The English language is the richest and most diverse in the world. Studying how it works and is put together is a discipline in its own right, and Language courses across all the main A Level exam boards have become increasingly popular.
Yet any linguistic analysis involves can involve a bewildering array of semantic fields and technical lexis, as students attempt to apply fresh skills to meet exam requirements.
Help at hand
New Language resources being launched today are designed to do three things:> to help you get a handle on what technical terms mean in practice
> > to demonstrate methods of analysing texts
> > > to provide guidance on how to shape your answer so that you really engage with relevant Assessment Objectives.
We show you the kind of responses examiners are looking for and and even provide some downloadable activities to test yourself on.
Written by experienced Language teachers and current examiners, you’ll find what you need at Aspects of Literature > Studying Early Modern Language
Language change
The UK has a centuries old written heritage, so it’s not difficult to find evidence of the changes English has undergone. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by looking at how one text is presented in different eras.Given the Christianised Western cultural heritage of Britain, it’s not surprising that the Bible has been copied and printed in English over hundreds of years. Its central message has been handed down in a variety of translations designed to meet the needs of their day.
Translated in the era of Shakespeare’s later work, The King James Bible is a memorable example of Early Modern English. Its impact has lasted for centuries, until the pressure for modern versions became overwhelming in the late twentieth century. You can see language change in action when you compare the KJB to the accessible Good News Bible of the 1970s for example, or the gender neutral Today’s New International Version of the noughties.
So it makes sense to analyse this text in order to understand the processes which have shaped linguistic change and that is exactly what the new resources do. And because the Bible is unfamiliar to many, they are accompanied by helpful articles which explain the jargon and provide useful ways into the text.
Ready-made resources for teachers
The good news for English Language teachers is that all the new material is available as downloadable pdfs so that it can easily be used in the class or at home, whether there is internet access or not.Check out the Crossref-it.info English Language Resources and discover we’ve done the hard work for you!
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