Study Guide Book 1

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First published 2006. Reprinted with amendments 2007.

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SUP 77985 7
1.2
Contents
Introduction
Unit 1
The art of the everyday
Unit 2
Telling stories
16
Unit 3
Putting on the style
29
Unit 4
Childs play
42
Units 5--6
Language and creativity
52
Unit 7
Making connections with new technologies
63
Unit 8
Writing the self
71
Unit 9
Literacies, collaboration and context
78
Unit 10
The 19th-century communication revolution
88
Unit 11
Locating creativity in texts and practices
95
References
111
Introduction
Welcome to E301 The art of English. Through the course as a whole we

explore what is variously described as linguistic creativity or verbal art in
English. We take a broad approach to the topic, ranging from language play in
informal talk between friends to canonical poetry and Shakespearean theatre.
Organising your study

The course is divided into units, each consisting roughly of a weeks work.
The core of each unit is usually a chapter from one of the two course books
(The art of English: everyday creativity and The art of English: literary
creativity), or sometimes a selection of readings from one of the two set
books. Alongside this there are related activities based on each of the
two CD-ROMs, as well as activities that take you to the course website
(E301 eDesktop) and beyond. Some activities have been designed to help
you develop study skills appropriate to third level study.
Each unit is structured as follows:
.
a summary of what materials you need to study that week.
a list of learning points specific to the unit.
study notes guiding you on the reading you need to do that week;
activities relating to the CD-ROM, eDesktop and other material

to be done that week.
The different components that make up the course are explained in the
Course Guide and we suggest that you read this carefully before beginning
on the course in earnest. It would also be useful to look through the
Assignment Guide to familiarize yourself with the course assessment strategy,
and the course Study Calendar. The learning outcomes -- a list of what you
can expect to achieve from studying the course -- are contained in the
Assignment Guide.
Dividing the course into discrete units or weeks of work is mainly a matter
of convenience: it helps the course team ensure they plan an appropriate
balance of activities, and it helps you pace your work throughout the year.
But we expect that you will wish to exercise some judgement in organizing
your work. The main thing is to complete the work in each study guide in
time, and to be sure you are up to date when you come to write your
assignments. The timings for reading and activities serve as a rough guide.
Some optional or extension activities have been included. Each weeks work
should take about 12 to 13 hours, but you may wish to specialize, spending
more time on some activities and less on others. While we have tried to
design an effective structure for the course, you should be able to chart a
pathway through the materials depending on your interests and experience.
INTRODUCTION
Use of additional material

Additional academic reading
The E301 course materials, including the two set books, make up the core of
the course, and there should be enough academic reading material here for
you to complete the course. In the course books we sometimes refer to
sources (books or articles) that extend the ideas discussed in particular
chapters. You may wish to follow up some of these if you have an interest in
the topic discussed, and of course you may draw on any relevant material
in assignments, but you do not need to draw on such additional materials to
complete the course successfully.
The E301 eDesktop contains links to other sites relevant to E301, and we
include some web activities that direct you to these sites and also help you
search for and evaluate additional internet sources. This is to help you develop
some basic research skills that are appropriate to third-level study. You will be
able to draw on some of this work in assignments. You may wish to carry out
further searches on topics of particular interest, and such work may enrich your
study of the course. Bear in mind, though, that this can be time-consuming and
that you do not need to seek out additional material to pass the course.
Technical terms are explained where they rst occur in the course books.
This should be enough support, but if you wish to explore concepts further
we recommend two sources:
Swann, J., Deumert, A., Lillis, T. and Mesthrie, R. (2004) A Dictionary of
Sociolinguistics, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press (more relevant
to the first part of the course).
Wales, K. (2001) A Dictionary of Stylistics, Harlow, Longman (more
relevant to the second part of the course).
Personal examples of creativity

A major argument of the course is that creativity in language of one sort or
another is all around us, and we therefore encourage you to collect and
analyse your own examples. These may sometimes serve as data for an
assignment. You will be familiar with this type of data collection if you have
studied our second-level course on the English language (U210 The English
Language: past, present and future until 2006; U211 Exploring the English
Language from 2007). Further guidance will be given on this in the notes
for each unit.
Using the CD-ROM

For many of the study guide activities you will need to refer to resources which
are provided on the E301 CD-ROM -- video bands, audio bands, transcripts and
video stills. To install the software, switch your computer on and put the rst
STUDY GUIDE 1
E301 CD-ROM in the CD drive. The installation program should start to run
automatically. If this does not happen, click on the Start button on the bottom
left of your screen, then click on Run, type D:\start and click the OK button.
(If your computers CD-ROM drive is not D:, substitute the appropriate letter.)
Once the installation program has started, follow the onscreen instructions.
The software only needs to be installed once. Subsequently, when you put an
E301 CD-ROM in the CD drive of your computer, the E301 Media Kit will start.
If you would like more detailed instructions about using Media Kit, read the
help le built into the program. Click on the Help button at the top of the
contents screen.
The course eDesktop

The E301 eDesktop is a course website that has been created as a central
point of access for course-related material for you to use during your studies.
It is managed by the E301 course team and may be updated at intervals
during the course of your studies. The eDesktop contains links to the latest
course news, the study calendar, conferencing, course resources and library
resources. You can nd more detailed information in the Students guide
to the eDesktop, or you can explore it yourself by clicking the link on the
OU StudentHome page: http://www.open.ac.uk/students.
Using Study Guide 1

In the part of the course covered by Study Guide 1, the focus is on everyday
creativity. Units 1 to 6 consider spoken language, and guide you through the
first set book, Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk. In Units 7
to 10 we turn our attention to various aspects of written language and literacy,
while the final unit provides an overview of the first part of the course. Study
Guide 2 will focus on literary creativity, but you may notice that we begin our
study of everyday creativity by mirroring the traditional distinction between
the major genres of poetry, narrative fiction and drama, with the first three
units of Study Guide 1 focusing in turn on the poetics of conversation,
conversational stories, and the performance of identity in interaction with
others.
For this rst part of the course, you need to use Study Guide 1 in
conjunction with the following materials:
.
Course book 1: The art of English: everyday creativity.
Set book: Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk, by Ronald
Carter.
CD-ROM 1: Everyday creativity.
You will also need access to the E301 eDesktop and the internet.
The art of the everyday
This unit of study

During this week you should:
Familiarize yourself with the course materials -- Course Guide, Study
Calendar, Assignment Guide, and E301 eDesktop (allow 2--3 hours).
Work through the following course materials and corresponding
sections of this study guide:
Introduction and Chapter 1 of Book 1, The art of the everyday (allow
about 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 1, Common talk (allow about 40 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 2, Bilingual puns (allow about 40 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 3, Why play with language? (allow about 40 minutes).
Data collection and analysis: puns and word play (ongoing).
There are no Web activities in this unit: it will simply be helpful to explore
the eDesktop and familiarize yourself with the material it contains and the
links to other useful sites.
Learning points
The work in this unit should enable you to understand and critically evaluate:
.
ideas about everyday language being full of verbal art that takes various
forms depending on the context and serves particular functions within a
given conversation;
the argument that there is some continuity between such everyday

artfulness and literary language;
the argument that the presence of creativity in everyday spoken language

has benefits both for the individual and for the human species as a whole;
different models of literariness that underpin these arguments, including

inherency, sociocultural and cognitive models;
different approaches to the study of spoken language, including those that

focus on textual properties and those that pay more attention to the social
and cultural contexts in which language is produced.
STUDY GUIDE 1
Study notes: Course book 1, Chapter 1

Chapter author: Joan Swann, The Open University.
Reading authors: Ronald Carter, Professor of Modern English Language,
University of Nottingham; Guy Cook, Professor of Language and Education
at The Open University; Lynne Cameron, Professor of Applied Linguistics,
University of Leeds.
In the opening chapter, Joan Swann introduces current arguments about the
prevalence and signicance of creativity in everyday talk, and how these
ideas are blurring the distinction between what has previously been seen as
literary and ordinary language. These ideas are discussed here in relation
to poetic features in spoken language; but the basic argument -- that creative
language use occurs in a wide range of everyday contexts -- runs through
other chapters in the rst course book.
As you read, look out for:
.
the idea that there is some continuity between everyday and literary
language: Ronald Carters suggestion that there is a literary cline or
continuum, so that texts may be more, or less literary.
the different forms taken by verbal art: Ronald Carters distinction, in

Reading A, between pattern-reforming and pattern-reinforcing
examples.
Carters distinction between inherency, sociocultural and cognitive

models of literariness, and how these relate to discussion in later readings
and examples.
the argument that verbal art is functional in interactions -- for example,

it may create a friendly atmosphere, but equally it may be used in a more
hostile way. All three readings make this point, while Section 1.5 looks
more closely at the functions of humour in specific contexts.
the wider benefits associated with verbal art. In this respect see
particularly Guy Cooks argument in Reading B about potential cognitive
and evolutionary benefits (this is followed up in an interview with
Guy Cook on CD-ROM Band 3).
the argument that metaphor is not simply (or even mainly) a literary
device, but that it is an inherent feature of language and the human mind,
and that literary metaphor builds on and extends everyday metaphor. In
Reading C, Lynne Cameron looks at the use of metaphor in educational
and medical discourse.
the different approaches to the study of language use (textual or more

contextualised) that are evident in the readings and examples. Ronald
Carters corpus-based approach to linguistic creativity is discussed
further on CD-ROM Band 1.
UNIT 1 THE ART OF THE EVERYDAY
A note on terminology
There has been extensive study of the formal properties of literary
language, and there is a wide range of terms used to describe this. Some
of these will be known to you but others are less common . This may
be your first encounter with meronym, for instance, mentioned by
Carter in Reading A! We provide a brief gloss where technical terms
occur, but you arent expected to remember all of these. More important
terms are set in bold type when they first occur, and are explained in
the chapter.
Activities
CD-ROM Band 1: Common talk (duration approx. 11 minutes)
Featuring: Ronald Carter, Professor of Modern English Language, University
of Nottingham.
Ronald Carter is the author of Reading A and also of the set book
for this part of the course, Language and Creativity: The Art of Common
Talk. Most of his work in the area of everyday creativity is based on a
study of examples from the CANCODE corpus of spoken language
at Nottingham University, which he has been partly responsible for
developing.
In the CD-ROM band he talks about this research. Whereas electronic
corpora such as CANCODE are conventionally used for gathering
evidence about word frequency, word use and word meaning for
dictionaries, Carter has also used the corpus as a source of evidence about
creativity in language. He talks about the kinds of evidence provided by a
corpus such as CANCODE and the value of this approach to the study
of creativity.
ACTIVITY 1
40 minutes
Please listen to Band 1 and consider the following questions. (You may need
to play all, or parts, of the band more than once.)
.
.
.
What kinds of insights does the corpus provide into everyday creativity?
What does Carter see as the strengths and limitations of this approach?
How does this relate to any notes you made on Chapter 1, Reading A
in the course book?
10
STUDY GUIDE 1
Comment
I found it interesting that Carter stumbled on linguistic creativity almost
accidentally while using CANCODE. As in Reading A, he talks about the
prevalence of creativity -- a judgement supported by the substantial body of
evidence he is able to draw on. He refers to the mobile earrings example you
have already seen, but explains this further. On the basis of his research, he
sees people as frequently engaging in creative activity, and he also sees
creativity as co-created -- developed in interaction with others. This contrasts
with the traditional view of the lone poet in a garret.
Clearly, the sheer size of electronic corpora is one of their strengths. It enables
researchers to have reasonable condence in any linguistic patterns they
discover. Carter refers, however, to the difculties of nding an entry point.
Researchers usually search for particular words or grammatical structures.
Carter can predict that certain word forms, such as -ish suffixes, are likely to
be associated with creativity, as is laughter, which is transcribed in the corpus.
However, almost by definition, creativity is also unpredictable, which makes
discovering examples partly a matter of chance.
CANCODE also contains background information on speakers and settings,
allowing Carter to say something about the contexts in which creative
language is used. The discussion of Reading A on pages 8--9 of the course
book saw this contextual information as relatively limited, and Carter concedes
that in comparison to ethnographic studies of language use, he has limited
insights into what creative language may mean to speakers in particular
contexts. He clearly feels, however, that CANCODE provides a useful balance
of quantitative and qualitative information. What are your own views on this?
(Note that Ben Ramptons research, mentioned by Carter, will be discussed in
Chapter 3 and later, on CD-ROM Band 8, Rampton discusses how he goes
about doing ethnographic research. There will be an oppor tunity then to
evaluate further these different approaches to the study of language.)
CD-ROM Band 2: Bilingual puns (duration approx. 9 minutes)
Featuring: G.D. Jayalakshmi, freelance media consultant; R. Amritavalli and
S. Upendran, Professors in the Centre for Media and Communication, Central
Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.
In Band 2, G.D Jayalakshmi talks to R. Amritavalli and S. Upendran about
their work on what they have called the humorous bilingual. They consider
how bilingual speakers in India use the resources of both their languages to
create humour, and especially how they create bilingual puns. Joan Swann
(Chapter 1, p. 5) cites one example from their original (1990) paper and
comments (Chapter 1, p. 6) that these kinds of puns are commonly used in
India between both children and adults, but are also used in public
discourses such as advertising and newspaper headlines.
Amritavalli and Upendran discuss the forms taken by bilingual puns and give
examples. They also talk about how these puns are used and what they might
mean to speakers.
ACTIVITY 2
40 minutes
Listen to the discussion on Band 2 and consider what Amritavalli and

Upendran say about the way people draw on the resources of different
languages and cultures to create puns. How does this relate to the discussion
of puns and other forms of word play in Chapter 1?
Comment
The puns mentioned clearly depend on considerable cultural as well as
linguistic understanding. For example, listeners need to recognise references to:
Valmiki, the Hindu sage traditionally regarded as the author of the Ramayana
epic; Janmastami, the festival of the birth of the Hindu god Krishna; Kailas, a
Himalayan mountain where the God Shiva is said to live; and the pseudopodia
(false feet) of amoebae.
Formally, the humour results from playing with and adapting or stretching the
sound systems of both languages. The Mickey Mouse pun, for instance, relies
on a similarity in pronunciation between Wall Mickey and Valmiki, even though
their pronunciations are not identical: the initial sound of Valmiki is somewhere
between a /v/ and a /w/ sound and does not exist in most varieties of English.
No doubt you noticed other examples. This distor tion of the sound systems
itself probably contributes to the humour.
The speakers also comment on the signicance of speakers bilingual and
bicultural understandings, noting that bilingual punning creates a shared
community but also plays on a tension between two cultures. How far do you
agree with Upendran that bilingual punning is particularly creative because it
requires considerable thought on the part of speakers/listeners?
More about puns

Puns are created by playing on ambiguity in the meanings of words.
Punning can involve the exploitation of polysemy, where a word has
two (related) meanings -- perhaps one literal and the other figurative;
or it may involve the use of homonyms -- words that look or sound the
same but have completely different meanings. Near-puns (or stretched
puns) occur when the pronunciation has to be distorted to produce the
effect, or where two words are blended together to sound similar to
another word. Puns can also play upon the similarity of meaning or
sound between words from different dialects or languages.
11
12
STUDY GUIDE 1
An example of a bidialectal pun playing on Geordie (Newcastle upon

Tyne dialect) and more standard pronunciations: Geordie feels unwell
and staggers along to the doctor. The doctor examines him and says,
You seem a bit wobbly, can you walk? Geordie however hears this as
work and replies, Can I [wO:k]? Ah canna even [wa:k]! The pun plays
on the similarity in pronunciation between work in Geordie and walk in
RP or near RP. It does lose something in the explanation!
Puns have often been disparaged as a worthless form of wit. Puns and
other forms of word play are, however, often used as a literary device famously in Shakespeares plays and James Joyces novels.
The term paronomasia is sometimes used for puns and similar word
play. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes Alexander Popes
description of: The Paronomasia or Pun, where a word, like the tongue
of a jackdaw, speaks twice as much for being split. (OED online)
CD-ROM Band 3: Why play with language? (duration approx.

11 minutes)
Featuring: Guy Cook, Professor of Language and Education at The Open
University.
Guy Cook is the author of Reading B in Chapter 1 and also contributes
a reading to the second course book.
In this band we asked Guy Cook to expand on his ideas in Reading B about
the cognitive and evolutionary benets of language play. He discusses these
and other explanations for language play, and also suggests that the potential
cognitive effects of play may be related to our sense of literary quality. The
band is divided into three sections: Explanations of language play,
Evolutionary advantage --- a speculative explanation? and Play and literary
quality.
ACTIVITY 3
40 minutes
Listen carefully to Band 3 and identify the main points in Cooks argument.
You may wish also to look back over any notes you made for Reading B.
How persuasive do you nd what he is saying?
Comment
Cooks arguments have to do with the ubiquity of language play. For Cook,
similar phenomena occur across different types of language use, both serious/
profound and more trivial. While he makes less of this in the CD-ROM
band, it is clear from the reading that he regards language play as universal comparable uses of language [to Cooks examples] can be found in many
times, cultures and languages (Course book 1, p. 43). In his discussion of

explanations of language play, Cook suggests that local explanations
(e.g. expressing aggression or affection) do not seem fully to account for
its prevalence. He therefore argues that we need to look for more general
explanations. One explanation might be that mastery of language is an asset,
so it is valuable to keep practising this. But Cook also argues that there may
be cognitive benefits in the surrender to linguistic form (the production of
novel connections and new ideas -- schema refreshment, in Cooks terms).
An impor tant point here is that not all language play will have these effects in fact, most will not. The argument, rather, is that play has the potential to
produce cognitive benefits. Note Cooks analogy here with genetic mutation.
In terms of evolutionary advantage, Cook suggests that play with language may
help to perfect skills with language and give individuals a competitive edge; it
may also encourage creative thought, and greater adaptability. Cook concedes
that his arguments are speculative. This is necessarily the case in relation to
potential evolutionary benets, where evidence is limited. He is, however,
taking account of contemporary evidence of the ubiquity of play and trying to
provide a convincing explanation.
Cook relates this argument to our sense of literary quality. Language play that
is more able to challenge existing ideas, and refresh mental schemata,
constitutes a better use of language -- this is a criterion of literary quality for
Cook. How do you respond to this argument? Note the points made by
Lesley Jeffries and Elena Semino (see Chapter 1, Section 1.3) that literature
(high quality language play, in Cooks terms) need not refresh mental schemata
but may also pleasurably reinforce them. These arguments about literary
quality will be discussed further in the second course book.
Data collection and analysis: puns and word play
ACTIVITY 4 (EXTENSION ACTIVITY)

Ongoing
Make a collection of examples of puns and other types of word play used in
different everyday contexts. Although this part of the course focuses on
spoken, informal language, you could extend your search to more formal
contexts and to writing. Consider how your word play works linguistically, the
function(s) it seems to serve or the effects that seem to be intended, and
whether you think it achieves these.
If you want to make more serious use of your word play -- e.g. in an
assignment -- you should note impor tant contextual information, and also any
potentially interesting features you could refer to in your discussion, as in the
examples below.
13
14
STUDY GUIDE 1
Word play examples

Masquito
Recorded: April 2004
Participants: A -- female, 20s, student; B -- male, 20s, also student, As
partner; C -- female, 50s, lecturer; D -- male, 50s, university administrator;
C and D are As parents.
Setting: Paris, on grassed area in centre of boulevard, outside A and Bs
flat. A and B are working temporarily in Paris, C and D are visiting.
A has been talking about a mosquito that bit B at night, but not her:
A:
Normally Im the one that gets bitten but this time its him.
C:
Must be a male-oriented mosquito -- all that male blood.
A:
Is that a masquito did you say?
Notes:
This involves play with sound/meaning. The replacement of /a/ by /a/
gives a nonsense word that is a blend of mosquito and masculine.
There is frequent joking in this conversation and the word play seems
generally to contribute to an informal, friendly atmosphere.
Note especially the collaborative nature of play -- and compare this with
Carters comment that creativity is co-created (e.g. CD-ROM Band 1).
Masquito would not have occurred without male-oriented mosquito.
Squirrel
Recorded: November 2003
Participants: several, female and male, mainly middle aged, university
lecturers, research students, secretaries and administrators. One
participant is a research student who has just had a viva for her PhD
and passed. Others include the external examiner, supervisors and
colleagues. In the extract below, the external examiner is male; A is a
lecturer, female; B is a professor and head of department.
Setting: Open University, departmental office; participants are
celebrating over drinks. The external examiner is telling a story about a
car he saw going by with a squirrel inside, looking out of the window.
Ext.:
... and theres this car with a squirrel in it, looking out the
window, and its just driving along, you know.
A:
(quietly) Really clever squirrel.
B:
(standing next to A -- hears this, laughs and says more loudly)

Oh yeah -- was it a good driver?
(laughter)
Notes:
Play here seems to involve grammar: the pronoun it, in the first turn,
refers back to this car, but the syntax is potentially ambiguous. A and
then B playfully re-interpret the pronoun as referring to the squirrel.
This is another friendly, good-humoured occasion, characterised (at this
stage) by non-serious, joking conversation. The example contributes to
this, evoking laughter.
Again, the language play is collaborative. As quietness may be to do
with the risk attached to this sort of joking behaviour. Compare this with
Carters argument that pattern-reforming play involves a risk -- it may
not work. In this case B, who is of higher status and may be more
confident, is prepared to take a greater risk; the joke does work
(laughter); and, in Carters terms, B potentially wins enhanced regard.
15
16
Telling stories
This unit of study

During this week you should work through the following course
materials and the corresponding sections of this study guide:
Chapter 2 of Book 1, Telling stories (allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 4, Mbelos story (allow about 20 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 5, Womens conversational stories (allow about 1 hour).
Transcription activities: different transcription formats (allow about
1 hour 10 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 6, Sample stories (allow about 2 hours).
Data collection and analysis: narratives (ongoing).
Learning points
.
the argument that telling stories is one of the primary and universal ways
through which people convey their experiences;
theories about the basic form and structural elements of narrative, and
about the functions narrative performs in human interactions;
the idea that evaluation is a key element in conversational narrative;
the argument that storytelling is important in constructing the identity of the

narrator and the relationships between the participants in an interaction;
the importance of cultural knowledge and background in the listeners

understanding of the structure and meaning of a story.
You will also gain experience in transcription, and in the collection and
analysis of narrative data.

