments are changing language in the 21st century How language today reflects changing ideas about gender roles An analysis of a conversation you have recorded and transcribed as an example of 21st century spoken language Five American slang words that English doesn’t currently have but should Five British slang terms that I would give to American English and why The differences between UK and Australian English Is English an Indian language? “You ain’t no muslim bruv”: Multicultural London English in the 21st century "Int it?" v "innit?" Are people in the North sounding more Southern these days? Five new words that reflect the changing context of 21st century society Five words that English has borrowed from foreign languages since the year 2000 and what they tell us about our changing society Five words that have taken on different meanings recently – how? Why?

Wider reading You must demonstrate that you have used professional sources, such as: The Oxford English Dictionary online Google Ngrams British Library timeline of English Etym online.com A David Crystal article Babel magazine via the library VLE

Remember the levels: Lexical and semantic change: words are being added to the language all the time – but where do they come from? Grammatical change: is the way we construct sentences changing? E.g “I’m from London, innit?” Phonological change: how is the way we pronounce words changing in 21st century Britain and beyond? Graphological change: new technology allows us to be ever more creative with how we present our writing; images too are increasingly easy to integrate with writing  Orthographic change: how has spelling changed? Pragmatic change: what 21st century attitudes/knowledge are evident?

Remember the levels: Top: clear, well-researched, curious about the topic; good eye-contact with the audience; sense of having discovered something new; attractive, well-constructed slides that communicate effectively; good task. Middle: clear, well-researched, soundly presented; decent task/questions. Low: cut and pasted research from Wikipedia; too much text on each slide; presenters just read out the text; little interaction in terms of task/questions.