One to watch

AS English Literature students who studied Graham Greene's Brighton Rock may be interested to know that BBC2 are showing Rowan Joffe's film adaptation on 4th February at 9pm.

A review of the film can be read here:
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/89165/brighton-rock.html

Youth sociolect...'nuff said, innit?

From The Guardian's Radio & TV blog comes an interesting article about 'teen speak' and youth sociolect - from the perspective of the scriptwriters of E20 and Skins. Read it here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/jan/24/teens-tv-language

'Politics and the English Language': some "rules" to improve the accuracy of your writing

The Spring term marks the start of Unit 2 for AS courses, and Unit 4 for A2 courses - in other words: coursework time. English Literature courses will require you to write analytical academic essays and this can sometimes be daunting for A level students (the word count alone is scary for some of you at least!). A failsafe way of impressing the examiner - and your teacher - is to use appropriate language, and to make your writing clear and accurate.

In 1946, George Orwell wrote an essay entitled 'Politics and the English Language' in which he rallies against poor, inaccurate writing. AS/A2 English Literature students may wish to read this at it contains some helpful 'rules' when writing essays. AS English Language students may want to read it purely from the stance of the prescriptive v. descriptive debate surrounding language use.

You can read George Orwell's essay here. It makes for very interesting reading...