Chapter author: Michael Toolan, Professor of Applied English Linguistics,
University of Birmingham.
Reading authors: Neal Norrick, Professor of English Philology, Saarland
University in Saarbru
cken; Mary Bock, Honorary Research Assistant in the
UNIT 2 TELLING STORIES
English Department, University of Cape Town; Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Professor

of Linguistics and English, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Following the argument in Chapter 1 about the pervasiveness of poetic
language in everyday language, Michael Toolan argues in this chapter that
storytelling is similarly ubiquitous in human interactions, and that it
represents a primary means by which we convey our sense of the world and
our identity to other people. Like poetic language, conversational storytelling
is also seen as an essentially creative activity that serves important functions
within interactions.
.
how the approaches to narrative discussed in the chapter move from

Labovs mainly textual focus on narrative form to approaches which are
more concerned with social interaction, and wider socio-historical and
cultural influences.
the analysis of the example narrative (Alisons story), and the role of the
Orientation, Complicating Action, Resolution and Evaluation.
discussion in the chapter text and readings of the interactional and

cultural functions served by narratives. In Readings A, B and C, note in
particular how narratives may help construct certain social and cultural
identities.
how narratives conserve cultural tradition and also depend upon specific
cultural knowledge for their understanding -- a major focus of Reading C.
the extent to which Readings A, B and C may be related to Carters

inherency, sociocultural and cognitive models of literariness.
An issue arising from the consideration of narrative creativity in this chapter is

the extent to which storytellers perform identities for themselves and for the
other personae in their stories. Performance is further examined in the next
chapter.
Activities
CD-ROM Band 4: Mbelos story (duration approx. 3 minutes)
This extract from the South African lm The Guguletu Seven, made by
Lindy Wilson, includes an edited version of the story reproduced by Mary Bock
in Chapter 2, Reading B. Thapelo Mbelo told Wilson his story in an interview
when she was collecting material for the film.
On 3 March 1986, the South African Police Special Branch (Vlakplaas) killed
seven young black men at a crossroads in Guguletu, a township near Cape
Town. The Special Branch had been informed that terrorists were planning to
attack a police bus. The film tells how ten years later, investigators from the
South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission discovered that the
17
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STUDY GUIDE 1
young men had been trained, armed and organised by a police informer,
Jimmy Mbane, who told the police exactly what was planned. In this short
clip from the film, Thapelo Mbelo, a member of the Special Branch, explains
what happened. In the last minute of the film clip, we see Mbelo answering
questions from the lawyer at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
hearing.
ACTIVITY 1
15--20 minutes
Please now watch Band 4, the extract from The Guguletu Seven.
What does hearing and seeing the stor ytelling add to the analysis of the
transcript in the chapter reading?
Note: Because the extracts in the lm have been edited, the story does not
correspond exactly to the transcript analysed by Mary Bock.
CD-ROM Band 5: Womens conversational stories (duration
approx. 10 minutes)
Featuring: Jennifer Coates, Professor of English Language and Linguistics,
Roehampton University, London.
Jennifer Coates is well known for her research on language and gender,
and particularly for her studies of informal conversations between women
friends, which are discussed in her book Women Talk: Conversation
between Women Friends (Coates, 1996). For Coates, talk plays a vital part
in the construction and maintenance of friendship, and the construction
and maintenance of (gendered) identities. Her discussion of narratives is
based on evidence from a corpus of 20 conversations between groups of
girls and women of different ages (from 12 years old to early 50s), from
different geographical regions in the UK. Their social-class background
ranged from upper working to professional middle class. The speakers
were all British and all white so it is important to note that the patterns
Coates found in her data may not generalise to speakers from other
cultural contexts.
Elsewhere, Coates (2003) has also discussed gender differences in
narratives, arguing that mens stories are more often focused on plot
and on personal achievement, and womens on characterization and
relationships; and that womens stories are, in various ways, more
collaborative than mens.
For the CD-ROM band we asked Jennifer Coates to discuss some of the
characteristics of the womens narratives in her data, and to talk us through
an example.
ACTIVITY 2
15 minutes
Before listening to Band 5, look at the transcript below of a narrative that

Coates refers to on this band. Think carefully about the way it is structured.
Does it seem to fall into the narrative structure identied by Labov?
In so far as you can tell from a written transcript, how well does this seem to
work as a narrative? How does the narrator bring the story, and its central
character, to life?
My mother and the jogger
(Narrator)
Shes a major embarrassment <LAUGHTER>.
Do you know what she did recently?
She took- shes got these 2 Dobermans who are really unruly but very sweet.
She took them for a walk on the beach one day,
and this was at the height of the Rottweiler scare (yeah),
and this joggers running along the beach at Liverpool,
and Rosie, her dog that she cant control,
decided to run along after the jogger
and bit him on the bottom (oh, oh no).
10
And this man was going absolutely mad,
11
and my mother started off by being nice to him
12
and saying Im terribly sorry, shes only a puppy and she was just
being playful and so on,
13
and he got worse,
14
and the more she tried to placate him, (yes)
15
the more he decided he was going to go to the police station and

create a scene about it.
16
So she said, let me have a look,
17
and she strode over and pulled his- <laughs> pulled his track suit
bottoms down,
18
and said Dont be so bloody stupid, man, theres nothing wrong with
you. Youre perfectly all right.
19
(at which point) he was so embarrassed he just jogged away.

<LAUGHTER>
(Friend)
20
Oh that would that would be the sort of thing she would do.
(Narrator)
21
Thats just what shes like shes (very) funny ...
19
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STUDY GUIDE 1
Comment
The story seems to t well into the Labovian framework. A possible abstract
can be identied at lines 1 and 2, orientation at lines 3--7, and then
complicating action beginning at lines 7--8 (Rosie ... decided to run along after
the jogger). The resolution comes at line 19, where the jogger jogs away. Lines
20 and 21 could be a coda, bringing us back to the present. There is plenty of
evaluation during the narrative, with direct speech (embedded evaluation in
Labovs terms) used to bring the character of the mother to life. For Coates,
the representation of speech plays a key part in narratives. In relation to
another story, she has commented:
It does not matter whether these people actually said what they are
represented as saying; the narrator animates her characters as part of the
creative act of telling a story. There is an immediacy in direct speech which
would be missing if the speakers words were merely repor ted.
(Coates, 1996, p. 98)
ACTIVITY 3
45 minutes
Please listen to Band 5, noting what Coates says about creativity in everyday
narratives, in particular how narratives are structured (e.g. linguistic patterns
and themes), how speakers shape the story in a particular way and how
stories are used to construct an identity.
You may need to play the jogger story itself a few times, listening to it on its
own and with the transcript. Does your view of the story change on hearing it
performed? How far do you agree with Coates interpretations?
Transcription activities: different transcription formats
Your work during the rst six units of the course focuses mainly on spoken
language -- usually, though not entirely, language used in interaction with
others. In order to analyse spoken interaction, researchers need rst to
transcribe this. Transcription raises a number of issues about the
representation of interaction in written form. Researchers need to make
choices about how best to do this. Such choices are not neutral, however the way interaction is transcribed is likely to facilitate certain interpretations
over others. It is in this sense that transcription has famously been referred to
as a form of theory (Ochs, 1979), rather than simply a way of recording
speech. Michael Toolan (Chapter 2, p. 70) made a similar comment on Mary
Bocks transcription of narratives in Reading B:
I found the analysis convincing and Bocks way of transcribing and
representing the narratives useful -- in the case of Batemans narrative,
grouping the transcription into stanzas highlights the structure of the

overarching narrative as well as the existence of internal mini-narratives that
can be analysed in their own terms. Note, however, that this is clearly an
interpretative overlay rather than something unquestionably embedded in the
tellers talk. Such framings are an inescapable part of transcription; a transcript
without stanzas would be a different framing, not the absence of any.
If you have studied one of the English language second level courses, U210 The
English Language: past, present and future or (from 2007) U211 Exploring the
English Language, you will have already studied transcription and perhaps
made some transcriptions of your own. Here we review and consolidate this
activity. In this unit we look at transcription formats and the representation of
turn-taking, in Unit 3 at the detail of transcription conventions for representing
speech, and in Unit 4 at the inclusion of nonverbal information. The study of
transcription is a good way of increasing understanding of spoken language
(in this unit, conversational narratives and how they work), and it can also help
you to evaluate other peoples research into spoken language.
ACTIVITY 4
40 minutes
Look through the transcriptions of interactions and narratives in Chapters 1

and 2. Focus on transcription formats -- how transcripts are laid out. Look
particularly at how speakers different turns are represented. Do the formats
selected seem to be useful -- are they clear to the reader and do they seem
to suit the purposes of the research?
Comment
Most transcripts of interactions use a standard layout, with speech represented
in consecutive turns. There are often devices to indicate overlapping speech e.g. the use of square brackets in Norricks transcripts in Chapter 2, Reading A:
Jean:
Helen:
You could go over there around the holidays and get smashed
before you left [the place.]
[Oh yeah. ]
Sometimes short turns (e.g. minimal responses that indicate conversational

support) are represented as asides -- set off in brackets within a longer turn,
as in Carters example 2 in Chapter 1, Reading A:
A: Oh yes, I mean they were all eager to get on it they were really
looking forward to being the chosen ones [B: Mm] and he was one of
the ones who was called up [B: yeah] and he was getting ready to go
and the chief petty officer came back and said, oh no its a mistake
Sometimes narratives are represented as continuous paragraphs, as in the case

of Alisons story in Chapter 2. On other occasions, clauses are represented on
separate lines, as in the case of Boots story. This makes it easier to carry out
21
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STUDY GUIDE 1
a formal analysis, such as identifying Labovs narrative structure (abstract,

orientation, complicating action, etc). The most complex layout must be that
of Mary Bock, who in Chris Batemans story (Reading B) analysed larger
episodes and mini-narratives within these episodes.
In some cases (e.g. Alison, Boot) the narratives have been elicited, and are
monologues or near monologues, but similar conventions may be used where
narratives crop up in conversation, as in Jennifer Coates transcription of
My mother and the jogger above. In this case, separating out a narrative for
transcription tends to foreground the contribution of the main narrator -- a
single speaker holding the floor to tell a story. Norrick, by contrast, indicates
more of the interaction and gives a sense of joint construction of narratives.
Norricks narratives are more collaborative, of course, but transcription may
highlight this element or play it down. The box below illustrates alternative
transcriptions of a segment of My mother and the jogger.
My mother and the jogger transcriptions

1
Extract as represented in published form, showing narrative clauses

but no interaction (Coates, 1996, p. 100):
and bit him on the bottom.
Extract as transcribed in full by the course team for the audio band:
Extract transcribed in standard dialogue layout:

A:
B:
A:
... and Rosie, her dog that she cant control, decided to run
along after the jogger and bit him on the bottom
Oh, oh no
23
ACTIVITY 5
30 minutes
This activity looks at another way of representing joint activity in interaction. The
box below illustrates a stave format used to transcribe a narrative (the narrative
itself is also represented separately in a neatened up format). The stave format
was developed by Jennifer Coates and is particularly useful when you want to
transcribe talk in which several speakers participate, often simultaneously. The
term stave was coined by analogy with musical staves. This type of transcript
represents talk from all speakers in the same stave (on separate lines), rather
than separating out turns by individual speakers. All the lines are to be read
simultaneously, like a musical score. For Coates, this makes the relationship
between different voices easier to grasp -- in this case we can see all the activity
going on around the main narrative and that contributes to this.
Please work through the transcript -- rst identify what is going on, then consider
how effective you think this format is. Do you agree with Coates that it is easier
to see the relationship between voices than in a conventional dialogue
transcript? Stave transcripts are not easy to read at rst -- you will need to spend
a bit of time seeing how the format works. If you wish, you could re-transcribe
a short extract in a dialogue format to compare this with the stave format.
Quiz transcription
In the interaction below, Janet tells a story about her daughter Vicky
taking part in a quiz. Mr Lee is a teacher at Vickys school, and Janet is
pleased that her daughter managed to draw with him in the quiz.
1
Stave transcript
______________________________________
1 JANET:
ooh I must tell you/
Vicky- you know the quiz Vicky goes to
______________________________________
2 JANET: on Wednesday? =
= she drew with Robin Lee=
=last night/
= mhm =
MEG:
MARY:
((xx cant guess))
HELEN:
= oh = <LAUGHS>
______________________________________
3 JANET: <LAUGHS>
MARY: <LAUGHS>
HELEN:
SALLY:
JEN:
((she
its quite lucrative this idea as well/ not only is it<LAUGHS> ((xxxxxxxxxxx))
what dyou
______________________________________
4 JANET: got)) two fifty/

its a- its a pubMEG:
<CHUCKLE>
HELEN:
in a- in a pub
JEN:
what dyou mean its- its
______________________________________
24
STUDY GUIDE 1
5 JANET: they have this little quiz/

and apparently Mr Lee goes
HELEN:
<LAUGHS>
______________________________________
6 JANET: now/ and Vicky was absolutely deLIGHTed/

she BEAT him /
HELEN:
<LAUGHS>
______________________________________
7 JANET: well she didnt beat him/ she came- she drew/
MEG:
youd love those Jennifer/
______________________________________
(Adapted from Coates, 1996, pp. 135--6)
Janets narrative transcribed separately

1
ooh I must tell you
2
Vicky- you know the quiz Vicky goes to on Wednesday? [mhm]
3
she drew with Robin Lee [oh <laughs>]
4
last night <laughs>
5
she got two fifty
6
in a- in a pub?
7
its a- its a pub <laughter>
8
they have this little quiz
9
and apparently Mr Lee goes now
10 and Vicky was absolutely deLIGHTed [<laughter>]
11 she BEAT him
12 well she didnt beat him
13 she came- she drew
(Coates, 2003, p. 112)
CD-ROM Band 6: Sample stories (duration approx. 8 minutes)

This band includes four examples of stories which you are asked to listen to
and relate to your study of narrative. The stories also allow you to practise
transcription, and for this reason transcripts are not included in the CD-ROM.
1
Stealing a chicken (about 3 minutes)
This is an example of an elicited story: a man is asked by his family to tell his
granddaughter a story before she goes to bed. He tells her a series of stories
about when he was young, of which this is one. The family comes from
Newcastle upon Tyne, in the north-east of England (if youre not familiar with
the accent you will need to listen carefully). The events in this story took
place in the 1920s during the Depression, a period when many people in
Britain were out of work and trying to survive on limited resources. Its a
story about how the young man and some friends stole a chicken intended
for a meal held for army ofcers. Names mentioned in the story include the
Drill Hall, a venue often used for dances, and the Leazes park.
The story was audio-recorded by a member of the family. Participants here are
the storyteller, his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
2
Tunnel game (under 1 minute)
This very brief story is told by a boy, Sean, in the course of a BBC recording
made for another Open University course, U212 Childhood. The boy was
thirteen at the time, and lived in Oakland, California. Sean was filmed playing
with his brothers in one of his favourite places, Diamond Park. In a separate
interview he talked about playing in the park, and the story was told as part
of the explanation of a game that involved running through a tunnel. You
hear the explanation of the game and then a brief narrative which gives its
origins.
Participants during the narration of the story are the boy and an Open
University academic carrying out the interview; also present were a sound
recordist, a camera operator and Seans two brothers Chris (10 years) and
Andrew (8 years).
3
Kitchen oor (about 1 minute)
The story here comes from Jennifer Coatess data on womens talk. It is told
spontaneously as part of an informal conversation between friends. It is part
of a story sequence (mirroring stories, in Coates terms), in which stories on
a similar theme follow on rapidly one from another. The theme here is the
inadequacies of men, and this is the fourth story in the sequence. You hear
rst the end of the previous story about eating from paper rather than a plate,
then the narrator comes in with her kitchen oor story. This is the same
person who told the story of My mother and the jogger, and the same group
of friends is involved. In this case, though, there is more interaction around
the story.
Participants include the storyteller and 2 female friends, one of whom audiorecords the conversation.
4
Stories about mothers (about 3 minutes)
These stories emerged during a BBC Radio 4 Womans Hour discussion broadcast
to mark Mothers day. Participants in the discussion were talking about their
experience of mothering. As in the example above, these stories form part of a
sequence. In this case, the stories are very brief, often fragmentary, rather than
being discrete stories as in the other examples.
Participants include Martha Kearney (Womans Hour presenter), Stephen
Armstrong (journalist), Shappi Khorsandi (comedian) and Lynda Bellingham
(actor).
25
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STUDY GUIDE 1
ACTIVITY 6
40 minutes
First listen to the stories. You may need to play them more than once to hear
what is going on. In some stories the speech is rapid, or there is quiet or
unclear speech, or overlapping speech. This is not unusual, however, and is one
of the challenges of transcribing spoken language!
Select one story that you nd interesting, or perhaps two that contrast in
some way. Does your story seem to illuminate the work you have done on
narrative this week? For example, does it exemplify or provide a contrast with
the discussion of narrative by Michael Toolan and the reading authors in
Chapter 2 of the course book, or by Jennifer Coates on CD-ROM Band 5?
What can you say about: how the story is structured; in what sense the story
is creative; how other participants contribute to this, if at all; what functions
the story seems to full in this interaction and how it achieves these? Think
about how you would transcribe this story -- given what you want to say
about the story, which format would work best?
ACTIVITY 7
1 hour 20 minutes
Now try out one of the transcription formats discussed above. Transcription
is time-consuming, particularly if you are looking out for detail such as
overlapping speech (one estimate suggests a minute of talk takes 15 minutes
to transcribe, but a detailed transcript may take longer). If you are transcribing
to illustrate overlaps and similar features, you may wish to transcribe only part
of your narrative. If any speech is difficult to decipher you can represent this
by a series of crosses in brackets -- we went along (xxxx). If you are not sure
about a word but feel you can make a guess, put the guessed word in
brackets -- so she goes into the (garden). As you replay the recording you
may find that some of these words become clearer.
How does your transcription work? Does it seem to be effective? Does it have
any shortcomings? Does the act of transcribing affect your interpretation of the
story, and if so, how?
Your work on the narrative(s) may feed into an assignment, and should also
inform your study of spoken interaction in later units.
Data collection and analysis: narratives

To add to your data le of creative language use, you may wish to record and
transcribe a narrative of your own. Activity 8 provides guidance on this.

Ongoing
First decide what kind of story you wish to record. The easiest way to get
hold of a narrative is to elicit one -- Labov (Boots story in Chapter 2) and
Toolan (Alisons story) simply asked people if they had ever been in a situation
in which they had feared for their lives. This is almost cer tain to produce a
story, but of course there are all sorts of other questions you might ask.
Eliciting a story is useful if you are interested in narrative structure, in how a
narrator may use language creatively, in the narrators use of evaluation, in how
they represent themselves and/or how they represent other characters in the
story.
Alternatively you may be interested in conversational narratives. In this case,
you will need to record a conversation likely to produce narratives. Informal
conversation between friends or family, perhaps over a meal or a drink, will
almost certainly throw up a few examples. This will allow you to look at how
spontaneous narratives work -- what seems to motivate them, how they are
structured, how speakers represent themselves and others, what part other
participants play in constructing the narrative.
It is easier to audio- rather than video-record interaction, but you should also
note down any points of interest about the setting, any activities being carried
out, and participants behaviour. You will need to practise rst with your audio
recorder to make sure that you can obtain a clear recording.
When recording people, its impor tant to take account of ethical
considerations -- see the box below.
Once you have recorded your story, or identied conversational narratives in
the interaction you recorded, you should proceed as in Activities 6 and 7
above: identifying points of interest, linking these to your earlier study in this
unit, and deciding how to transcribe the narrative to explore these issues in
greater depth. You may nd you can say rather more about your own
narrative as you know more about the context in which it was collected. If
you wish to use your narrative -- e.g. in a TMA -- you should note down the
date of the recording, the setting, participants and any other relevant
information, as in the word play examples discussed in Unit 1, Activity 4.
27
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STUDY GUIDE 1
A note on ethics
When recording peoples speech, it is important to do so openly and
obtain their consent. In the past, linguists sometimes recorded people
surreptitiously with the aim of obtaining samples of speech that were
natural and not affected by speakers knowledge that they were being
recorded. It is now generally agreed, however, that these benefits are
outweighed by ethical considerations, and that speakers should not be
deceived in this way. Jennifer Coates writes that she originally made
surreptitious recordings of some of her women friends, and that this
was greeted with extreme hostility when they discovered what she had
done. However, it is generally accepted that being slightly vague about
the detail of your interests in spoken language is not unethical: for
instance, you might say you were interested in informal talk without
specifying narratives. Researchers often debrief participants later on,
however - and this sometimes provides interesting information about
their own perceptions of the conversation.
When speakers are aware they are being recorded this will affect the
way they speak, but after a few minutes they usually pay less attention
to the recording. Speakers are also affected by certain norms and
expectations -- e.g. how you normally chat to friends -- and this
will diminish the possible effect of the recording process on natural
language.
Particular care needs to be taken when recording children under 16.
Consent should always be obtained from parents or equivalent adults.
Care is also needed when recording people over whom you have some
authority, e.g. to ensure they are not put under undue pressure to
participate.
Guidelines on researching language use are available from the British
Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) - see the student project
version of the recommendations on good practice on the BAAL website:
http://www.baal.org.uk.
29
Putting on the style
This unit of study

Chapter 3 of Book 1, Putting on the style (allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 7, Messing with style (allow about 30 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 8, Language crossing (allow about 50 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 9, Polari (allow about 30 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 10, Performance and performativity (allow about
40 minutes).
Transcription activities: making a detailed transcript (allow about
1 hour 30 minutes).
Websearch: Polari safari (allow about 1 hour).
Learning points
.
arguments that identity is routinely performed, in part by certain types of

language use, and that this may be seen as a creative act;
the conceptions of identity that underpin such arguments;
how spoken interaction may be studied by researchers, including the

value of a contextualised, ethnographic approach.
You will also become more familiar with transcription conventions and the
choices that need to be made in the transcription of spoken interaction; you
will gain some experience of interpreting quantitative information about
language use; and you will begin to work on identifying and evaluating
websites that may be relevant to your study.

