Class Work for 28/09/15

Find and photocopy/print out three poems that relate to any issues in Language e.g. accent/dialect in Tom Leonard's 'The Six O'Clock News' or speaking in a second language in Sujata Bhatt's 'Search for my Tongue'. Write down a list of features/conventions of these poems. Plan and write one about language. Bring all this work to next lesson.



Three Poems that relate to issues in language: 

'Six O'Clock News' by Tom Leonard

'Search For My Tongue' by Sujata Bhatt

'Languages' by Carl Sandberg


List of Features and Conventions

'Six O'Clock News'

• Talks about societal attitudes to language, particularly how people perceive and judge others based on accent.
• At points, it ridicules the Glaswegian dialect in which it is written, this is ironic because it is written in that dialect. 
• It's main message is that people tend not to trust things said by people with particular accents and dialects, in this case Glaswegian Scottish, an issue that is often raised.

'Search For My Tongue'

• Discusses the experience of slowly forgetting your native language when forced to speak a foreign tongue.
• Talks about the difficulty of maintaining a level of proficiency in both mother and foreign tongues and how you can never 'truly' forget your native language.
• Uses metaphors of flowers and unstoppable growth to describe the strength of your foreign tongue.

'Languages'

• Talks about how and why languages change over time
• Uses metaphors of a river and a mountain, among others to convey the growth and adaptation of a language
• Uses hieroglyphics as an example of how language can fade, be forgotten and eventually die.

Write a Poem about Language

Language of the Tube

Fin Wilson

Step on at Oxford Circus

Short ride.

Destination Piccadilly.

Despite this,

Melting pot of tongues.

Mixed, matched.

English,

Bengali,

Punjab,

Arabic,

Cantonese.

All alight together,

as one.

The daily grind commences.