Chapter authors: Susan McRae, currently lecturing in the Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences (English Language) at Kingston University; Joan Swann,
The Open University.
30
STUDY GUIDE 1
Reading authors: Penelope Eckert, Professor in the Department of Linguistics,
Stanford University; Ben Rampton, Professor of Applied and Sociolinguistics,
Kings College, University of London; Niko Besnier, Visiting Professor in the
Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Los Angeles; Paul Baker, Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and
Modern English Language, Lancaster University.
You saw in Chapter 2 that storytellers are often seen to be performing as
they tell their stories. Chapter 3 extends this idea by looking at the way
people put on performances in their everyday conversations, even when they
are not telling stories; and how they use aspects of speaking style to construct
and project particular identities for themselves, or to represent their view of
the identities of others.
discussion of speaking style; evidence that speakers draw on and switch

between language varieties in interaction with others.
the different forms such linguistic choices take, such as the adoption of
certain grammatical and pronunciation features of English (Reading A),
drawing strategically on different languages or dialects (Readings B and C),
the creation and maintenance of new/alternative varieties (Reading D).
how these different ways of speaking may be drawn on in the negotiation

of a range of identities, and how this may be seen as a type of
performance (examples can be found in all the sections and readings).
theories of interactional performance that underpin these ideas. Note, for

instance: Goffmans dramaturgical or theatrical model, discussed in
Section 3.1; anthropological ideas of performance in interaction,
mentioned in Reading B; and the notion of performativity that has
informed much recent research, discussed in relation to gender and
sexuality in Section 3.4.
As you read, consider how far, and in what ways, you see such everyday
performances as creative. Consider also the research methods used by
different authors, and particularly the value of an ethnographic approach that
takes account of the contexts in which language is used. This is followed up
in some of the CD-ROM bands.
Activities
CD-ROM Bands 7--9: Style research
In these bands the authors of three of the readings in Chapter 3, Penelope
Eckert, Ben Rampton and Paul Baker talk about their research. As an overarching question we asked each researcher How do you know? -- in other
words, how do they, as researchers, come to discover things about language
and how are they able to substantiate any claims they make? Each speaker
handled this question in rather different ways, as you will see.
UNIT 3 PUTTING ON THE STYLE
CD-ROM Band 7: Messing with style (duration approx.

8 minutes)
Featuring: Penelope Eckert, Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University.
Penelope Eckert is the author of Reading A, on the language of adolescents
in a US high school. Eckert is a sociolinguist who is interested in language
variation and change. Sociolinguists in this tradition have identified
sociolinguistic patterns -- how language varies across different social groups
and also over time. A major focus of attention has been variation across social
class groups, following groundbreaking work by William Labov in the USA
and Peter Trudgill in the UK that identified systematic differences in
pronunciation between speakers from different social classes and also
between these same speakers speaking styles in different contexts (Labov,
1966, 1972; Trudgill, 1974). Like other researchers in this tradition, Eckert was
interested in differences between groups of speakers -- quantitative patterns in
their use of certain grammatical forms and the pronunciations of certain
vowels. However, in selecting groups of speakers to study, she wanted to go
beyond social class to identify social categories that were meaningful to
speakers themselves. She therefore carried out a detailed ethnographic study
that helped her identify important social groups to investigate and later
helped her to interpret her results.
ACTIVITY 1
30 minutes
Listen to Penelope Eckert on Band 7, focusing particularly on:

.
.
.
.
her decision to look at the speech of adolescent speakers;

how an ethnographic approach is valuable in identifying relevant social
categories;
how she was struck by the jock and burnout social categories;
the emergence of gender, and how this was linked to jock and burnout identities.
Clearly Eckert had cer tain expectations before she began her research, but a
signicant part of her approach as an ethnographer involved immersing herself
in the activities of her research participants and using the understandings she
gained from this to inform her sociolinguistic research.
In her discussion Eckert refers to a correlation between speakers

language use and their social class. The term correlation is used here
in its statistical sense. It refers to a statistical relationship between a
social variable, such as social class; and a linguistic variable, use of
a particular linguistic feature. This might mean, for instance, that the
higher you go up the social class hierarchy, the more speakers use
a particular pronunciation or grammatical form.
31
32
STUDY GUIDE 1
CD-ROM Band 8: Language Crossing (duration approx.

15 minutes)
Featuring: Ben Rampton, Professor of Applied and Sociolinguistics at
Kings College, London.
Ben Rampton is the author of Reading B on language crossing. The ideas
discussed in the reading are quite complex, so we wanted to ask Rampton to
explain how he actually carried out the research and worked through his data
to reach an interpretation. Youll remember from the reading that Rampton
was not interested in quantitative patterns, as Eckert was, but in how speakers
used particular languages in context, and to particular effect. However, he also
adopted an ethnographic approach and we hope the band will give you a
sense of how as an ethnographer Rampton goes about his research, puzzling
through his data and arriving at different levels of interpretation.
ACTIVITY 2
50 minutes
Please listen to Band 8, noting the points Rampton makes. The band is divided
into ve sections, focusing on:
.
the importance of context in ethnographic research -- and the kind of

knowledge Rampton had built up about his research setting;
how Rampton worked through his data to arrive at the interpretation of
specific utterances; how these interpretations are further informed by
Ramptons ethnographic knowledge, and by insights from other writers and
researchers;
how Rampton then moved to another level of interpretation, to make
more general claims (empirical generalisations) about the symbolic
meanings of Creole, Asian English and Panjabi;
how Rampton came to construct a more general model of language
crossing;
how crossing may be seen as a form of performance.
On this last point, note that Rampton draws on many of Erving Goffmans
ideas in his research -- youll remember from Chapter 3 that Goffman
extended the notion of performance to include everyday activity that would
not be seen as particularly special or performed by speakers and listeners.
In the reading, however, Rampton related crossing to a more conventionally
artful notion of performance, based on the ideas of Richard Bauman and
others. Rampton develops these ideas further in this extract.
In discussing his approach, Rampton refers to examples from his reading. One
of the extracts from his data (Example 1 in the reading) is reproduced on the
CD-ROM for ease of reference. Click on the text icon to see this transcript
while you listen to Rampton discussing the interpretation of specic utterances.
CD-ROM Band 9: Polari (duration approx. 8 minutes)

Featuring: Paul Baker, Lecturer in the Department of English Language and
Linguistics, Lancaster University.
Paul Baker is the author of Reading D, on the language variety Polari used by
British gay men and women in the rst part of the twentieth century. When
Baker carried out his research, Polari was no longer in common use. Unlike
Penelope Eckert and Ben Rampton, therefore, he could not observe and
collect actual examples of language use, and had to rely on other, more
indirect, sources. In this extract, Paul Baker talks further about his research on
Polari and how this is drawn on in the performance of identities. He discusses
in particular the methods he adopted to nd out about the meaning and use
of Polari. There is also an example of one of the media texts Baker refers to the use of Polari for comic effect in one of the Julian and Sandy sketches
from the BBC radio programme Round the Horne, broadcast in the 1960s.
This brief extract features Kenneth Horne, Hugh Paddick as Julian and
Kenneth Williams as Sandy. You may need to keep Paul Bakers lexicon of
Polari terms next to you as you listen!
ACTIVITY 3
30 minutes
Listen to Band 9, noting in particular:

.
.
.
the motivation for Bakers research, and how he characterises the

approach he adopted;
the kinds of data he collected, and how he analysed his data;
what he sees as the strengths and limitations of this approach.
Note that Baker mentions the idea of triangulation in relation to his

research. Triangulation refers to the practice of drawing on different
forms of evidence to make research findings more robust. Baker, for
instance, drew on different types of language data, and different
research methods. Although he did not use the term, Ramptons practice
of cross-checking interpretations of his transcripts against interviews
with participants is a form of triangulation.
The term diachronic, also used by Baker, refers here to the study of
how language changes over time.
33
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STUDY GUIDE 1
CD-ROM Band 10: Performance and performativity (duration

approx. 10 minutes)
Featuring: Deborah Cameron, Professor of Language and Communication,
Oxford University.
Deborah Cameron is a British researcher, well known for her work on
language, gender and sexuality. In Chapter 3 we referred to her ideas on
performativity -- a concept derived from the work of the feminist philosopher
Judith Butler, although Butler herself borrowed the idea from a philosopher
of language, J.L. Austin. The notion of performativity has been inuential in
research on language and identity, but as an idea it can be rather challenging.
We therefore asked Cameron to explain what the idea meant to her, and what
she saw as its value.
ACTIVITY 4
40 minutes
Please listen to Band 10, noting in particular:

.
.
the origin of the idea of performativity, and how this was developed by Butler;
the impact Butlers ideas have had on research on language and identity in relation both to contrived, deliberate performances of identity and more
routine, unconscious behaviour;
some limitations Cameron identifies in the way these ideas have been
drawn on in research;
how Butlers ideas relate to earlier performance models, such as that
developed by Erving Goffman.
Cameron refers to early (1970s) research carried out on language and

gender by the US linguist Robin Lakoff. Lakoff argued that there was a
distinctive womens language -- a particular way of speaking that was
feminine, but also relatively powerless (Lakoff, 1975).
Cameron also refers to ethnomethodology, a tradition of enquiry
associated with the sociologist Harold Garfinkel. Ethnomethodologists
focus on how human social activities are orderly, and how this order is
locally produced through the use of shared methods by which people
make sense of others actions and construct their own. Garfinkel, for
instance, looked at how jury members deliberated to reach a decision,
how researchers made coding decisions and the work of staff in a
suicide prevention centre. Language is an example of a social activity,
and ethnomethodology gave rise to an approach to the study of spoken
language known as conversation analysis.
(Adapted from Swann et al., 2004)
Transcription activities: making a detailed transcript

Following on from the discussion in Unit 2 of different formats and layouts
for transcribing spoken language, we explore here some of the conventions
linguists use to represent the detail of speech.
Some researchers use conventional punctuation in transcribing conversations,
but it is unusual for linguists to do this. Punctuation represents written
features of language such as sentence boundaries, but this is less helpful in
transcribing spoken language. Sometimes features such as commas or full
stops are used, but with a special meaning -- e.g. to indicate pauses. Linguists
also tend to record features such as falling or rising intonation that help to
structure spoken utterances. Linguists may record other vocal characteristics e.g. whether something is said loudly or softly -- that listeners would hear
during an interaction and that may therefore be relevant to how the
interaction is interpreted. These sets of features are often referred to as
prosodic or paralinguistic. Additional potentially meaningful features -- e.g.
hesitations, disuency -- may also be recorded in transcripts that try to
represent speech accurately.
Prosody, intonation and paralanguage

Descriptions of spoken language sometimes distinguish between
prosody and paralanguage. Prosody includes systematic patterns in
features such as speech rate, stress, and pitch variation that contribute to
the linguistic meaning of an utterance. Intonation (pitch variation, or
more accurately a combination of pitch and stress) is an aspect of
prosody. Intonation may, for instance, indicate clause boundaries, and
whether a clause functions as a statement or a question.
Paralinguistic features include tone of voice, overall loudness
or softness, giggling or moaning while speaking. These contribute
more generally to the meaning of an utterance -- e.g. they may give
information about a speakers mood, or whether an utterance is to be
taken as a joke. They are usually thought of as features that accompany
language, but that are not strictly part of language. In practice, features
may fulfil a number of functions and, when describing language, it is
not always possible to make a straightforward distinction between
paralinguistic and prosodic features.
Transcriptions that try to represent speech fully may become extremely

detailed, to the extent of being difcult for the non-specialist to read. In
Reading B, Rampton represented some characteristics of his informants
speech -- brief pauses, unnished words, loud enunciations. In other
publications, however, he has recorded far more detail in transcribing these
extracts. As an illustration, the transcript below is a fuller version of Example 1
35
36
STUDY GUIDE 1
in Reading B, incorporating a greater degree of detail on the quality of speech.

The notes below list Ramptons transcription conventions in full (not all of
these are reected in this example).
Detailed transcript of language crossing
10
RAY
IA::N::
HANIF
IAN
((from afar)) RAY THE COO:L RAY THE COO:L
HANIF
yeh Stevie Wonder YAAA ((laughs loudly))
RAY
[its worser than that
IAN
((singing))
HANIF
ha (lets) sing (him) a song
IAN
I hate you
HANIF
((loud laughs))
ANON
((coming up)) (
RAY
huh
ANON
are [you running for the school =
RAY
ANON
15
IAN
[I just called to say
) are you running for the school (.)
[no
= [I am
[he couldnt run for th he couldnt [run for the school
RAY
RAY
[SHUT UP =
= I couldn- I don wan- [I cant run anyway
HANIF
[right were wasting our [time =
IAN
20
HANIF
IAN
HANIF
25
[I did =
= [come on (were) wasting our time =
[you come last ( )
= [[m^m^m^:]
ANON
[I came second
IAN
((singing)) I just called to say [I got a big =
RAY
IAN
[I hate you
= [LUlla:]
((Panjabi for willy))
HANIF AND
OTHERS
((loud laughter))
RAY
((continuing Ians song)) sos Ian Hinks (1.5)

((Ray laughs)) no you havent you got a tiny one (.)
30
youve only got (a arse)
(Rampton, 1998, p. 292)
Ramptons transcription conventions are as follows:

[]
IPA phonetic transcription (1989 revision)
high stress
low stress
low rise
lengthening
overlapping turns
two utterances closely connected without a noticeable overlap,

or different parts of the single speakers turn
(.)
pause of less than one second
break-off/unnished word
(1.5)
approximate length of pause in seconds
piano/quietly
pp
very quietly
forte/loudly
ff
very loudly
CAPITALS
loud
(( ))
stage directions, or comments
()
speech inaudible
(text)
speech hard to discern, analysts guess
italics
instance of crossing of central interest in discussion
Names have been altered.
ACTIVITY 5
15 minutes
Work closely through the transcript above, noting the additional transcription
features that were not included in the version in the course book. For
instance, Rays initial Ian is enunciated loudly, probably calling out to his friend.
The transcript above, however, also indicates that the word is lengthened, as
sometimes happens when you call to a person. How much does this extra
information add to your understanding of the extract?
Comment
The lengthening information helped me interpret line 1 as a call from Ray to
Ian -- perhaps calling him over to join the group. The = signs indicate turn
continuations -- speaking turns continue across overlapping speech. The whole
interaction is likely to be quite rapid, with no gaps between turns except for a
slight pause (line 10) where Ray seems not to have taken in Anons question,
and a later longer pause when Ray responds to Ians jocular insult. Rampton
37
38
STUDY GUIDE 1
notes that Rays response seems rather weak -- cer tainly there is no laughter
after line 28 and, after a pause, Ray himself laughs then adds a further insult.
The phonetic transcription [lUlla:] gives a more precise pronunciation for the
Panjabi word.
What do you think a stave format would add to this transcription? In my view
the continuing turns would be clearer, and perhaps also the relationship
between the different voices. There would be no space for stage directions
such as ((singing)), however -- some other means would be needed to
represent these.
Several sets of conventions exist for the representation of speech in
interaction. One of the best known was devised by the conversation analyst
Gail Jefferson, reproduced in Sacks et al. (1974). Many transcriptions, including
Ramptons, have adopted features from this set. You will see some other
conventions in the course book: we have left transcripts in the form given by
the authors of readings and examples, rather than trying to impose a single
transcript style.
Conversation analysts sometimes try to represent pronunciation in the way
they spell words -- e.g. you been down here before havenche; whur it ends;
las night (examples from Sacks et al., 1974, p. 703). Such spelling is
controversial: Sacks et al. maintain they are trying to represent pronunciation
accurately, but nonstandard spelling conventions are not always applied
consistently and, because of their comic strip connotations, may appear
derogatory.
The box below gives a simple set of conventions you may wish to adopt in
transcribing spoken interaction. You could add further conventions to this
where needed.
Transcription conventions
[he said
[dont do it
square brackets indicate overlapping speech
A: you
know//
B: // come
off it
This denotes latching (//), i.e. that one turn follows rapidly
after another with no perceptible gap
(thats right)
brackets indicate the transcription of these words is uncertain
(xxxxx)
word that is impossible to understand, and cannot be

transcribed
(.)
a brief pause
(1.0)
a pause that is long enough to be timed -- timing given in

seconds
39
((laughs))
may refer to non-speech element such as laughter, a cough,

etc.; may also be used to describe the voice quality of the
following word -- e.g. ((whispered))
COME BACK
as an alternative to double brackets, special formats may be

used to indicate features such as loudness
come back
a further option is to underline a word or phrase and specify

how this is articulated, or any other feature of interest, in a
separate right hand margin
ACTIVITY 6
1 hour 15 minutes
Listen again to the narrative you transcribed last week. Try adding to your
transcript to include information about any pauses, or other information about
the speakers delivery that helps give a reasonable representation of how the
narrative is told.
As an illustration, the transcript below applies some of these conventions to the
initial extract (the close of the rst story) in Example 3 on CD-ROM Band 6.
Does making this kind of transcription add to your understanding of the
narrative, and if so in what ways?
Sample transcript with conventions applied

A:
... undid the paper ((laughter)) and (like) (.) put a little bit of salt on
and I handed them to him you know and he looked at me and he
didnt DARE say anything so he had to sit and eat it with his fingers
((laughter)) which he HATES (.) but I was going to make a point of the
fact that I was not going to put it on a plate and do the whole bit and
make a (his tea) [and that
B:
slight
emphasis
forceful
articulation
[like Charles when I was doing the kitchen oor ...
Note:
SMALL CAPS = increased emphasis
underlining = word to which comment in right hand column relates

laughter extends over some of As words
Websearch: Polari safari

The web is becoming an increasingly useful source of academic information,
though the great variety of material means that any information you obtain
there needs to be handled with care. In the past, a subject like Polari would
have been difcult to research, with relatively little information available from
40
STUDY GUIDE 1
conventional academic sources. As the following activity demonstrates, its

now possible to nd out quite a lot. In fact, since Polari is a very specic
term, it works well as a search term, leading to several relevant sites.
ACTIVITY 7
About 1 hour
Put the term Polari into a search engine such as Google or AltaVista. You
will nd a vast number of sites -- on Google I found 239,000 worldwide and
7,250 British sites.
Select two or three sites that look interesting and explore these. You might
also follow up any potentially interesting links from these sites. What kinds of
information do the sites provide you with? How interesting or helpful is this
with respect to your study in this unit? How reliable do you think the
information is? Do you think you could use it in a TMA?
If you are not familiar with this kind of search, you may nd it helpful rst to
look through the SAFARI skills tutorial (especially Section 4, topics 2 and 5)
which can be accessed through the eDesktop library resources.
Comment
You may well have come up with a different selection of sites from mine.
Some of the sites I found were not relevant to the study of language variety
(e.g. Polari is also the name of a gay and lesbian support ser vice). The more
relevant sites I looked at provided two sorts of information: information about
Polari as a language variety, and examples of Polari.
One of the sites I reached was a personal site owned by a researcher into
Polari. While the information looked plausible (and was consistent with Paul
Bakers reading) I would be cautious about using the site as academic
evidence, e.g. in an assignment. There were no references to support any of
the statements made (as there would be in an academic book or article), and
so no means of checking these. Nor was there any information on the
researcher -- whether he was attached to an academic institution or had any
relevant publications, for instance. The site did, however, contain a useful
reading list and links to other sites.
One of my sites turned out to be run by Paul Baker (this site can also be
accessed from ROUTES, through the eDesktop library resources). This is also
written in a popular style, but it is clear that Baker is a university academic
who has researched and written in this area. The absence of gatekeepers on
the web can make this an exciting space to travel in, but it also means nobody
has vetted the information (as would happen in an academic publication). In
this case details about the owner of a site can provide clues as to the reliability
of any information.
When your search for information on the internet reveals a large number of
relevant websites, its particularly impor tant to evaluate them in order to focus
your attention on the most useful ones. What criteria did you use in this
activity to decide whether or not a website looked useful? Compare your
responses to the criteria listed below in the PROMPT checklist. This checklist
is taken from the Safari Skills Tutorial; Section 5 is all about evaluating
information, and is worth looking at in more detail.
PROMPT checklist for evaluating information

Presentation (is the information clearly communicated?)
Look at language, layout, structure, etc ...
Relevance (does the information match the needs of the searcher?)
Look at the introduction or overview - what is it mainly about?
Objectivity (Is the authors position of interest made clear?)
Look for an introduction or overview - do the writers state their
position on the issue? Is the language emotive? Are there hidden, vested
interests?
Method (Is it clear how the data was collected?)
Were the methods appropriate? Do you trust it?
Provenance (Is it clear where the information has come from?)
Can you identify the authors or organisations? How was it published?
Timeliness (Is it clear when the information was produced?)
Does the date of the information meet your requirements? Is it obsolete?
41
42
Childs play
This unit of study
materials and the corresponding sections of the study guide:
Chapter 4 of Book 1, Childs play (allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 11, The Social Baby (allow about 20 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 12, Pretend play (allow about 40 minutes).
Transcription activities: including nonverbal information (allow about
2 hours).
CD-ROM Band 13, Playground rhymes and games (allow 20--30 minutes).
Learning points
This work in this unit should enable you to understand and critically
evaluate:
.
arguments that childrens language is essentially creative from birth;
some of the forms taken by childrens language play, and the range of
functions that play may serve;
different approaches to the study of childrens language play.
You will also become familiar with transcription conventions that take
account of nonverbal information, and be able to make a transcript from a
video-recording. And you will gain further experience of using the internet
to access information.

Chapter author: Julia Gillen, The Open University.
Reading Authors: Sharon Inkelas, Professor in the Department of Linguistics,
University of California, Berkeley; Rupert Wegerif, Reader in Education,
Southampton University; Anthea Fraser Gupta, Senior Lecturer
in Modern English Language in the School of English, University of Leeds;
Janice Ackerley, Course Director, Diploma in Childrens Literature,
Christchurch College of Education, Christchurch, New Zealand.
UNIT 4 CHILDS PLAY
This chapter looks at some of the themes from previous chapters, in the light
of childrens language practices. Julia Gillen discusses poetic language (in
word play of various sorts), narratives and performance, reecting the main
focus of Chapters 1--3.
.
different academic traditions in the study of childrens language -- Gillens

argument that traditions may focus on childrens language in its own right,
as a social practice, or on childrens language as practice in the sense of
development, or rehearsal for adulthood.
the argument that creativity is evident from the earliest (pre-verbal) stages
of development.
researchers interests in the formal, linguistic characteristics of childrens

creative language (discussed in relation to word play in Readings A and B,
but also evident in the structures of narrative and dramatic dialogue).
how language play is also regarded as locally purposeful. For example,

it may have several functions such as developing ideas or helping with
problem-solving (Reading B) or maintaining relations between speakers
(in the examples in the chapter text and readings these tend to be
friendly relations).
how language play also allows children to explore (take on or perhaps

subvert) certain identities and certain cultural values. There are several
examples in the chapter, including those discussed in Readings C and D.
The chapter also revisits the distinction raised in earlier chapters between
textual and more contextualised approaches to the study of creativity in
language.
CD-ROM Band 11: The Social Baby (duration approx. 5 minutes)

Chapter 4 discussed the phenomenon of protoconversations and included
an illustration of one such interaction between a mother and baby from the
book The Social Baby (Figure 4.1, p. 160). This band contains two extracts
from an associated Social Baby video. The first extract shows Ethan, the child
who appears with his mother in Figure 4.1. In this extract, Ethan is much
younger -- just a few minutes old. He is shown first interacting with his father,
then taking part in a paddle experiment that compares babies responses to
face-like patterns with their responses to other patterns. The second extract
shows William, aged 8 weeks, interacting with his mother, and also Ethan
again, at 11 weeks, with his mother. This is part of the boo game illustrated
in Figure 4.1. As in the illustrations in Chapter 4, a mirror is used to show the
mothers actions and facial expressions alongside those of her baby.
The video was produced for parents and childcare professionals, and a voiceover offers an interpretation of the childrens behaviour.
43
44
STUDY GUIDE 1
ACTIVITY 1
20 minutes
Please watch Band 11. Chapter 4 suggested that early protoconversations

between infants and caregivers provide a foundation for playful interaction
and language games. What evidence can you see of this in the video extracts?
Comment
The video provides evidence of social behaviour from the rst minutes of a
childs life: Ethan can recognise his parents voices and prefers human faces
to other patterns; in sticking out his tongue like his father he demonstrates joint
coordination and sensitivity to turn-taking that is characteristic of
protoconversations. There seems to be a strong affective dimension to the
interaction -- it is carried out for mutual pleasure rather than communicating a
message. The older infants sometimes take the initiative in interactions (e.g.
William extending his arms, copied by his mother). The interactions include joint
smiling and laughter, and a simple game played by Ethan and his mother. In these
cases too the interactions seem to be carried out for mutual enjoyment and
they have a strong playful element. You may have noticed other details that you
can relate to the points made by Trevarthen and Aitken (Course book 1,
p. 159) or in other parts of the chapter. How convincing do you nd this
evidence of childrens early playfulness?
CD-ROM Band 12: Pretend play (duration approx. 4 minutes)
Band 12 contains an extract of data for you to analyse. It shows part of a
game played by two six-year-old girls, Laura and Aalliyah. The girls are
enacting the story of Snow White.
Laura and Aalliyah performing Snow White
UNIT 4 CHILDS PLAY
ACTIVITY 2
40 minutes
Please now watch Band 12, looking carefully at how the girls jointly
perform the story. You will need to play the band a few times, perhaps
replaying cer tain sequences you would like to focus on. Points you may
wish to consider are:
.
the girls preparation for their performance;
how the stor y is told - e.g. the different roles the girls take on;
other aspects of the performance -- e.g. how it is directed.
How creative do you nd this form of play? What functions do you think it
may serve as a type of practice strongly associated with childhood?
Comment
Of interest to me was the initial back-stage activity as the girls put on
costumes for their performance. This is clearly an important part of the
staging -- Laura seeks Aalliyahs approval for her choice of costume.
Aalliyah takes on the role of Snow White, whereas Laura takes on different
roles -- the witch, one of the dwarves, the prince. Laura also sometimes
narrates part of the story -- e.g. announcing the arrival of the dwarves: and
then the seven dwarves come back ... and they hear the alarm; the prince
came trotting (accompanied by trotting action).
The girls also step outside the story world to manage the performance comment on something, ask questions, give directions. This is a common
aspect of pretend play. Sometimes utterances are ambiguous in this respect e.g. I felt Lauras And then you woke up (addressed to Snow White after she
has been kissed by the prince) was both part of the story and also an
instruction to Aalliyah. It is Laura who acts as director of the performance perhaps she knows the story better or perhaps she is generally more
condent than Aalliyah. The performance is also evaluated -- e.g. in the girls
laughter, or when Laura comments on an aspect of performance.
Clearly the girls are retelling a traditional story here, not creating a new story,
but I felt it was creative as a performance -- in the careful choice of costumes,
the desire to get the words and actions right. The children do, then,
demonstrate a particular attention to and skills in the delivery of a message
and this is subject to evaluation (Duranti, 1997, cited in Chapter 1, p. 10). This
is also consistent with Baumans view of (creative) performance, discussed by
Ben Rampton in Chapter 3 Reading B and on CD-ROM Band 8.
45
46
STUDY GUIDE 1
Unlike the school pretend play in Reading C, Laura and Aalliyah are
involved in a fantasy: in their performance they are not exploring roles and
relationships (such as pupil and teacher) that are part of their direct
experiences. They are, however, exploring themes that are common in
childrens stories -- including gendered relationships in which a girl waits to
be rescued by a prince. Alongside other activity, the performance would
also play a part in maintaining the friendship between the two girls, and
perhaps a friendship on cer tain terms -- is Laura more usually the dominant
partner, for instance?
Transcription activities: including nonverbal information
This is the third and nal set of activities on transcription. If you work
through these, you should be in a good position to transcribe your own
data for assignments or other purposes. Unit 3 discussed the detailed
transcription of speech, including conventions that help to indicate how
words are uttered. Here the discussion broadens to include a wider range
of nonverbal information that you may be able to take into account if you
are transcribing a video recording that allows you to see speakers faces,
body movements etc. Nonverbal is often used for features closely
associated with language and that may affect its meaning -- e.g. gesture
and facial expression. Paralinguistic features such as loudness may also be
counted as nonverbal -- the distinction is not clear-cut. Nonverbal is
sometimes broadened to include features such as clothing and other
aspects of physical appearance. I shall focus here on types of behaviour,
particularly visual behaviour, that are closely linked to language.
Some kinds of nonverbal information are highly integrated with language.
Gesture, for instance, may function in a similar way to word stress or
loudness -- it affects our perception of how a word or phrase is uttered. A
range of conventions can be used to represent this. In the example below,
emphatic gesture is indicated in a superscript row above the relevant
syllable in a word:
xy
A:
... and thats exACTly what I want
Key
CAPITALS -- loud enunciation
xy -- both hands in downward spreading gesture
47
UNIT 4 CHILDS PLAY
This superscript convention allows you to show the degree of synchrony

between nonverbal and verbal behaviour. The example below uses a similar
convention to indicate participants mutual gaze when speaking:
L:
A:
L:
A:
have you seen the seven dwarves

-----what
---------------------------------------have you seen the seven dwarves
-------------------------------((looks down)) they just went to workshop
Key
---------
gaze towards other speaker
((looks down))
double brackets indicate other non-speech elements
In the example above, Ive used the double bracket convention introduced in
Unit 3 (p. 37) to indicate a shift in gaze on Aalliyahs part -- she looks down
briey before looking back at Laura. This convention may be used for any
nonverbal features such as gesture or facial expression:
A:
((smiling, pointing to L)) hello how are you
Depending upon your focus of interest, further conventions may be chosen

to represent visual information that seems to be integral to the interaction.
As mentioned in Unit 2, however, transcription is not a neutral activity. It is
impossible to record every movement and expression -- analysts record what
seems to be important to them, which means that transcription necessarily
includes interpretation and the beginnings of analysis of the data. In the
example above, the focus of interest is speakers gaze at a particular point in
the interaction. Aalliyah does not hear Lauras initial question and as she asks
What she looks straight towards Laura. Lauras repetition of the question is
uttered with gaze directly towards Aalliyah. Gaze seems to signal mutual
attention, ensuring the question is heard and understood. Aalliyah looks
down briey before replying -- in conversation this may allow a speaker to
prepare their next utterance. They just went to workshop is accompanied by
a gesture -- not recorded in this transcript.
The example above illustrates a problem in transcribing visual information.
There are several one-off features, such as Aalliyahs gesture, that seem to be
part of the performance, but having separate conventions for all of these
would make the transcript cluttered and difcult to read. When looking at
performances, or other activities where you wish to record continuing
nonverbal activity, it may be easier to provide a running commentary
detailing this, as in the example below from an earlier point in the Snow
White performance.
48
STUDY GUIDE 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
L:
Now take this one (.)

no you (must) stand up (.) and
you fall down dead
take this one and (he) ate and
he (xxx) *ate the red
eat the red bit and he ate it
L extends hand with apple to A.

With extended hand, pulls A to feet;
A jumps up, moves [is moved?] away from chair.
L hands apple to A; A takes apple, watches L.
*L reaches to As hand.
A moves hand up, pauses.
Note: * indicates specic point where an action occurs
ACTIVITY 3
20--30 minutes
Replay about a minute of the childrens performance in CD-ROM Band 12,

Pretend play (somewhere around the point where the transcript above
begins). How does nonverbal information -- the childrens movement, facial
expression etc -- seem to work alongside the verbal element of the childrens
performance? What do you think you would need to record to convey this
adequately?
Ive transcribed a short sequence below, adding conventions that seemed
helpful to my own developing interest in the interaction. Ive given the full set
of conventions below. Do you agree with this transcription? Are there other
things you would have liked to record? The transcription reects decisions
I made as I began transcribing (i.e. these werent all planned in advance). You
may well have noticed different features, and wished to record them.
Aalliyah as Snow White is seated in chair; Laura as witch has brought eight
apples for Snow White and the seven dwarves, and offers one to Snow White.
1
2
3
4
5
6
L:
Spoken interaction
Accompanying actions and activities
Now take this one (.)

no you (must) stand up (.)
and you fall down dead
take this one and (he) ate and
he (xxx) *ate the red
eat the red bit and he ate it
L extends hand with apple to A.

With extended hand, pulls A to feet;
A jumps up, moves [is moved?] away from chair.
L hands apple to A; A takes apple, watches L.
* L reaches to As hand.
A moves hand up, pauses.
A eats apple; falls to oor, still sitting up.
A:
Shall I fall
L:
Yeah
10
A looks up towards L, [questioning].

A lies down.
49
UNIT 4 CHILDS PLAY
11
12
13
14
15
L:
Youre dead (.) and then and

then the seven dwarves come
back (.) and they hear the
alarm (and they xxxx) ((sharp
intake of breath)) oh no (.)
16
17
18
19
20
21
L moves away [not in view].
L comes to A, bends over her.
L touches As face, side.
and then the p- and then they

pull you up in the coffin (.)
stand up but youre still a
asleep still asleep over here
there (over) here
L steps back, walks round A
[considering next step?].
L takes As arm, A gets up.
A leans on L, eyes closed but
smiling; L supports to one side;
A giggles; A stands, hand to face,
laughing [break in performance].
Key
L = Laura; A = Aalliyah
plain text
speaker as character, speaking in role
underlining
speaker (always Laura in this performance) as

narrator, telling the story
italics
speaker has stepped outside the performance e.g. a comment, question or instruction
(.)
a brief pause, untimed
(xxx)
unclear speech that could not be transcribed
(he)
transcription uncertain, a guess
((sharp intake of breath))

*
specic non-speech element
indicates a particular point where an action occurred

(mentioned in the nonverbal column)
In the nonverbal column, square brackets are notes on the performance

or queries on a possible interpretation.
Comment
As I began transcribing, I considered using cer tain conventions for gaze,
gesture, other aspects of body movement and stance. But then I felt this
would be unhelpful -- not only would it clutter the transcript, it would also be
highly selective and not really convey the sense of the performance. I therefore
decided on a running commentary.
I became interested in the different voices adopted by the children -- whether
they were in role as a character or narrating the story or speaking from
outside the performance. So I decided to separate these out in transcription,
but in practice this wasnt straightforward, since speech is sometimes
ambiguous. You may therefore not agree with my interpretations. In line 3, for
instance, Ive transcribed you fall down dead as an instruction, but this could
50
STUDY GUIDE 1
be part of the narrative (albeit out of sequence). Further on Ive transcribed

youre dead (line 11) as part of the narrative.
Transcribing the extract suggested to me that the way children took on
voices, and the interplay between different voices, was highly complex. For
much of the time the children are nonverbally in role as characters, but
simultaneously, as performers or director, they also keep a reflective eye on
their performance. In raising the apple to her lips, for instance, Aalliyah is in
role as Snow White, but her pause suggests she is also awaiting direction as
a performer. In transcribing, I decided not to attempt a distinction between
different nonverbal voices.
The children are crafting a performance even as they perform it: in lines 4--6
Lauras slight disuency suggests, I think, that she is searching for an appropriate
phrase; in lines 17--18 she seems to be planning her next action as she walks
round Snow White in role as one of the dwarves. This spontaneous creativity
makes the adoption of roles or voices a complex activity -- the children need
both to perform as characters and to manage the performance and move the
story along. This is achieved by a combination of verbal and nonverbal activity.
ACTIVITY 4
2 hours
Identify a brief extract of Laura and Aalliyahs performance you think might be
interesting to look at more closely and try transcribing this, using some of the
conventions above or adapting these. You will need to nd your own way of
doing this. I nd it easier to make a rough transcript of speech rst, rene this
then add in nonverbal information. You will need to allow enough time for
this part of the activity. As a guide, in transcribing the extract above it took
me just 10 minutes to make a fairly basic transcript of the speech, but a
further 20 minutes to add in further detail (e.g. puzzling through what Laura
actually said in lines 4--6), and then 40 minutes to add in nonverbal
information and check the nal transcript. Then as I began considering the
transcript, I made a few further adjustments to it.
Now consider your own transcript. What does the process of transcription
add to your understanding of the performance? How, if at all, does it affect
your response to Activity 2 above?
UNIT 4 CHILDS PLAY
CD-ROM Band 13: Playground rhymes and games

(duration 3--4 minutes)
This band contains examples of childrens playground lore from three
contexts: Oakland, California, USA; Cape Town, South Africa; and Bangalore
in southern India. The rst two extracts were originally collected for another
OU course, U212 Childhood. In Cape Town and Bangalore English is used
alongside other languages -- respectively, Khosa and Kannada. You probably
wont be able to hear all the childrens words, but you will get a sense of the
kinds of play the children are engaged in.
ACTIVITY 5
15--20 minutes
Please watch Band 13. There is no formal analysis associated with this band: it
is meant simply to illustrate a range of contemporary childrens lore and how
this is drawn on by children. Note the contexts in which the children are
playing, and how they interact with one another.
Ongoing
As an extension activity, and a continuation of Activity 7 in the course book

chapter, you may wish to collect examples of childrens playground rhymes.
If you wish to use these more formally (e.g. in a TMA) remember to note
the source of any published examples, or the context in which you collected
any examples of your own.
51
52
Language and creativity
This is a double unit of study

During these two weeks you should work through the following course
Introduction of the set book, Language and Creativity: The Art of
Common Talk by Ronald Carter (allow 1--2 hours).
Part I of the set book, Backgrounds and theories, Chapters 1 and 2
(allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 14, A corpus investigation of ups and downs
(allow about 1 hour).
Part II of the set book, Forms and functions, Chapters 3 and 4
(allow 7--8 hours).
Part III of the set book, Contexts and variations, Chapters 5 and 6
(allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 15, A corpus investigation of -ish suffixes (allow
about 1 hour).
Learning points
Your work on the set book should enable you to understand and critically
evaluate:
.
the strengths and limitations of a sustained (book-length) argument on

everyday creativity in language;
points of similarity and difference between the set book and Chapters 1--4
of the course book, along with their associated CD-ROM bands;
the ideas in Chapters 1--4 of the course book and on the CD-ROM, in the
light of Carters arguments in his book.
You will also gain experience in using evidence from a corpus to investigate
language use.
Study notes and activities on Set book 1

Book author: Ronald Carter, Professor of Modern English Language,
University of Nottingham.
UNITS 5--6 LANGUAGE AND CREATIVITY
The set book represents an extended reading which relates to many of the
arguments about the creativity of spoken language put forward in the rst four
chapters of the course book. Carters book also goes on to deal with new forms
of language that have arisen as a result of developments in communications
technology. This is an area of language that can be seen as transitional
between spoken and written modes and is examined further in Unit 7.
We expect you to adopt a critical approach to your reading of Carters book,
carefully evaluating his arguments and comparing them with those of the
various authors in the course book. To help you do this, the following study
notes suggest points to think about as you read.
Introduction
In the Introduction, Carter describes the beginnings of his interest in
everyday creativity in language, and sets out the issues that the book attempts
to address. Note that the events that gave rise to Carters interest -- how he
came to notice a particular advert, an interaction involving childrens rhymes,
patterns in some of his own data -- are presented as a kind of story: perhaps
in itself an artful construction designed to make a particular point.
The issues raised by Carter -- the attention to form in certain playful texts that
occur in everyday contexts; the creativity that seemed evident in such texts; the
functions and purposes to which such playful creativity was being put; the
extent to which everyday creativity may share properties with literary
language -- are issues that run through the rst four chapters in the course book.
Carters further questions (the section headed Yet more questions, pp. 9--10)
lead him to consider the nature of creativity and how it may be studied. As a
prelude to your further study of the book, you should consider your own
responses to these questions, on the basis of your work so far on the course.
Part I Backgrounds and theories

In this section of his book, Carter provides some academic background to
discussion of creativity in language, beginning with consideration of the cultural
history and meanings of some key words. In Chapter 1, he considers how
other disciplines, especially psychology, have dealt with the issue of creativity,
before focusing in Chapter 2 on specically linguistic approaches. Depending
on your interests, you could work through these chapters closely, interrogating
Carters ideas; alternatively, you may prefer to go through the chapters more
briey to get the gist of Carters arguments, then return to consider these after
you have looked at the evidence from his research in later chapters.
Chapter 1
Before you start reading this part of the book, think about the terms
creativity, art and common (three key terms in the title of the set book).
What do these terms mean to you? -- and have their meanings perhaps been
53
54
STUDY GUIDE 1
affected by your study of the course so far? As you read Chapter 1, consider
Carters cultural history of these and other terms. How valuable do you think
this is? What does it add to your understanding?
Much of Carters discussion in Chapter 1 focuses on psychological
approaches to creativity (pp. 30ff). Note here that cognitive approaches
(pp. 35--6) refers to particular psychological approaches to creativity in
general -- this does not map on directly to the cognitive approach to
linguistic creativity that was discussed in Chapter 1 of the course book.
Carters list of initial conclusions (p. 41) provides a useful overview of the
main points he takes from this section.
An important point made by Carter is that ideas about creativity vary across
sociocultural and historical contexts, and he explores this further in his
discussion of sociocultural approaches (pp. 42ff). Carter contrasts Eastern
and Western conceptions of creativity, for instance, while recognizing that
this distinction itself is over-simplied. How useful do you think it is to make
this type of broad distinction?
Note that Carters limitations (pp. 46--7) have to do with the danger of seeing
practices other than ones own as exotic, or not fully understanding such
practices -- these limitations dont challenge the general principles of a
sociocultural approach. Carters list of points that make up the story so far
(pp. 47--9) provides a useful summary of his earlier discussion, and of how he
sees creativity. How far do you agree with these points?
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 is a complex chapter in which Carter discusses different theories
and approaches to linguistic creativity. It is not important for you to
remember the detail of these: focus rather on the main points Carter makes
about creativity. Carter sets out a list of questions about creativity (pp. 53--4).
As you read, consider how well he answers these.
Carters prime focus in the book is on (everyday) speech and he discusses
the value of this. Note that there is also a case for examining everyday
creativity in writing -- the subject of later chapters in the course book.
Carter discusses different models or denitions of literary language
(pp. 58--63), running from inherency to more sociocultural models. Schema
refreshment is related here to inherency because it considers the potential
effects of language forms. It is also however a cognitive model (Carter terms
this textual-cognitive).
Carter proposes the term literariness (pp. 63ff) as part of his argument that
literary language is a matter of degree and also varies in different contexts.
How far do you agree with his analysis of literariness in two contrasting texts
(pp. 64--6)? Carter also draws on Bakhtin, to argue that literariness is dialogic:
it is not the product of an individual speaker or writer, but responds to, builds
on and incorporates the voices of others. You have met some of Bakhtins
ideas in Chapters 3 and 4 of the course book, and they will be considered
more fully in Chapter 9.
From pp. 69ff, Carter discusses other work that might affect our
understanding of literariness. He looks rst at cognitive research on metaphor
(pp. 69--72) and then at language play (pp. 72--7) -- both these areas were
discussed in Chapter 1 of the course book. Research on language play lends
support to Carters view that it is important to take account both of linguistic
forms (inherency) and sociocultural factors. Although emphasized less at this
point by Carter, note that there is also an important cognitive dimension to
research on language play -- this seems, then, to unite all three of Carters
models.
Carter refers also to a notion of creativity drawn on in certain approaches to
grammar -- by, for instance, the linguist Noam Chomsky (pp. 77--8). This
seems to be included for the sake of completeness -- it is not connected to
the idea of literary creativity.
Other research traditions referred to are concerned with naturally occurring
talk, e.g. conversation analysis, anthropology (pp. 78--80). You have met these
traditions in relation to narrative (Chapter 2 of the course book) and
performance (Chapter 3), as well as aspects of childrens language (Chapter 4).
At the end of the chapter, consider the points Carter makes in his conclusion:
do you agree with these? Are they supported by his earlier arguments and
discussion of research? Consider also Carters note of caution (pp. 80--1):
how effectively do you think Carter deals with the issue of literary value?
Note that some of the points Carter makes about literature will be revisited in
the second course book.
CD-ROM Band 14: A corpus investigation of ups and downs

Lakoff and Johnsons ideas about metaphor have already been discussed in
Chapter 1 of the course book (Section 1.4), and you had an opportunity then
to consider their arguments with regard to the meanings of up and down. This
activity shows how you can use evidence from a large corpus of English to test
intuitions about word meaning -- the meanings of up and down in this case.
On CD-ROM Band 14 you will nd two sets of data taken from the Bank of
English -- a substantial corpus that contains both spoken and written English.
At around 450 million words, the Bank of English is signicantly larger than
Ronald Carters corpus, CANCODE. However, it is not one monolithic corpus
but consists of several subcorpora -- for instance, it includes different types of
newspaper and radio journalism. Most of the sources are British English
though American, Canadian and Australian English are also represented.
55
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STUDY GUIDE 1
In the whole of the Bank of English, there are 1,197,444 instances of up and
447,682 instances of down -- rather too many for a brief activity! The
CD-ROM band therefore contains a selection of these -- 100 instances each
of up and down, randomly generated from across the entire corpus. The
instances of up and down are set out in a list, with their immediate linguistic
context -- a few words that precede and follow the term. This is known as the
Key Word in Context (KWIC). Each line in the list (i.e. each usage of up
or down with its immediate context) is known as a concordance line.
ACTIVITY 1
1 hour
Scroll down the concordance lines to get used to seeing data in this way.
Once youre comfortable with this type of data presentation, test out your
intuitions about positive and negative meanings of up and down when used
metaphorically or literally.
.
Do you find it easy to find instances of up and down that are used to
communicate positive or negative meanings respectively?
Does it seem that many instances will depend on the wider context for
their meaning?
Comment
In the concordance lines, there are instances of use which support the Lakoff
and Johnson view of:
(a) Up as positive, e.g. spice up the show (line 47); livened up proceedings
(line 48);
(b) Down as negative, e.g. bring Archer down purely out of vengeance
(line 6); a woman broke down in court (line 68).
Other instances, however, are less straightforward. A useful aspect of
concordancing is its ability to show how language use is commonly
phraseological. We often use language in set phrases -- e.g. line 7 when you
have grown up on a diet of failure. Grow + up + on + a + diet + of + something
is a phraseology that adult native speakers would be familiar with because
they will have been exposed to many instances of it. In this case, however,
whether the meaning is positive or negative depends on what the something
is: grow up on a diet of failure is negative because failure is negative. We need
access to some linguistic context to determine meaning. Such linguistic context
is often known as co-text -- this refers just to surrounding words and not to
wider contextual factors such as who the participants are and where the
interaction takes place.
In many cases, up and down depend on such broader contextual factors for
their meaning. Take for example close the mine down (line 32). This may
have negative effects for miners, such as loss of jobs, but the mine may have
been unprofitable and closing it down would be positive for the company and
its investors. The point here is that there is nothing inherently negative about
closing a mine -- it rather depends on the context and point of view. You may
have noted similar examples.
Part II Forms and functions

The next part of the set book (Chapters 3 and 4) seeks to show how the
theoretical concepts and analytical approaches discussed in the rst part can
be applied to examples of ordinary spoken language. The aim is to
demonstrate the nature of creativity inherent in everyday discourse and the
sociocultural and cognitive functions it serves.
Chapter 3
In Chapter 3, Carter describes the CANCODE corpus that is the source of
most of his data, and the inspiration for this book (see also CD-ROM Band 1).
Carter goes further than Chapter 1 of the course book in his consideration of
the role of puns in discourse, noting that they seem to display the kind of
consciousness and self-referentiality that he discussed earlier (p. 59) as one of
the denitive characteristics of creativity. This kind of word play also has the
sociocultural function of creating a sense of solidarity among the participants
in a conversation. Compare these points to your reading of Chapter 1 in the
course book.
Carter presents further examples of word play in which the effects are
achieved by the creative manipulation of larger chunks of language. Again,
Carter notes that this kind of linguistic playfulness functions as socially
cohesive glue (p. 96) -- it may emphasize convergence or divergence.
The crucial distinction that Carter is making in this chapter is between two
kinds of creativity that operate side by side in most everyday discourse:
1
Pattern re-forming language choices that are much more overt and draw
attention to themselves. These are the self-referential or deviational forms
such as conscious word play or the re-formulation of formulaic expressions.
Pattern forming language choices that are much less obvious or

self-referential and which often operate collaboratively across speaking
turns to create convergence of viewpoint and feeling. Note that this is
an alternative term for what Carter refers to as pattern-reinforcing in
Reading A of Chapter 1 of the course book.
Carter suggests that the pattern re-forming features accord much more with
the post-Romantic view of creativity that arises from individual originality
and inventiveness; whereas the pattern forming/reinforcing features resemble
the pre-Romantic concept which put the emphasis on conformity to existing
57
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STUDY GUIDE 1
structures. He maintains that these two types of creative patterning are not
mutually exclusive and often co-exist and interact in discourse.
Note Carters ve-point summary of his argument in this chapter (p. 108). Use
this to check your understanding of the chapter.
Chapter 4
In Chapter 4, Carter continues to look at the linguistic features of creativity in
spoken discourse and the sociocultural and cognitive functions they serve.
He argues that when speakers interact they are doing more than exchanging
information or ideas. They are also conveying their attitudes and feelings
about the other person or people in the interaction, about the topic under
discussion, and about what they are themselves saying. Carter suggests that
these expressive options can be analysed along three intersecting clines:
intimacy, intensity, and evaluation.
Speakers express their feelings and attitudes not only through the choice of
core or non-core vocabulary but also by their use of larger units of language
such as metaphor and other gurative expressions. Carter examines the ways
in which speakers either reproduce or reformulate such expressions, relating
this to the discussion of pattern forming and pattern
re-forming choices in Chapter 3 (pp. 95ff.). People are able to reformulate
such expressions creatively often for evaluative or face-saving purposes;
and they usually signal a degree of intimacy in their informality and humour,
especially as they are often collaboratively produced, and depend upon
shared cultural knowledge.
Look carefully at Carters summary of the main points of the chapter
(pp. 139--40) and at the conclusions to Part II of the book. See how far you
recognise the points he is making here and can locate them in Chapters 3
and 4. How effectively has Carter presented his argument?
Part III Context and variations

In this nal part of the book (Chapters 5 and 6), Carter shifts the emphasis
away from the analysis of formal features and explores in greater depth the
social and cultural functions of language creativity and its relationship with
various contexts in which it is found.
Chapter 5
This chapter begins from the premise that it is not possible to fully dene
linguistic creativity by describing its formal properties alone. This is because
creativity depends upon, and arises out of, the immediate context of interaction
in particular social situations. Carter identies different speech genres in his
data, and argues that creativity is more closely related to some than others.
He suggests that creativity is least likely to be found in situations where there
is purely transactional one-way provision of information. Conversely, it is
much more common where the relationships between the participants are
more intimate and equal, and where the purpose is to share ideas and
experiences rather than to convey information or complete a task. Note
Carters representation of these speech genres in a matrix diagram (p. 150).
Carter concedes that his categories are not watertight, however, and that
there is considerable leakage between them.
Look again at the way Carter has analysed and categorized the examples on
pp. 151--64, and think of similar examples from your own experience. How
interesting and useful do you nd his system as a way of understanding the
creativity of language in social interactions? Are there any problems or issues
that arise from the categorisation?
Chapter 6
In his nal chapter, Carter broadens the argument to consider how creativity
can be seen operating at the level of different discourses and social practices.
He looks at:
.
the creativity involved in using different languages, varieties and styles;
the creativity of specialized forms of discourse that have been created in

response to new social conditions and developments in technology.
He revisits his basic model of pattern forming and pattern re-forming in the
light of the issues raised, and considers in more depth the relationship
between creativity and the construction of individual and social identity.
Finally, he proposes an extension to his matrix of social contexts and
interaction types to include this wider spectrum of linguistic analysis.
Carters discussion of speakers creative use of language varieties will be
familiar to you from Chapter 3 of the course book (e.g. Ben Ramptons
research on crossing).
On creativity as a response to new social conditions, Carter suggests
counselling as a post-modern social practice involving a discourse which is
constantly shifting to adapt to new social needs and circumstances. Indeed the
practice of counselling, like crossing, seems to take place in so-called liminal
social spaces in which traditional social roles and relationships have to be
redened at critical moments. Can you think of any other examples in the
course materials where individuals or groups have been stimulated to be more
creative with their language because of the marginality of their social position?
Carter switches to very different discourses which have arisen specically out
of developments in communication technology and which involve the
creation of alternative worlds (p. 189). He discusses here Angela Goddards
research on chatroom interaction. Note Goddards reference to the idea of the
self as a dramatic effect, based on work by Ervin Goffman which you met in
Chapter 3 of the course book. You might like to glance back at this chapter
to see the connection between what Carter and Goddard are saying here and
59
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STUDY GUIDE 1
the whole concept of performativity in the projection of identity through

language.
On pp. 209--10, Carter lists his conclusions for the book as a whole. How
clearly and convincingly has he made a case for each of these points in the
book? Make a list of issues, problems or questions that you feel remain
unresolved.
It is not essential that you read the section on Suggestions for further
research, although you may nd it interesting and you may wish to look at it
when you are considering ideas for your double TMA.
CD-ROM Band 15: A corpus investigation of -ish suffixes

In the next two activities, you will be using The Bank of English to perform
a comparative analysis. Corpora come in different sizes and are compiled
for different purposes. An advantage of the CANCODE corpus used by
Carter is that long stretches of dialogue can be presented and analysed.
The Bank of English, however, is limited in this respect, and unlike
CANCODE, provides little information on participants and conversational
goals. So it is much more difficult to ascertain context in relation to
dialogues in The Bank of English, making it less useful at a discoursal level
for studying creativity in informal conversation. However, unlike the smaller
CANCODE, the sheer mass of The Bank of English can potentially offer
more insights at the textual level. For example, its size allows us to get a
sense of how common (or what corpus linguists refer to as productive)
types of morphological inventiveness are. Moreover, because The Bank of
English contains both written and spoken data, comparison between the
two can throw some light on types of morphological inventiveness in
different situational uses of English.
ACTIVITY 2
20 minutes
First, look briey at Appendix 2 New Words for Old in the set book
(pp. 222--226), which examines creativity around the sufx -ish.
One sub-corpus of The Bank of English consists of spoken British English
(38.7 million words). We carried out a search for -ish in the whole of this
sub-corpus and found 48 instances. CD-ROM Band 15 contains all of these,
with their immediate context. Scroll through these examples. Do you find that
these results from the Bank of English bear out the findings in table A2.2 of
Carters Appendix 2?
Comment
You should nd that the use of - ish in The Bank of English does confirm some of
Carters findings from CANCODE. For instance, -ish is often used in The Bank
of English to approximate time, e.g. so youre going out half-one-ish.
ACTIVITY 3
40 minutes
Carter says that he has included Appendix 2: to underline the evidence

presented in Chapter 5, in particular that creative language play is more likely
to occur in certain social and interpersonal contexts than in others, and that
the -ish suffix is especially creativity-prone ... (p. 221).
This activity explores the creativity-proneness of -ish, in a different situational
usage of English -- popular British tabloid newspapers. The Bank of English
includes a sub-corpus of 45 million words from two popular British tabloid
newspapers, The Sun and The News of the World. Both papers devote much
space to stories about the lives of celebrities. We selected 48 instances of -ish
at random from this sub-corpus. These can be compared with the use of -ish
in speech, which you looked at in Activity 2.
.
How do you think this different situation would affect the creative
use of -ish? How might this differ from the use of -ish in everyday spoken
English?
Now inspect the tabloid examples on CD-ROM Band 15 to see if the
evidence corresponds with your intuitions.
Comment
You should be able to see that -ish is used with proper names in the tabloid
corpus (e.g. Elton John-ish and George Clooney-ish). This reflects the more
pronounced focus on proper names in a tabloid newspaper than in
conversation. Furthermore, the corpus includes some puns: Fin-ish (x3) in
relation to fishing, Finn-ish (x2) in relation to sports teams from Finland, fuel-ish
(x2) in relation to racing driving. The use of -ish here reflects the verbal
punning common to popular tabloid newspapers. Whats interesting is that in
these examples of play, the meaning of -ish has departed from the sense of
approximation with which it is mostly used in the British spoken corpus of
The Bank of English and CANCODE. Indeed, -ish in Fin-ish and fuel-ish is not
altogether functioning as a conventional suffix. It is functioning creatively as a
nonce suffix (i.e. used only on one occasion).
A nal point here: as Carter notes in the set book (p. 160), when inspecting
corpus data its impor tant to be cautious about what a corpus can or cant do.
The Bank of English does not allow you to search for all instances of -ish as a
suffix (e.g. Sharonish as in the CANCODE data in Appendix 2 of the set
book). The only reason Fin-ish and fuel-ish, etc. could be generated was
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STUDY GUIDE 1
because -ish was separated by a hyphen. We will have missed any instances
without a hyphen. So it would be foolish, not to mention fool-ish, to make
quantitative judgements in comparing the spoken English and tabloid data-sets.
Never theless, the findings are suggestive. It would be possible to follow up
this examination with a more exacting line of comparative inquiry (e.g. use
of -ish in only hard news stories in popular newspapers with use of -ish in
informal conversation).
63
Making connections with new technologies

This unit of study
Chapter 5 of Book 1, Making connections with new technologies
(allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 16, Online creativity (allow about 45 minutes).
Websearch: online statistics (allow about 30 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 17, Online chat (allow about 45 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 18, CMC research (allow about 1 hour 15 minutes).
Learning points
.
the different forms that creativity may take within computer-mediated

communication;
the argument that the nature of computer-mediated communication is

influenced by the interaction between society and technology and by
affordances, constraints and effectivities;
the way that new registers may emerge as language users strategically
adapt to novel situations;
the collaboratively produced nature of meaning in computer-mediated

communication, particularly in relation to the use of humour and
intertextuality, and the way it helps to construct group and individual
identities.
You will also gain further experience of using the internet to access
information, and of interpreting quantitative statistical data in graphs.

Chapter author: Sarah North, The Open University.
Reading authors: Naomi Baron, Professor of Linguistics, American University,
Washington; Patricia Greeneld, Professor of Psychology, University of
California, Los Angeles and Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Associate Professor,
64
STUDY GUIDE 1
Department of Child and Family Studies, California State University; Angela

Goddard, Head of Programme for English Language and Linguistics, York St
John College.
The new discourses evolving from social change and technological
development, which were the subject of Chapter 6 of Ronald Carters book,
are also explored in this chapter of the course book. Sarah North, and the
other contributors, focus on computer-mediated communication (CMC) in
which people interact through technologies such as email, online chat,
conferencing and text messaging.
.
the relationship between technology and society and particularly the way
in which new technologies affect social behaviour; this theme is
highlighted in the chapter and is echoed in all three readings.
the ways in which new communication technologies might stimulate or

stifle linguistic creativity, and how this might be related to Naomi Barons
discussion of prescriptivism and coping strategies in Reading A.
the role of novelty in creativity -- in particular the evidence in Readings A

and B about the way that users adapt to new situations.
the way that CMC can be used to construct individual and group
identity. Ideas about performance and identify were introduced in
Chapter 3, but are developed further in this chapter, particularly in
Angela Goddards discussion of intertextuality in Reading C.
Activities
CD-ROM Band 16: Online creativity (duration approx.
10 minutes)
Featuring: David Crystal, Honorary Professor of Linguistics, University of Wales.
We asked David Crystal to comment on several questions relating to the effect
on language of recent developments in information technology.
ACTIVITY 1
45 minutes
Here are the questions we asked. Listen and note Crystals answer in each case.
.
.
.
.
.
Is texting leading to declining standards of English?
Is there anything creative about texting?
How have users adapted to online chat as compared with texting?
How creative is online chat?
Is there any evidence that CMC is starting to become mundane and routine?
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UNIT 7 MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Websearch: online statistics
ACTIVITY 2
Look at the diagram below, showing data on internet use in Great Britain from
the National Statistics website.
.
Crystal talked about the rise in the average age of internet users; how far
do these statistics support his comment?
Use an internet search to locate more recent information on the age of
internet users, and compare your results with the 2001--2005 data. (If you
are not sure how to do this, look at the SAFARI skills tutorial, which you
can access through the E301 eDesktop, or the OU library homepage.)
(Data provided by the Ofce for National Statistics, adapted from
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/explorer.asp [accessed 26.10.05])
30 minutes
Figure 3 Adults who have used the internet in the three months prior to interview,
by age, Great Britain.
Comment
This diagram does not offer direct evidence for Crystals point, as it does not
indicate the average age of internet users. What it does show is the
propor tion of each age group who have used the internet at least once in a
three-month period. These figures are however consistent with a gradual rise
in internet use among older people. Internet use is still closely related to age,
with a much higher percentage of users in the younger age groups, but the
figures also show that during this period, internet use has grown more sharply
in the 55--64 age range. If this trend continued, we might expect to see the
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STUDY GUIDE 1
older age groups gradually catching up with the younger age groups,
particularly as the more internet-savvy younger people themselves grow older.
If you succeeded in nding some more recent statistics, you may have been
able to conrm whether or not this is the case. Your results will depend
on how you conducted your search. For example, you may have gone
straight to the National Statistics website, and searched there for the latest
UK statistics. But you could also have looked for other sources of
information through a gateway such as the Social Sciences Information
Gateway; if so, you might have found several sites giving statistics on
international or regional internet use. Maybe you just typed some key
words into a search engine; for example, if you typed average age and
internet user, you may have found several interesting sites, although much
of the information may have been outdated.
And does increasing internet use by older people lead to the use of a
more conser vative style? Well, thats another question, which would involve
looking at authentic language data. In the next activity you will have a
chance to consider a young persons use of the internet. This was
recorded in 2004, and you may nd that things have changed since then.
CD-ROM Band 17: Online chat (duration approx. 12 minutes)
Alison is a teenager from the Wirral, near Liverpool. In this video extract, we
see her at her computer, explaining how she uses technology to
communicate with others. Alison talks mainly about online messaging, but
also about texting and online chatrooms. These technologies have different
affordances which affect the way they are used. Texting involves sending
electronic messages (up to 160 characters) which are viewed on a mobile
device such as a cell phone or PDA. Online chat is a form of interactive
conversation that takes place in real time. The examples you saw in
Chapter 5 came from chatroom websites or IRC channels, but online chat
can also take place through instant messaging; this works in a similar way,
but the chat is restricted to specic individuals that the user has named
on a buddy list.
The CD-ROM band also includes a le containing the chat logs from Alisons
session. These are computer-generated records showing the text of her online
interaction, not all of which is visible in the video. You can see these chat
logs by clicking on the text icon in Media Kit.
ACTIVITY 3
45 minutes
As you watch the video, think how it relates to the ideas discussed in
Chapter 5:
.
Can you identify any key points in the chapter which seem to be
confirmed by Alisons experience?
Are there any points she makes which are not considered at all in the
chapter?
Comment
Alison conrms the impor tance of CMC as a routine part of young peoples
lives, with signicant social functions. She also notes the dangers of anonymity
in chatrooms, and the aggression this can lead to.
She comments on particular affordances of the technology and the way they
affect her use, especially the way that the immediacy of messaging allows
real conversation. Alison says that chatting in multiple windows can be
confusing, but notice that she and her friends seem to have adapted well
and that new conventions have emerged such as marking a line with an
asterisk to show a correction. She confirms the use of emoticons to
compensate for the lack of paralinguistic and visual cues such as gesture and
expression, and describes a wide range of possibilities, but her reduced use
of them is in line with Herrings view that CMC is becoming routine. Alison
talks quite a lot about the pressure to respond quickly in real time
conversation, and she has adapted to this not only by learning to type faster,
but also by using some of the abbreviations and acronyms discussed in the
chapter. Interestingly, she suggests that some of these acronyms (such as lol
and brb) have an important interpersonal function, both by personalising
what you say and by providing a sense of response. She feels that her own
language is still fairly formal, but comments that the style of language used
may vary according to the user and the context. This is in line with research
findings that suggest the impor tance of CMC in creating social identity.
Although she recognises that CMC style may occasionally be used
inappropriately in formal contexts, she takes a fairly pragmatic view of the
need to adjust style to context and feels little cause for the concern
expressed in the media.
Aspects that moved beyond the chapter included her discussion of the way
the technology affords multimodal creativity, such as the personalisation of
emoticons. In addition, its striking the extent to which computer technology is
leading not simply to new language forms, but to a whole range of new social
practices, with language being adapted creatively to facilitate these practices.
Both these issues will be discussed further in the next chapter.
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STUDY GUIDE 1
CD-ROM Band 18: CMC research (duration approx. 8 minutes)

Featuring: Ian Hutchby, Reader in Sociology and Communication, Brunel
University.
Chapter 2 of the set book referred to conversation analysis (CA) as a means
of investigating everyday talk. In this audio band, Ian Hutchby talks about
using CA to research online chat, focusing on methodology: how to
do it, what it can reveal, what its limitations might be.
ACTIVITY 4
30 minutes
Listen to the recording and note the key points relating to the questions
below:
.
What aspects of CMC is Hutchby interested in, and what approach does
he take to investigating CMC?
What does he see as the main differences between online conversation
and face-to-face conversation?
Comment
Hutchby is interested in the sequential organisation of turn taking (the
relationship between the turns that participants take) within naturally occurring
talk, and in comparing how this is managed in CMC as compared to face-to
face conversation. His approach is based on the principles of Conversation
Analysis, i.e. that:
.
.
.
.
recordings of CMC are made as it occurs in its natural environment;

no assumption is made that context necessarily influences the nature of
the talk;
no assumptions are made beyond what is available to obser vation in
the text;
if something is relevant, there should be evidence for this in the text;
empirical investigation is needed to gather evidence.
The main differences he mentions between face-to-face and CMC
conversation are that online conversation:
.
.
.
lacks resources of body orientation, gaze, gesture;
involves a temporal lag, so turns appear as they are distributed by the server;
is recorded visibly on a scrolling screen.
These particular affordances allow, for example, the use of emoticons and avatars.
ACTIVITY 5
45 minutes
Both Reading B and Reading C of Chapter 5 consider the creative use of

language in an online environment, but from different perspectives. Which of
the two is more similar to Ian Hutchbys approach to CMC? Try to identify
the main points of similarity or difference between them, in terms of their
methodological approach. You may nd it helpful to think about the
distinctions drawn in Chapter 1 between textual/contextualised approaches
to analysis, and inherency/sociocultural views of literary language.
Comment
Ian Hutchby stresses the impor tance of focusing on the text, and in both
Reading B and Reading C, the discussion is based mainly on the analysis of
textual data, with little mention of contextual issues. If you think about the
nature of CMC, you will probably agree that it is likely to be very difcult, if
not impossible, to obtain the sort of information necessary to provide a rich
description of the context. In much online communication, an observer cannot
even be sure of the gender, age, ethnicity, or location of the participants, let
alone the range of other factors that may inuence their interpretations of
what is going on in the interaction. Much research in CMC therefore depends
on studying an online environment over a period of time to build up an
understanding of the practices of that particular community, as revealed by the
textual data. You may have noted, though, that the Greeneld and
Subrahmanyam analysis is based on only one chatroom session, so the
researchers are focusing here on a very limited range of information. Angela
Goddard, however, worked with her student participants over the duration of
an online course, and was also able to interview some of them. Although she
does not refer directly to the inter views in this reading, they are likely to have
enriched her understanding of the interaction. Goddard also moves away from
the text in discussing the participants use of inter textuality, and her analysis
of what inter textual references might mean for the participants would not be
in accord with a CA approach, as it relies on subjective interpretations that
cannot be supported by evidence within the text itself.
Although both readings draw more on textual than contextual data, they take
a different focus. Like Hutchby, Greeneld and Subrahmanyam draw on
conversation analysis, which concentrates in particular on the methods used
by conversational partners to manage the interaction. They are interested in
the way that chatroom users adapt their language in order to maintain
conversational coherence within a new setting, creating a register that utilizes
the resources of oral and written English in creative ways. Hutchby points out
that there are similarities as well as differences between online and face-to-face
communication, but in Reading B Greeneld and Subrahmanyam focus in
particular on the use of innovative language that deviates from standard forms.
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STUDY GUIDE 1
This type of linguistic innovation has some similarities with the poetic crafting
of language forms highlighted by an inherency model of literariness (although
neither Hutchby nor Greeneld and Subrahmanyam were themselves
concerned with issues of literariness). Angela Goddard, on the other hand, was
less interested in how participants manage the interaction, and more interested
in what they are communicating. She locates her research within interactional
sociolinguistics, seeing texts not as an end in themselves, but as the
mediational means by which participants engage in social action. Her
approach to creativity, then, has more in common with a sociocultural model
of literariness, and she refers explicitly to theorists such as Goffman and
Scollon, who see language as a resource for negotiating identity.
71
Writing the self

This unit of study
Chapter 6 of Book 1, Writing the self (allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 19, Personal diaries (allow about 11=2 hours).
CD-ROM Band 20, Graffiti (allow about 30 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 21, Blogging (allow about 30 minutes).
Websearch: finding blogs (allow about 30 minutes).
Data collection and analysis: personal writing (ongoing).
Learning points
.
ideas about the nature of everyday written creativity and how it operates
textually in diaries, letter-writing, graffiti and internet homepages;
the argument that these texts are essentially dialogical in the way they
construct identity;
the notion that genre in everyday texts can be defined both in terms of
textual properties and social functions;
how genres can be transformed, and the implications of this for authorial
identity and the social value ascribed to texts.
You will also gain further experience of using the internet for study/academic
purposes, this time to search for examples of a particular genre of writing.

Chapter author: Janet Maybin, The Open University.
Reading authors: Margaretta Jolly, Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature
and Culture, University of Exeter; Nancy Macdonald, writer and researcher;
Daniel Chandler, Lecturer in Media Theory, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
The transition from spoken to written language is continued in this chapter as
Janet Maybin focuses on issues of identity in some everyday writing practices
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STUDY GUIDE 1
which she sees as being particularly closely intertwined with the construction
of the self.
.
how creativity can often be interactional and dialogic, involving the

construction and performance of individual and group identity.
how creativity is subject to the affordances and constraints of the material

environment.
the way the concept of genre is seen to be subject to social construction

and transformation as texts are perceived, valued and used in different
and unexpected ways.
the ways in which ordinary, private kinds of writing relate to more

overtly artistic, public forms.
You may also recall issues of audience, performance and construction of

identity that were discussed earlier in relation to spoken language and
computer-mediated communication (Chapters 3 and 5).
Activities
CD-ROM Band 19: Personal diaries (duration approx.
10 minutes)
In December 2004, listeners to the BBC Radio 4 programme PM were invited
to send in their recorded diary entries for the last day of the year. A selection
of extracts from these diary entries were broadcast on PM during the rst
few weeks of 2005. A number of these are included on the band.
The important thing about these diary extracts is that they were written by
listeners who did not have any literary intentions or awareness. However,
you might like to consider what kind of people would be likely to record and
send such extracts to be broadcast on the radio; and how much their
thoughts and words may have been inuenced by the knowledge that they
might have a mass audience.
ACTIVITY 1
1 hour
After you have listened to the diary extracts on the CD-ROM, look at the
transcript (or print it out if you prefer) and listen again making note of:
.
.
any textual features of poetic language that you can find;

features that occur across these examples which might be characteristic of
a diary style;
any distinct differences in the style between the extracts and how these
might reflect the different personalities of the writers.
UNIT 8 WRITING THE SELF
Comment
At the textual level, the pervasiveness of creativity in everyday writing can be
seen in such features as metaphor (e.g. Hes such a black and white person,
is likely to have the hell kicked out of him); rhythm and repetition of sounds
(alliteration) (e.g. a lot to learn about living together), structural echoes
(parallelism) (e.g. his choice and his loss); and intertextual references
(e.g. larks ascending five young men, not a-leaping). You might also have
noted the use of the kind of figurative language that Cameron in Chapter
1 described as conventionalised metaphors (e.g. the joys of the occasion,
the art of confidence).
As instances of a shared style across the pieces, you would probably have
noted the frequent omission of grammatical items (ellipsis); the use of rst
person (singular and plural) pronouns, except when ellipted; the reective and
analytical tone; and the expression of personal feelings.
However, the extracts do differ considerably in style, perhaps expressing the
individual personalities of the writers. They vary in the amount of literary
creativity they employ; in their use of ellipsis; in their formality; and in the
extent to which they are emotional or more analytical.
ACTIVITY 2
30 minutes
This is the opening page of the diary of the seventeenth-century British diarist
Samuel Pepys, written when he was 26 years old.
What can you tell from this about:
.
.
.
the kind of things Pepys intends to include in his diary?

the audience that he is addressing?
the identity he is constructing for himself?
Sunday 1 January 1659/60
Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health,
without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold.
I lived in Axe Yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in
family than us three.
My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me
hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath
them again. The condition of the State was thus. Viz. the Rump, after
being disturbed by my Lord Lambert, was lately returned to sit again.
The officers of the army all forced to yield. Lawson lies still in the River
and Monke is with his army in Scotland. Only my Lord Lambert is not
yet come into the Parliament, nor is it expected that he will without
being forced to it.
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STUDY GUIDE 1
The new Common Council of the City doth speak very high; and hath
sent to Monke their sword-bearer, to acquaint him with their desires for
a free and full Parliament, which is at present the desires and the hopes
and expectation of all -- 22 of the old secluded members having been at
the House-door the last week to demand entrance; but it was denied
them, and it is believed that [neither] they nor the people will not be
satised till the House be lled.
My own private condition very handsome; and esteemed rich, but endeed
[sic] very poor; besides my goods of my house and my office, which at
present is somewhat uncertain. Mr. Downing master of my office.
(Samuel Pepys, cited in Latham and Matthews, 1970, pp. 1--2)
Comment
One of the remarkable things about this extract (and of Pepys diary in
general) is the intermingling of intimate details of his private life with a
commentary on the public, political and military events going on around him,
in which he was to some extent involved. In this extract, he thanks God for
his health, about which he gives us a brief summary; states simply where he
lives and who is in his household; discusses his wifes menstrual cycle and his
disappointed hopes of becoming a father. In the next sentence he launches
into a summary of the political and military situation in the country and in
London, before returning to his private nancial situation and the
precariousness of his employment.
It is well known that Pepys wrote his diary in a secret code which was only
fully deciphered in the twentieth century. Much of what he writes, as seen
here, is of a very personal nature which would have been embarrassing if made
public. Likewise, with the political commentary, he would probably not express
his opinions so freely if they were going to become public knowledge at the
time. So who is Pepys audience? Clearly he feels a need to explain who he is
in private and where he stands in the world in relation to public events. There
appears to be an assumed reader of his diary, perhaps in the future, although
such a person is never addressed directly. Perhaps, Pepys found the process of
recording each days events satisfying in itself, and was indeed writing for
himself, to enable him to re-live his feelings at some time in the future.
One interesting interpretation is that Pepys is constructing an identity for
himself through his diary; it is in itself an exploration of who he is and what he
is becoming day by day. There is a cer tain sense of satisfaction in his
description of his state of health and position in the world, and his hopes for
the future. However, mention of the past problems with his health, his present
disappointment with his failure to have children, and the uncertainty of the
world and his position in it, all prevent him from coming across as smug. You
might like to consider the similarities and contrasts between the ways in which
Pepys is reecting on and to some extent constructing the kind of person he

is through diary entries such as the one quoted above, and how Salam Pax is
constructing his identity through the blog extracts quoted in Chapter 6.
CD-ROM Band 20: Grafti (duration approx. 3 minutes)
In this short video band, we see Prime, one of the informants in
Nancy Macdonalds research (see Reading B), demonstrating and talking
about grafti and what it means to him. There is also a brief comment from
Nancy Macdonald herself.
ACTIVITY 3
30 minutes
When you have watched this video two or three times, answer these
questions:
.
How does the speaker see graffiti-writing as relating to identity and

relationships?
To what extent is he conscious of graffiti as an art form?
Comment
Prime implies that grafti is a form of expression used by people who may
lack condence in projecting themselves socially in more conventional ways.
He says that when you start with grafti the rst thing you do is to choose a
tag, which does not just give you a name but also expresses a personality. The
grafti then becomes a way of constructing yourself competitively and standing
out from the rest by making bigger, bolder and more intricate designs. This
competitive, aggressive element is one of the reasons why Macdonald sees
grafti as being involved in the construction of a kind of male identity.
This grafti artist is very conscious of the techniques and aesthetic qualities of
his art. He is aware of the specic artistic inuences which affect his work, and
how the physical transience of the genre gives it a particular atmosphere of
excitement for what is new, and perhaps nostalgia for what is lost.
CD-ROM Band 21: Blogging (duration approx. 4 minutes)
In this band David Crystal, whom you heard earlier in Band 16, talks about
what he sees as the most potentially creative form of contemporary written
English: the blog.
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STUDY GUIDE 1
ACTIVITY 4
30 minutes
Listen to the audio band and make notes on the following questions:
.
Why does David Crystal suggest that the billions of blogs posted daily on
the internet offer us a fascinating insight into written language the likes of
which we have never seen since the Middle Ages?
How far do you agree with his suggestion that bloggers virtually make up
their own rules in relation to the use of dialect, symbols and different
languages, in a striking form of self-dramatisation?
Comment
Crystal suggests that bloggers use English, and combine it with other signs and
symbols, in an endless array of idiosyncratic creative forms. He argues that,
because they can write without formal constraints, they are able to use
languages, dialects and images in ways which are closer to the heart than has
ever been possible since the invention of printing. He is drawing a comparison
here with the more diverse and idiosyncratic forms of written English used in
England before the standardisation and regulation of English spelling and
punctuation which developed with printing.
Crystal emphasises the potential of a carnivalesque-like explosion of creativity in
blogs. Bloggers, do of course also use language in all sorts of conventional ways,
and in creative ways which are similar to those found in other genres. Salam Pax
in the blog example in Chapter 6 uses familiar kinds of word play, repetition and
irony and he chooses English as his medium rather than, say, a mixture of Arabic
and English. While blogging may open up the potential for a considerable
amount of freedom in writing, writers are also constrained by their purposes for
writing, and their intended audience. How far do you consider that blogs, and
the internet homepages discussed in Chapter 6, Section 6.5 provide
oppor tunities for creative uses of language to present or dramatise the self
which are not found in any other language contexts?
Websearch: nding blogs
The previous activity draws attention to perhaps the most rapidly expanding
type of personal writing -- the weblog or blog. If you search for either of
these terms on the internet, you will nd an enormous number of sites
spanning a range of different interests. You will also nd information about
how to set up your own blog from organizations that provide web hosting
services, and many of these also supply a directory. The next activity makes
use of blog directories to look for samples of personal writing.
ACTIVITY 5
30 minutes
Type blog directory into your search engine and look quickly at some of the
sites listed, until you nd one which looks interesting. Blog directories usually
provide some kind of catalogue or review that should allow you to identify which
blogs are likely to include examples of personal writing (and perhaps creativity).
When you have found a suitable blog, ask yourself the same questions that
Janet Maybin posed in Chapter 6 about Salam Pax:
.
.
In what ways does the writer use language artfully?

In what ways does the writer draw creatively on the socio-historical
context and the affordances of the internet?
How might this weblog be contributing to the writers identity?
Comment
Compare your discoveries with the comments provided in Chapter 6, Section 6.2.
If you would like to have a look at Salam Paxs blog, it has been archived at:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
Data collection and analysis: personal writing

Ongoing
Using what you can nd at home, or in a library, or by searching on the

internet, copy short extracts from some different examples of diaries, letters,
blogs or homepages. These might include the published diaries or letters of
politicians, enter tainers, writers and artists; ctional diaries and epistolary
novels; diaries that you have kept; family diaries and letters that may have been
given to you; blogs from the internet; or personal emails that you have been
sent or have written. If possible, record the date when the text was written
(and any publication dates), its context and any writer details.
It is better to focus on one genre only, unless you have additional time available.
Make some notes on the following questions:
.
What similarities and differences can you find in the creative textual
features of your selected extracts?
How does the discourse style used in each extract reflect the physical,
interactional, social and cultural context in which it was written?
In what way does each extract seem to express something of the person
behind the writing?
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Literacies, collaboration and context
This unit of study

Chapter 7 of Book 1, Literacies, collaboration and context
(allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 22, Prison literacy (allow about 1 hour).
CD-ROM Band 23, Death row penfriends (allow about 1 hour).
Skills development: constructing an argument
(allow about 1 hour 10 minutes).
Data collection and analysis: literacy practices (ongoing).
Learning points
This work in this unit should enable you to understand and critically evaluate:
.
the idea that creativity is to be found in everyday literacy activities and is

normally a collaborative process;
how creative literacy practices involve the re-shaping and re-organising of

existing social and cultural resources;
the extent to which the creativity of literacy practices may be influenced,

but not determined by, the affordances and constraints of any given
context, including the technology available;
arguments that creativity in writing responds to sociocultural changes and

stimulates the emergence of new discourses.
You will also have a chance to hone your skills in analyzing and constructing
academic arguments, which will help you both in critical reading and in
writing your own assignments.

Chapter authors: Uta Papen, Lecturer in Linguistics and the English Language,
University of Lancaster; Karin Tusting, Research Associate at the Literacy
Research Centre, University of Lancaster.
UNIT 9 LITERACIES, COLLABORATION AND CONTEXT
Reading authors: Miriam Camitta, Lecturer in Education, University of

Pennsylvania; Anita Wilson, Researcher at the Literacy Research Centre,
University of Lancaster; Uta Papen (see above).
This chapter broadens the scope of the discussion of creativity in written
language by shifting the focus from the textual and interactional analysis of
particular written texts to more detailed consideration of the creativity
inherent within literacy practices (i.e. the patterned ways in which people
use and interact with texts in particular contexts, and the meanings that these
hold for them). Papen and Tusting directly oppose approaches which suggest
that texts or people can be judged as more or less creative, and use
ethnographic evidence to consider aspects of creativity in the everyday
writing and reading practices of ordinary people in various cultural and
institutional contexts.
.
Papen and Tustings conception of literacy as a social practice rather than

an individual skill.
the idea that all literacy practices are creative because they involve people
using and combining written texts in novel ways.
the notion that creativity in everyday literacy practices is essentially

collaborative and emerges from social interaction and performance.
the extent to which creative literacy practices are influenced by the

opportunities and limitations that are present in any particular social context.
the ways in which people adapt to technological, social and economic

change by learning and developing new literacy practices and discourses.
You may remember that Carter, in his consideration of spoken language in

Chapter 6 of the set book, discussed the creativity of collaboratively produced
interactions, the effect of new technology on discourse, and the emergence of
new discourses to meet changing social conditions. This chapter may also
remind you of Carters discussion of pattern forming and pattern re-forming
choices at the textual level of analysis, and the argument in Chapter 1 of the
set book that the association of creativity with individual and original
inspiration is specic to modern western culture.
Activities
CD-ROM Band 22: Prison literacy (duration approx. 15 minutes)
The band relates to Reading B by Anita Wilson and connects with the themes
and ideas she writes about. It also illustrates the importance of looking at
literacy in context in order to understand its meaning. Writing and receiving
letters in prison has a particular meaning and signicance for prisoners, who
might not have been so interested in letter writing in the outside world. You
should be able to pick up specic points about textual creativity which link
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STUDY GUIDE 1
with earlier chapters, and about creative responses to restrictions in the

environment (the affordances and constraints discussed in Chapter 5). There
are also links with the discussion about the presentation of the self
(Chapter 3) and writing and identity (Chapter 6).
The band contains an interview with a young man who is talking about the
different kinds of writing he did when he was in prison. John (pseudonym)
is responding to the following questions:
.
What was the most important use of writing in prison, for you?
What other kinds of writing do prisoners do?
Why is there so much writing in prison?
What ways do prisoners find to communicate among themselves? Are any

kinds of writing involved?
Has the writing you did in prison influenced the writing youve done
since you came out?
Do you still have any of the writing you did in prison?
ACTIVITY 1
1 hour
Listen to what John says in answer to the above questions and make some
notes on:
.
the ways men in prison use the affordances and constraints of their
environment to communicate with others;
the kinds of creativity involved in producing and designing a text and
conveying oral and written messages and achieving personal goals;
the ways in which the literacy John talks about is connected with identity
and the achievement of personal goals.
Comment
Prison is dened by its constraints; but, for most prisoners, there may actually
be more oppor tunities and incentive to write than in the outside world. John
talks about the way prisoners nd creative ways of getting around the
limitations of their physical environment in their desire to communicate with
each other and with those outside. He mentions that they make use of
radiators, windows, toilets, prison bars, and the gaps under doors and in the
walls. The ingeniousness of these strategies may remind you of Sarah Norths
discussion of effectivities in Chapter 5.
Letter writing is the most obvious way of compensating for lack of access to
telephones and face-to-face contact in the prison situation; but because paper
is in short supply, prisoners dont have the luxury of being able to cut and
paste earlier drafts. On the other hand, they do have plenty of time and the
psychological motivation of boredom to enable them to think a lot before

they actually write.
The inter viewee mentions a range of different kinds of creativity that go on
in prison. With reference to letter writing in particular, he describes how
prisoners produce texts which are distinctive in the ways they cover the
limited paper surface available to them, including multi-directional writing, and
writing on and decorating their envelopes (cf. Colour Figure 8 in the rst
course book). Within letters, prisoners use personal shorthand codes and
often produce rap lyrics and poetry to express their feelings.
John talks about how being in prison was what made him start writing,
because of the boredom and the lack of other means of self-expression and
communication. This led him to develop an awareness of language and the skill
to write in such a way as to produce the reactions he wanted in other people.
He talks about how important writing is in maintaining personal identity in
prison. This relates to the need to reach out to loved ones and friends and get
a response (see discussion of the dialogic construction of identity in Chapter 6);
but it is also often about writing only for oneself, trying to create a sense of
personal meaning in an emotionally empty, boring and stigmatised environment.
This was the rst time he had ever used writing for self-expression rather than
for purely functional purposes. His writing is now so much a part of his identity
that he talks about not wanting to keep the work he did in prison because he
wants to move on from the person he was then.
CD-ROM Band 23: Death row penfriends (duration approx.
15 minutes)
In CD-ROM Band 22, John talked about the importance of letters in prison. In
addition to writing to family and friends, many prisoners, especially if they
are incarcerated for some time, take on penfriend correspondences with
people whom they have never met. In this band we switch perspective from
inside to outside prison, and you can hear a British man and woman, Jan and
Brian, talking about their experience of writing to penfriends on death row in
the United States of America. They got in touch with their penfriends through
the British organisation Lifelines.
As well as touching on some of the themes in Anita Wilsons reading, the
band is also linked with Reading B, by Margaretta Jolly in Chapter 6. You
may be able to make some interesting comparisons between soldiers
writing from the front line, and prisoners writing from death row. The
penfriends comments illustrate particular ways in which writing is being
used creatively to manage interactional relationships. They also show how
an exchange of letters can contribute to the dialogical construction of the
self (see Chapter 6, end of Section 6.2 and Section 6.3). You should be able
to see links with the discussion in Chapter 5 about the creation of online
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relationships and identities, and the affordances and constraints of a

particular environment. There are also links with Chapter 3 and Goffmans
presentation of the self, and with the work on formal artistry (metaphors,
etc.) earlier in the book.
ACTIVITY 2
1 hour
Listen to the audio band and make notes on the following questions:
.
The penfriends had to rely totally on writing to initiate and develop a

strong friendship with each other. In what ways do they suggest that this is
easier, or more difficult, than creating a face-to-face relationship?
How do you consider that the affordances and constraints of the medium,
and the context of the correspondence, shape the development of the
penfriend relationship?
In what ways do the penfriends report that artful use of language is itself
a resource for the interaction?
Comment
Your notes may have included the following points:
Jan comments that she has to think carefully about how she writes to ensure
that there arent any misunder standings, in the absence of the visual and aural
cues and give and take which we rely on in face-to-face talk. Writing to
someone who is so distant can feel safe, so that its almost like talking to
yourself, but she adds that this can be dangerous because You could end up
revealing more than either you intended or that, than the other person is
ready to hear. The comments of both penfriends suggest that they felt able to
get very close to their penfriends, in spite of differences which might have
made this more difcult in a face-to-face relationship. On the other hand, the
correspondents lack of knowledge of each other, and the sharp contrasts
between their circumstances, meant that there was always the potential for
misunderstandings, anxiety and embarrassment. The correspondents have to
do a lot of facework (see box below).
Within the medium of letter writing, the correspondents have much more
time to reect on what they are going to communicate than speakers do in
face-to-face talk, and there is more reection about how a letter might
represent the writer and might affect their penfriend. Jan says that she has to
be very careful in the way she writes to William because he has plenty of time
to brood upon and analyse what she has written. Letters can also be reread
and reinterpreted, in some cases recreating the presence of the writer after
their death, as Jolly suggested in Chapter 6, Reading B. It has been suggested
that penfriends in these circumstances may develop a close relationship rather
rapidly because they can ignore differences (of age, race, class etc) which
would be evident if they met in face-to-face contexts, and can write more
directly about personal matters to someone who has no prior knowledge of
them, and whom they may never meet. Both Jan and Brian say that writing
about and sharing daily experience and hopes and fears brought them closer
to their correspondents. Prisoners report that these close writing relationships
help them to keep their mind in the extreme context of death row.
The correspondents both talk about the impor tance of language play in the
development and maintenance of their relationship (see also Chapter 1,
Reading B by Guy Cook). Jan mentions how they played with language for
humorous effect, William using a parody of good ole boy southern drawl to
enter tain and make their different language varieties into something that brings
them closer; and Jan using Scots dialect to lighten the atmosphere. Similarly,
Brian and David conrm the connection between them through their shared
pleasure in quirky and unusual language (e.g. Davids jokes using southern
American dialect and Brians metaphor the ancient English Oak).
Face is a fundamental concept in politeness theory in sociolinguistics.

It was defined by the American sociologist Ervin Goffman as the
positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line
others assume he has taken during a particular contact (Goffman, 1967,
p. 5). Face refers to a persons public self-image, which needs to be
managed during an interaction. Participants need to be careful not to
lose face or to threaten that of others; and they will, therefore, adopt
strategies which avoid any such risk, such as pretending not to have
noticed a social gaffe.
(Adapted from Swann et al., 2004)
Skills development: constructing an argument

Most of the readings in the course book present a carefully constructed
argument in which the writers try to persuade you to accept their point of
view. To do this, they conform to (and also exploit) a set of conventions for
academic writing that are more or less explicit but rarely taught as such. In
the next two activities we ask you to look at the way one of the reading
authors has structured an argument, and to think critically about the
relationship between the writer and the reader.
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ACTIVITY 3
10 minutes
In constructing an argument, writers typically make a number of moves, for

example:
(a) making a general statement and then supporting it with examples;
(b) putting forward a false hypothesis and then countering it with their own
view;
(c) making a statement on one side, and then balancing it with a contrasting
statement;
(d) telling the reader what they are going to discuss in the next section;
(e) drawing a conclusion from what they have been saying.
Below you can see some short extracts from Reading B, by Anita Wilson. Can
you identify which of the moves listed above (a to e) she is making in each case?
1
Traditionally, when we think of creativity, we envisage .... . But I want to

suggest that ...
It follows on, then, that ... and it is to ... that I now want to turn.
Engagement with poetry takes many forms. Some prisoners .... Others ....
For the majority of prisoners, however ...
It often takes surprisingly uncreative forms .... This conformity is off-set

however by ....
From the discussion above, it can be seen that ...
Comment
Even though the sentences above are incomplete, you can probably identify
the type of move involved. They match up as follows: 1 -- (b); 2 -- (e) and
(d); 3 -- (a) and (c) (notice here that the rst two examples are contrasted
with the last example); 4 -- (c); 5 -- (e).
ACTIVITY 4
1 hour
Look again at Reading B by Anita Wilson, and as you read through, think
about the following questions:
.
How does she structure her argument and what logical links and
progression are evident?
How does she construct an image for herself and for her reader and does
this raise any issues for you?
Comment
Anita Wilsons argument is very carefully constructed in a way which conforms
to the expectations of writing at university. For example, she uses sub-headings
to make the structural components and logical progression of her argument
more explicit. At the end of each of these sections, she highlights logical links
and progression by inserting explicit signposting about where her argument is
going next (move d in the list above).
As is usual in this kind of argumentation, she begins with an introduction in
which she lays out her basic premise that creativity can emerge from
disadvantageous and unlikely circumstances. She clearly announces her
intention to look more closely at this hypothesis with particular reference to
creativity in prison. In her section entitled Background, she comments on the
particular signicance of creativity to prisoners, using a quotation from one
prisoner as her starting point. In the next section, she describes the concept of
the third space which prisoners create as a strategy for survival while in
prison, and the generally creative activity which goes on in this conceptual
space. She then argues that, within this creativity, language and communication
are central. This leads logically to a discussion of the creative strategies
prisoners devise to communicate both spoken and written messages and then
moves on to look at the creativity of the language itself. As a further
perspective on the creativity of prisoners literacy and language practices she
then explores its links with the sociocultural environment from which they
originate. She ends her argument with a conclusion which summarises her
main points and refers back to her starting point about how creativity is
pervasive and can be found in the most unlikely circumstances.
Wilson has thus constructed a clear, logical and continuous line of argument
from an introduction to a conclusion, in which there are no gaps or sudden
leaps, and in which each point and each section follows logically from the next,
and the connection is made explicit. Furthermore, her points are supported by
evidence from the data she has collected in her research. These examples lend
authenticity to her claims and also serve to make her points clearer.
One of the interesting features of Anita Wilsons argument is the way she
attributes to the reader a viewpoint which she then goes on to counter (move
b in the list above). If you look at the rst paragraph, you will see that Wilson
uses the pronoun we to include the reader in a point of view about creativity:
Traditionally, when we think of creativity, we envisage ... . She then dissociates
herself from this viewpoint with the words, But I want to suggest that we take
a different approach .... She reinforces this in the last sentence of the paragraph
by saying it might come as something of a surprise to the reader and then
repeats her basic premise for the article. Not only is the reader assumed to
be starting from a different position from that of the author, but she suggests,
at the beginning of the next section, that this opinion is based on ignorance
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which she will be able to correct: To a reader with little or no understanding

or knowledge of prison life .... Yet from my perspective as a prison
ethnographer ....
In effect, therefore, Wilson is positioning the reader by making cer tain
assumptions about their state of knowledge and opinions about creativity. At
the same time she is positioning herself as someone whose experience has led
her to a different perspective, and who therefore will be able to enlighten the
reader. There is no doubt that Wilson is an expert in her eld and has done
valuable research that provides genuine insights; but you might perhaps feel
uncomfor table at being positioned in this way, especially if you have any
knowledge of the adversities (including imprisonment) faced by many great
writers.
You may have noticed that the sentence above also involves an argumentative
move, where we make a statement (There is no doubt that ...) and then
balance it with a contrasting statement (but you might perhaps feel ...).
Moves of this sort are common across all types of academic writing, and its
impossible to construct an argument without in some way positioning
yourself and your reader. In Unit 11 we will look again at the way academic
writers construct an argument. Meanwhile, as you read through the course
book chapters and readings, bear in mind the need to stay alert to the way
writers position themselves and their readers, and to take a critical stance in
analysing and evaluating their arguments.
Data collection and analysis: literacy practices
ACTIVITY 5
Ongoing
In order to follow up and explore the argument in Chapter 7 about the

creativity in everyday literacy, collect or record a number of literacy activities
you come across in your own life which have a creative element. You may like
to collect and document creativity in a particular domain, e.g. childrens
production and use of texts, literacy practices in a workplace, family or
community organisation.
Note down the date and context for each activity, and what it involved. Once
you have collected a number of examples, make a note of what you consider
to be the creative elements of each activity, including any texts which are
produced or used. Where are your own cut-off points about what counts as
creativity?
The literacy activities which you document may involve the production of a
creative text, but if so, make notes also on other creative aspects of these
activities, for example:
Literacy
activity
Date, context, what was

involved
Creative aspects
Sending email
to friend in
Hong Kong.
10/7/05, late evening sitting

at home computer.
Felt like a pleasant social contact
after cleaning the kitchen. Also
checked online weather forecast
for next few days.
(text) metaphor, alliteration in

private joke;
(interaction) joke was responding to
joke in her last email- affirming and
consolidating our long-distance
friendship;
(affordances) we created our
relationship through email: much
quicker and easier than letters and
cheaper than the phone;
(practices) creative adaptation of
letter writing conventions?
Look back at the examples at the beginning of the chapter, and the
commentaries on them. Papen and Tusting stress the impor tance of creativity
in collaborative social practice rather than individual texts, but their chapter
also includes plenty of examples of texts with poetic features, particularly in
the three readings. Note also their examples of literacy activities which
creatively exploit the affordances of restrictive contexts, particular technologies
and new discourses. It may be useful to make a list of all the different kinds of
creativity referred to in the chapter.
In the chapter, the term literacy activities is used in a non-specialist

way to simply refer to peoples interactions with texts. You may also
find it useful to use the following terms, which have been developed
within research documenting literacy as social practice, sometimes
referred to as New Literacy Studies:
Literacy events: social interactions where literacy plays a significant
role, e.g. reading a bedtime story, discussing a letter from the tax office,
helping a friend with a magazine puzzle.
Literacy practices: the patterned ways people use and interact with
texts in particular contexts, and the meanings that these hold for them,
e.g. the frequent email circulation of jokes among a group of friends and
the significance of this for the people involved; the writing of Open
University assignments and the meaning and significance of this activity
for students doing the writing.
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The 19th-century communication

revolution
This unit of study
Chapter 8 of Book 1, The 19th-century communication revolution
(allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 24, Postcards (allow about 1 hour).
Data collection and analysis: postcards (ongoing).
Websearch: working class autobiographies (allow about 3--4 hours).
Learning points
.
the argument that creativity is affected by the opportunities provided

within different socio-historical contexts
how different kinds of historical evidence are used to identify and

interpret creativity in nineteenth-century literacy practices, and how we
can draw more general points about literacy and creativity from this
historical case study;
how ways in which literacy was acquired in nineteenth-century Britain

shaped possibilities for individual creativity;
how oral and literate traditions were interwoven within nineteenthcentury vernacular literacy practices;
how a complex range of cultural and technological changes shaped the

literacy experience of working class children and adults in nineteenthcentury Britain and provided resources for their own creative reading and
writing.
You will also explore in more depth the range of online resources that you
can draw on to help you research a complex topic or assignment question.
UNIT 10 THE 19TH-CENTURY COMMUNICATION REVOLUTION

Chapter author: David Vincent, Professor of Social History, The Open
University.
Reading authors: Wilkie Collins (nineteenth-century English novelist), David
Vincent, John Clare (nineteenth-century English poet), J.A. Leatherland
(nineteenth-century English writer).
Like the previous two chapters, this chapter is concerned with how
people use reading and writing creatively in their everyday lives;
and how their writing can sometimes be transformed into more public
or artistic genres. Like Chapter 7, it looks at how people adapt and
develop their literacy practices in the context of social, economic and
technological changes. David Vincent, however, focuses on literacy
and creativity in a particularly signicant period in British history when
working class culture was undergoing a transition from being largely
oral to predominantly literate, and a new, albeit diverse, reading
and writing public was emerging. He is also particularly interested in the
creativity, or lack of creativity, in the reading matter available inside
and outside school for the majority of children and adults during
this period.
As you read this chapter, look out for:
.
how social, economic and technological developments influenced

opportunities and incentives for individual literacy and creativity.
the way in which new genres emerged with their own sets of conventions
and reader expectations.
indications of creative or artistic qualities in the writings of working class

people.
comparisons between what Vincent terms the nineteenth-century

communications revolution and what has been happening to literacy and
creativity as a result of technological and social change more recently,
or in other contexts with which you are familiar.
The creativity displayed as people adapted their literacy practices to new

printing and transport technology may remind you of discussions in Chapter 5
of the effects of the telegraph and the internet for communication. Vincents
view of the latest developments in communication technology seems to be
that they are not as significant in their effect on literacy and creativity as those
in the period he is discussing. You might like to think about whether or not
the current communications revolution resulting from computer technology is
likely to be as radical in its effects as that of the nineteenth century.
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Activities
CD-ROM Band 24: Postcards (duration approx. 11 minutes)
Featuring: Julia Gillen and Janet Maybin, both of The Open University.
This band picks up on some of the points in Reading B, on the Penny Post, in
a discussion of peoples uses of picture postcards in Britain in the rst part of
the twentieth century. Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall (Professor of Literacy
Education at Manchester Metropolitan University) have been studying these
early postcards, and suggest that there were a number of important reasons
for their tremendous popularity. They argue that picture postcards are a
complex medium, falling into a number of different genres and carrying
multiple meanings for their users.
In this band Julia Gillen talks to Janet Maybin about her research with Nigel
Hall. The postcards she discusses are reproduced so that you can see images
of them while she talks. She rst describes various different cards, how they
were used, and why so many postcards were sent and received in Britain at
this particular moment in history. She then focuses on a particular sub-genre:
the Why havent you written? postcard. She looks at the relationship
between the postcard picture and what people wrote, and at their multimodal
construction of sometimes ambivalent messages.
ACTIVITY 1
30 minutes
Consider the following questions:

.
In what ways does this account of the use of the postcard in early
twentieth-century Britain illustrate the argument in Chapter 8 about the
relationship of individual literacy practices with wider social, economic and
technological change?
In what ways did writers make creative uses of the affordances of the
postcard, to communicate with and manage interactions with others?
Comment
The cheapness and easy availability of postcards meant that they could be used
by the newly literate classes; and the speed and efciency of the postal service,
with six to ten deliveries a day, meant that they could be used for all sorts of
purposes involving short messages, including making arrangements or
acknowledging business orders. The possibility, after 1902, of writing on one
half of the address side considerably extended the creative potential. This kind
of almost synchronous communication, which was not possible later in the
century, did not become available again until the advent of email and texting.
Julia Gillen also touches upon themes from Chapter 6 about managing
interactions and presenting the self within writing. She makes points about
affordances and constraints which link with Chapters 5 and 7. For example,
senders of postcards had to take into account the fact that the postman
could read their messages. If they wished to maintain the privacy of the
communication, they either had to put the postcard into an envelope, which
cost more to send, or they used mirror writing or codes to obscure the
message.
Gillen also discusses the new multimodal creative possibilities of postcards,
especially how senders use the relationship between the picture, the caption,
and what they themselves write, to convey the tone of the message. For
example, it was possible to deliver a bald Why havent you written? message
in the picture, and soften this with humour in the personally written message.
Note especially her reference to Scollons point about the use of humour
creating solidarity between people and to the notion of a face-threatening act,
which can be linked to Goffmans ideas introduced in Chapter 3. (And both
these points are also relevant to the death row penfriend correspondences
discussed above).
Data collection and analysis: postcards
ACTIVITY 2
Ongoing
Try to nd some postcards that have been sent to you or to your family and
friends. Consider and make some notes on the following questions:
.
What does the main function of the message appear to be? How does
this compare with what Gillen and Hall found in relation to postcards sent
a hundred years ago?
.
What evidence is there of multimodal creativity?
.
Can you identify any conventional or generic features which seem to
be common to all or most of your data sample?
Comment
It is likely that any postcards you found are holiday postcards since this seems
now to be their main context; and they perhaps serve a similar function to
greetings cards at Christmas in reinforcing family or friendship relationships.
Given the relative unreliability of modern postal ser vices, it is unlikely that
these postcards will convey any functional messages relating to practical
arrangements, or information such as when the sender expects to be home.
They may indicate briey what the sender has been doing on holiday, and
even what they might be doing later that day. Specic information about
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activities or the weather seems mainly intended to give a avour of the holiday
and how the sender is feeling about it.. If the postcard comes from a sender
who is on an interesting, adventurous or unusual holiday, there may be a
suggestion of proving I was here / I was really doing this, and maybe even an
element of boasting.
There may be some evidence of multimodal creativity in your sample of
postcards. Although contextual information may be scarce, there could be
some indication that the picture or car toon may have been chosen with the
recipient in mind, perhaps to emphasise solidarity by showing awareness or
concern for the kind of image that might appeal to that person, or perhaps
emphasising shared values or a shared joke. There may be some clues to
inter textual references that the sender knows the recipient will recognise. For
example, I once received a postcard of the block and axe at the Tower of
London, with the scrawled message wish you were here!; the sender was
relying on my understanding of the cultural signicance of the visual image and
the text, in the context of a long-standing friendly relationship which mitigated
the apparently hostile message. The sender may or may not make some
reference to the picture in the message, and these references could perform
various functions, perhaps pointing out signicant features, or justifying or
explaining the choice of image. There may even be instances of where the
image itself has been modied by a cross, arrow or circle and some writing to
indicate where we are staying/this is our hotel, or some kind of joke such as
this looks like so-and-so/this is me.
You may nd that the common occurrence of various characteristics in your
sample seems to indicate the existence of a genre and/or sub-genre of
postcards. Gillen and Hall have identied the Why havent you written?
sub-genre; you might have been able to identify others such as the Wish you
were here, or more likely I bet you wish you were here instead of me! You
will also notice how the generic features are inuenced strongly by the
affordances and constraints -- especially the expected delivery time lag.
Websearch: working class autobiographies
ACTIVITY 3
2--3 hours
Previous units have occasionally referred you to the SAFARI skills tutorials as a
way of developing your information literacy skills. To consolidate and extend
the work you have done so far, we now suggest you work your way through
the whole of SAFARI sections 3 and 4 (which you can access through the
eDesktop library resources or the OU library homepage). This will provide a
good preparation for the next activity.
The time you take for this activity will depend on how familiar you are already
with the resources available online. You can skip through material which you
nd easy, and leave more time to explore any aspects which may be new
to you.
Comment
The SAFARI skills tutorial will have alerted you to a wide range of resources
that you can draw on when researching a particular topic, and helped you to
identify those that might be valuable to you without wasting too much time.
Of course, it is always possible to answer assignment questions using only the
course materials, but the ability to nd other relevant materials can be helpful
when you have some individual choice as to your essay topic (for example,
in the end-of-course assessment). In addition, information literacy skills are
valuable skills for employment and personal development.
ACTIVITY 4
1 hour
Imagine that you have been asked to write an assignment essay on the
following question:
The forms that linguistic creativity may take are shaped not only by the
skills of the individual, but also by the oppor tunities provided by society.
Discuss this issue with reference to working class autobiographies of the
nineteenth century.
Use the library resources (which can be accessed through the E301 eDesktop)
and the internet to identify three or four potential sources of information, and
make notes on how you might use these sources in your essay. (Please note
that you are not required to actually write the essay -- just to think about ways
of researching the topic.)
Comment
Theres a huge amount of information that you might have found on this topic your results will depend on the resources that you searched, and the search
terms that you used. I found that the phrase working class autobiography was
specic enough to act as a useful search term, but that I got better results
if I combined it with Victorian rather than 19th century (or nineteenth
century). I found a few academic articles on this topic, and several book
reviews published in journals; these would provide academic discussion of the
issues involved and could be used to build up the argument in the essay.
There was a wealth of material about social conditions, including some
excellent websites that I found by typing Victorian into the Search box on
ROUTES. These websites would provide useful background information
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(including statistics) about the oppor tunities provided by society. I found

some facsimile pages of nineteenth-century working class autobiographies
using the images link from the library homepage, but apart from this, had
little success in nding full text versions online within the time limit. However,
I did nd the titles of several published books; these might be useful to
someone carrying out longer-term research, with enough time to track down
the books in a nearby library.
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Locating creativity in texts

and practices
This unit of study
Chapter 9 of Book 1, Locating creativity in texts and practices
(allow 7--8 hours).
CD-ROM Band 25, Theoretical perspectives (allow about 30 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 26, The jogger anecdote (allow about 30 minutes).
CD-ROM Band 5 Womans conversational stories (allow about 1 hour).
Websearch/Corpus investigation: and I was like oh ... (allow about
1 hour).
Skills development: reported voices in academic writing (allow about
1 hour).
Data collection and analysis: reported voices in conversation (ongoing).
Learning points
.
the different approaches to creativity in everyday language which have

been considered in this book, ranging from the more text-focused to
sociocultural approaches;
Bakhtins concepts of heteroglossia and dialogicality and how they relate

to issues of creativity on the course;
the nature and functions of creative uses of reported dialogue in everyday

conversation;
Goffmans notions of performance in everyday life, especially backstage/

frontstage behaviour and facework, and how you might apply these to
your own experience.
You will also learn how to use the world wide web as a language corpus,
and will extend your understanding of the way different sources can be used
to construct an academic argument.
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Chapter author: Janet Maybin, The Open University.
Reading authors: Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian literary theorist and language
philosopher; Deborah Tannen, Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown
University, USA; Erving Goffman, American sociologist.
In this nal chapter of the rst course book, Janet Maybin begins by looking
back at the sweep of the argument across the previous chapters, which have
illustrated a variety of approaches to how language creativity can be
conceptualised, identied and analysed. These approaches have ranged from
those which focus on creativity in language at the level of text, to those setting
language creativity within the context of social interaction, and of broader
sociocultural processes. There have also been some references to a cognitive
model of language creativity. Maybin then considers the work of two
important theorists whose work underpins the more sociocultural approaches
explored in the book: the Russian literary theorist and language philosopher
Mikhail Bakhtin and the American sociologist Erving Goffman. The readings
also include an extract from Deborah Tannen, who has developed Bakhtins
ideas about reported dialogue, which she sees as one of the features of
everyday conversation providing the seeds of literary discourse.
.
the ways in which Bakhtin, Goffman and Tannen help to explain and
support arguments about creativity in everyday language.
the connections Maybin makes between the chapters and the way the
argument has progressed.
the notion that creativity is not only to be found in the inherent features
of language at the level of text, but also in the way it can be seen
operating in social interactions and in relation to the sociocultural context.
the cognitive dimensions of creativity.
Activities
CD-ROM Band 25: Theoretical perspectives (duration 5 minutes)
Featuring: Ronald Carter, Professor of Modern English Language, University of
Nottingham.
Ronald Carter, the author of the set book, was asked to talk about how
particular theorists had inuenced his work on language and creativity. In this
extract, he talks about Bakhtin and Tannen and also mentions Goffman and
cognitive approaches.
UNIT 11 LOCATING CREATIVITY IN TEXTS AND PRACTICES
ACTIVITY 1
30 minutes
Please listen to the tape (probably more than once) and write some notes on
the following question:
How does Carters discussion about the inuence of these theorists and
researchers relate to what you have read about them in Chapter 9?
Comment
Carter sees Bakhtins work as being of primary importance in inuencing the
development of the sociocultural approach, in which the broader context and the
interactional functions of language have to be studied for its meaning and
creativity to be better understood. (Bakhtins own approach is often referred to as
sociohistorical, and Maybin treats this as a variant of the sociocultural approach).
Carter emphasises Bakhtins notion of the dialogicity of language (also called
dialogicality), which sees any utterance (spoken or written) as being
constructed as part of a dialogue with past, present and future listeners or
readers, whether real or conjectural. The meaning is also affected by the
particular circumstances of the production and interpretation of the utterance.
Carter acknowledges the inuence of Tannens ideas on his work and
especially her recognition of the continuities between ordinary and literary
language. This clearly relates to his notion of a continuum or cline as discussed
in his book; and to the ideas expressed in this course about how the seeds of
poetic language can be found in everyday talk.
Carter also mentions Goffman as one of the important inuences on the
development of his own ideas about creativity in routine human interactions. It
is not difcult to see the connection between Goffmans ideas about language
and creativity being a constant performance and Bakhtins notion of language
always being constructed for a social purpose and in response to an audience.
This, of course, raises issues about self-consciousness, intentionality and
awareness of audience that relate to the central question of what is, or is not,
artistic or literary in language.
Reported discourse
There has been recent research interest in the different forms and uses of
reported speech in talk (some of which are discussed by Tannen in
Reading B), and in the ways in which reported speech is used in writing by,
for example, journalists, academics and advertisers. Of particular interest are
the ways in which the speaker or writer conveys their own evaluation of the
discourse they are reporting. The four activities below, which focus on
reported speech in oral anecdotes, data on the web, and academic writing,
are designed to introduce some of the ideas and issues in this area.
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CD-ROM Band 26: The jogger anecdote (duration approx.

1 minute)
This band contains the anecdote My mother and the jogger, reproduced
from Jennifer Coates interview in Band 5: Womens conversational stories.
The transcript is also reproduced below. The focus here is on the narrators
use of reported speech.
ACTIVITY 2
About 20 minutes
Listen to the story the narrator tells about her mother and the jogger, and
read through the transcript below.
At which points in the narrative structure (abstract, orientation, complication,
resolution, coda), does the narrator use reported speech? How does this
contribute to:
(a) the unfolding of the story;
(b) the portrayal of her mother;
(c) the evaluative function of the narrative, i.e. the point of telling it?
My mother and the jogger

(Narrator)
1
Shes a major embarrassment <laughter>.
2
Do you know what she did recently?
She took- shes got these 2 Dobermans who are really unruly
but very sweet.
She took them for a walk on the beach one day,
and this was at the height of the Rottweiler scare (yeah),
and this joggers running along the beach at Liverpool,
10
11
and my mother started off by being nice to him
12
and saying Im terribly sorry, shes only a puppy and she was
just being playful and so on,
13
and he got worse,
14
and the more she tried to placate him, (yes)
15
the more he decided he was going to go to the police station

and create a scene about it.
16
So she said, let me have a look,
17
and she strode over and pulled his- <laughs> pulled his track
suit bottoms down,
18
and said Dont be so bloody stupid, man, theres nothing

wrong with you. Youre perfectly all right.
19
(at which point) he was so embarrassed he just jogged away

<laughter>
(Friend)
20
Oh that would that would be the sort of thing she would do.
(Narrator)
21
Thats just what shes like shes (very) funny ...
Comment
In conversational anecdotes, reported speech most often occurs in the
complication section, where the narrator is building up to the denouement
and needs to ensure the maximum involvement of their audience. In the
jogger anecdote, the complicating action is developed through reported
speech interspersed with comments. The mothers rst comment illustrates
how she starts off being nice to him, her second comment provides her
(characteristically forthright) reaction to his continuing complaints, and the
third her even more forthright evaluation of his injuries. In this sense the
reported speech moves the complicating action along, unfolding the events as
they happened, and also conveying a twist through embedded evaluation: while
the mother starts off by acknowledging the dogs reprehensibility, by her third
comment the mother has shifted to a derisory dismissal of his injuries: Dont
be so bloody stupid, man, theres nothing wrong with you.
More than any other parts in the anecdote, the reported speech brings the
mother to life, illustrating her personal qualities which the narrator wants to
portray, and conveying just how she can be a major embarrassment, which is the
overall evaluative function of the story, in other words the point of telling it.
ACTIVITY 3
About 1 hour
Now go back to CD-ROM Band 6, Sample stories and listen to Stories about
mothers from Womans Hour, which includes the rapid exchange of a number
of brief anecdotes. The participants are writer Stephen Armstrong, actor Lynda
Bellingham and comedian Shappi Khorsandi, chaired by Martha Kearney. If you
havent done so already for a previous activity, make a rough transcript of the
band, paying particular attention to reported speech.
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.
Where reported speech is part of an anecdote, how does it contribute to

narrative unfolding, portrayal of characters and evaluation (however brief
this may be)?
In what ways does the narrator communicate their own stance towards
the voices they are repor ting?
Look out for examples of what Tannen refers to as constructed dialogue,
i.e. the dialogue was clearly not actually spoken by the person to whom
it was attributed (see Chapter 9 Reading B).
Comment
As with the jogger anecdote, the narrators convey their mothers qualities through
reproducing and animating their voices, as part of the complicating action. In very
brief anecdotes, the complicating action is often conveyed almost wholly through
reported speech, as in Lyndas nal anecdote. Here, where the subject of the talk
is not only what their mother was like, but also their own relationship with her, the
speakers often reconstruct their own as well as their mothers voices. The voices
are set up by what comes before, e.g. she was just, you know, infuriatingly
understanding; they are animated in particular ways to convey character attributes
which are important for the point of the story (e.g. Stephens animation of himself
as a rebellious teenager and Lyndas lugubrious representation of Ronnie Fraser);
and they are also juxtaposed against other voices (e.g. in the dialogue between
Lyndas mother and Ronnie Fraser, and in the dialogue between Stephen and his
mother). There is an example of dialogue constructed by a listener (see Reading
B) when Shappi imagines Stephens mothers next comment In a years time youll
be going through this theory, yes and Stephen then responds, in role, No, Im an
individual. Also, Lyndas comment You say Would you like your tea at 3 oclock
in the morning when youre back from a rave is an example of dialogue as
instantiation (see Reading B), where Lynda is illustrating the kind of way in which
she is irritatingly understanding, rather than reporting an actual incident.
Websearch/Corpus investigation: and I was like oh
In the previous corpus activities in Units 5--6, you looked at data from The
Bank of English. The next activity continues the exploration of corpus-based
research on language use drawing on a much bigger corpus, the web. There
is no way of knowing exactly how big a corpus this is, but at the time of
writing, the search engine Google examines over 8000 million web pages.
As it is not possible to know the exact size of the web, one disadvantage of using
it as a corpus is that we cannot perform statistical analysis in order to provide
rigorous quantitative evidence about the use of a particular word or phrase. But
the web can still be used qualitatively. Given its vast size, it may sometimes be a
better tool than The Bank of English for generating and exploring hypotheses,
investigating the use of words and phrases in a trial-and-error way which could
then could be followed up with more systematic investigation.
Consider for example Reading B in Chapter 9, where Tannen says

(p. 446) that The word like is frequently used to introduce dialogue that, in
a sense, is just what it says: not what the person actually said but rather what
the person appeared to have felt like, as in And the bus driver was like Oh
my Go::d (p. 447). Tannens data comes from brief examples taken from
narratives recorded by participants in casual conversation with their friends
and family (p 443), so her corpus is probably limited. Using the web would
provide much more evidence about the use of like to introduce dialogue.
Like other search engines, however, Google does not display all the results
of a search in concordance form, so it is difficult to compare examples.
However, there are a number of software programmes which can be used to
organise the results of websearches in KWIC format (key word in context).
We use one of these, Webcorp for the following activity.
ACTIVITY 4
1 hour
The aim of this activity is to investigate the way like is used to introduce a
reported voice. Please note that Webcorp may take several minutes to create
a concordance, so you should choose a time for this activity when it will be
convenient to stay connected to the internet for a while.
Connect to the internet and go to the website http://www.webcorp.org.uk/. You
should see the following screen (or something similar).
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First you need to select the settings for your search. In the box labelled Search
Engine you can choose to carry out a search using Google, Altavista, or another
search engine. Under Concordance span, you should select 30 words in order to
maximise the amount of co-textual information. Under Case options click on
Case insensitive so that the search engine will ignore lower/upper case (which
is not significant in this search) and collect as much data as possible.
Now enter the following pattern into the Search term box:
and * was like oh
The asterisk functions as a wild card, representing any single word. So
this pattern will bring up examples including pronouns and peoples names,
e.g. and I was like oh, and she was like oh or and Dave was like oh.
Press the Submit button. The search is likely to take several minutes, so please
be patient. Depending on your internet connection, you may find that Webcorp
runs too slowly, and in this case, you may prefer to try a simpler search using
Google. Go to Google and type the same pattern in the Search box:
and * was like oh
You need to put inverted commas around the words to prevent Google
treating them as individual items. This search will produce similar results to the
Webcorp search, but you will not see as much of the context.
When the output of the search nally appears, you should see a list of
examples in the following form:
while she was signing that I told her that I had something that I heard she has been
l o o k i n g f o r a t e v e r y s h o w. T h e n I p u l l e d o u t t h e p u z z l e p i e c e
and she was like oh yeah I did not get it yet at this show After that I
g a v e h e r t h e b a g o f g i f t s t h a t I b r o u g h t f o r h e r. I t o l d h e r t h a t m y l e t t e r
You can click on the url for each example to view the web page it appears on,
which will give you a better idea of the context.
At the time of writing, Webcorp accessed a limited number of web pages, but
even so it generates a lot of data, and you may wish to limit your time on the
internet by carrying out your analysis offline, or copying the results to your
own computer (for advice on how to do this, see http://www.open.ac.uk/
webguide/index.htm).
Do the results of your search support the hypothesis that the pattern and *
was like oh is likely to be associated with representing peoples thoughts and
emotions, as well as just their words? When you are ready, look through the
data and consider whether was like oh seems to be more often used:
.
.
.
to repor t peoples speech or to repor t their thoughts?

for the speaker/writers own speech/thought, or other peoples speech/thought?
in some genres rather than others?
From your experience with this activity, what do you think are the advantages/
limitations of using the world wide web as a source of language data?
Comment
The data I obtained when I tried this activity will of course be different from your
data, but you might like to compare your ndings. Firstly, I found that there were
a small number of cases that denitely involved thought rather than speech, and
a small number that denitely involved speech. In the majority of cases, however,
it was difcult to differentiate them, and it may be precisely this ambiguity that
makes the expression particularly convenient in informal narration. When I
looked at whose voice was involved, I found that the great majority of cases
involved I, rather than he, she, or a name. It also seemed that and I was like
oh was more often used to introduce thoughts, whereas and he/she/Name was
like oh was more often used to introduce speech. This is perhaps to be
expected, given that we have more access to our own thoughts than to those of
other people. Finally, it appeared that most instances of and * was like oh
occurred in blogs, or in interviews printed in fan sites and online magazines.
In interpreting these ndings, though, we have to bear in mind the nature of
the corpus. The world wide web is very large, but however much data you
collect, it can still only represent the way language is used on the web, which
may differ from the way it is used in other contexts. Certain genres will be
well represented, while others (including all spoken genres) will be absent; and
cer tain types of people may be better represented on the web than others. In
addition, CMC may represent a particular type of discourse with characteristic
features of its own (as suggested in Chapter 5), and for this reason we need
to be very cautious in interpreting ndings from a web-based concordancer.
As with the other corpus exercises, a corpus ultimately only provides text,
without the information about participants and context that you would need
in order to be condent about the conclusions you draw. In this activity youve
been exploring the use of and * was like oh, but for a more systematic
investigation you would need knowledge of the participants and the context.
Skills development: reported voices in academic writing
Your work on the previous activities will have revealed some of the functions
of reported speech in conversational narrative. While the reporting of other
peoples voices is ubiquitous in everyday talk (see Reading A), it is also an
important part of different kinds of writing. Researchers have found that there
are distinct conventions for reporting other peoples voices in different
institutional practices such as academia, journalism and advertising. In
academic writing, which we will focus on here, the weaving in of appropriate
quotations is often important, and it is regarded as vital to clearly signal:
1
that this is a separate voice and where it comes from;
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STUDY GUIDE 1
what stance the writer is taking in relation to the voice (e.g. is this a
revered authority who provides underpinning for the writers work, or a
position about to be refuted?);
how the quoted voice contributes to the development of the writers

overall argument.
ACTIVITY 5
20 minutes
Look at Tannens use of quotations from Bakhtin and Voloshinov from the
beginning of Reading B, reprinted below. What is the role of these quotations
in the reading, and how does Tannen make this clear?
For Voloshinov/Bakhtin, dialogue is crucial: not dialogue per se, that is
the exchange of turns that is of central concern to conversation analysts,
but the polyphonic nature of all utterance, of every word. This polyphony
derives from the multiple resonances of the people, contexts, and genres
with which the utterance or word has been associated. As Bakhtin
([1952--3]1986, p. 91) puts it, Each utterance is filled with the echoes and
reverberations of other utterances to which it is related by the
communality of the sphere of speech communication. [...]
Not only is every utterance dialogic, but also hearing and understanding
are dialogic acts because they require active interpretation not passive
reception. In exploring dialogue in this sense, Voloshinov ([1929]1986)
devotes extensive analysis to reported speech. He introduces this focus as
follows:
The productive study of dialogue presupposes, however, a more
profound investigation of the forms used in reported speech, since
these forms reect basic and constant tendencies in the active
reception of other speakers speech, and it is this reception, after all,
that is fundamental also for dialogue.
(p. 117)
[...] In his extended discussion of reported speech, Voloshinov criticizes
earlier investigators for divorcing the reported speech from the reporting
context:
That explains why their treatment of these forms is so static and inert
(a characterization applicable to the whole eld of syntactic study in
general). Meanwhile, the true object of inquiry ought to be precisely
the dynamic interrelationship of these two factors, the speech being
reported (the other persons speech) and the speech doing the
reporting (the authors speech). After all, the two actually do exist,
function, and take shape only in their interrelation, and not on their
own, the one apart from the other. The reported speech and the
reporting context are but the terms of a dynamic interrelationship.
(p. 119)
105
Furthermore, Bakhtin ([1975]1981, p. 340) observes:

that the speech of another, once enclosed in a context, is -- no matter
how accurately transmitted -- always subject to certain semantic
changes. The context embracing anothers word is responsible for its
dialogizing background, whose inuence can be very great. Given
the appropriate methods for framing, one may bring about
fundamental changes even in anothers utterance accurately quoted.
[...]
My concern in this chapter incorporates Voloshinovs notion that the reported
speech and the reporting context are dynamically interrelated as well as
Bakhtins that the meaning of the reported speech itself can be -- indeed,
I would say, is inevitably -- transformed by the reporting context. Moreover,
I wish to call attention to the dynamic relationship between the reported
speech and the reported context. I am claiming that the term reported
speech is grossly misleading in suggesting that one can speak anothers
words and have them remain primarily the others words.
Comment
This extract includes a high propor tion of quotation from other writers. So
much quotation is fairly unusual in academic writing, and tends to occur mainly
when a writer is introducing concepts that are of fundamental impor tance to
the discussion that follows. The very fact that Deborah Tannen quotes so
much from Bakhtin and Voloshinov suggests that she sees them as key
inuences on her thinking, and is using them to establish a basis for the
argument she is about to develop.
She begins with an introductory statement that sums up their approach: For
Voloshinov/Bakhtin, dialogue is crucial. If this was a view she disagreed with, she
might go on to indicate her reser vations (perhaps using expressions like They
suggest that ... However ...). On the contrary, she introduces the rst quotation
using a phrase (As Bakhtin puts it) which indicates her agreement with this
proposition. The following presentation of lengthy quotation, without any
criticism, suggests that these are ideas which she regards both as valid and as
signicant for the rest of her discussion. This is conrmed when she explains: my
concern in this chapter incorporates Voloshinovs notion ... as well as Bakhtins
..... Notice, though, that she then goes on to indicate her own approach to the
issue by introducing the the dynamic relationship between the reported speech
and the reported context. In this way she indicates to the reader both the basis
for her argument, and the direction that it will take in the following pages.
Tannen of course follows normal academic conventions in her quotations, giving
author and date of publication (in this case for publication of both original
Russian text and the English translation), and the page number of each quotation.
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STUDY GUIDE 1
ACTIVITY 6
40 minutes
There may be various reasons for including the voices of others in a piece of
writing. In the extracts that follow (taken from readings in the course book),
the writers use reported voices to perform one or more of these functions:
1 establish an accepted basis for what they are then going to develop;
set up a position they are going to argue against;
provide support for their own point or argument;
introduce a particular term used to identify or characterise a concept.
Read through the extracts and decide what functions you think the reported
voices are serving in each case.
How do you think an awareness of these functions might affect your own
academic reading and writing?
(a) Creating a personal homepage can be seen as building a virtual identity

in so far as it flags topics, stances and people regarded by the author as
significant (as well as what may sometimes either be notable by its
absence or go without saying). Sherry Turkle notes that in a homepage,
Ones identity emerges from whom one knows, ones associations and
connections (Turkle, 1996a, p. 258). Theres a well-known web aphorism:
show me your links and Ill tell you who you are. Where such links are
to the pages of friends or to those who share ones interests this can be
seen as involving the construction of a kind of virtual community by
homepage authors (Rheingold, 1995).
(Chapter 6, Reading C: Daniel Chandler, Identities under construction
p. 307)
(b) Finally, we come to the question of how poetic, creative use of metaphor
relates to our prosaic, everyday uses. Lakoff and Turner suggest that:
poetic thought uses the mechanisms of everyday thought, but it
extends them, elaborates them, and combines them in ways that go
beyond the ordinary.
(Lakoff and Turner, 1989, p. 67)
The developing eld of cognitive poetics sets out to examine how this is
done and to uncover writers distinctive and unique conceptualisations of
the world (Freeman, 2003). However, the cognitive focus may once again
downplay the affective impact that metaphor can have when instantiated
in language. When skill with conceptual mechanisms is combined with
skill in the use of the lexical and grammatical resources of the language,
both the affective and cognitive potential of metaphor can be exploited to
move, shock or de-familiarise readers.
(Chapter 1, Reading C: Lynne Cameron, Metaphor in everyday language
p. 52)
(c) Some critics have expressed an anxiety that web pages may lead people
to manipulate their public identities more than has been possible with
traditional media. Howard Rheingold has argued that the authenticity of
relationships [and identities] is always in question in cyberspace, because
of the masking and distancing of the medium, in a way that it is not in
question in real life (Rheingold n.d.). Clearly, different media and modes
of communication facilitate and inhibit different patterns of behaviour. We
do not present ourselves in any kind of writing in the same way as we do
in face-to-face interaction. Even related online genres such as the
personal homepage and the weblog offer different affordances and
constraints for self-presentation: for instance, blogs do not erase earlier
standpoints as personal homepages do -- a feature that led one
commentator to claim that weblogs enable a more truthful
presentation of self (Jung, 2003, p. 5).
(Chapter 6, Reading C: Daniel Chandler, Identities under construction
p. 308)
(d) Within the nuclear family [...] participation in co-narration [often] seems
[...] concerned with demonstrating membership, i.e. with belonging in the
family. Falk (1980) shows how couples display for others their joint
participation in past events through co-narration in carefully orchestrated
duets. Cederborg and Aronsson, 1994, see disagreement about facts as
accusation in family therapy sessions; but in my data, the disagreements
disappear as family members allow each other to refresh their memories
of details.
(Chapter 2, Reading A: Neal R. Norrick, Extracts from Twice-told tales:
collaborative narration of familiar stories, p. 77)
(e) In answering these questions, I have drawn principally on the work of
Labov & Waletsky (1967), Labov (1972) and Gee (1991, 1997, 1999). These
theorists focus on both structural and microlinguistic features of narrative,
while emphasising that narrative should not be considered apart from the
social and cultural contexts of its use. Labovs work is valuable
particularly for his classication of the elements of narrative structure and
his rich account of the syntactic markers of evaluation (1972). Gees
starting-point is that the structure of a narrative, which can be revealed by
analysis of the text into lines, stanzas and parts, is an indication of the
narrators way of ordering and making sense of experience. Dividing the
narrative in this way reveals the patterns, of repetition and contrast,
which, he argues, indicate recurring themes and preoccupations of the
narrator. He calls these patterns thematised echoes (1997).
(Chapter 2, Reading B: Mary Bock, Telling truths: perspectives on a
human rights violation, p. 85)
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(f ) ... intertextuality proved to be a creative strategy that enabled participants

to fashion some interesting new positionalities from existing cultural
resources. Although such resources are given, they are not xed. As is
shown by the data discussed in this article, each participant has the
power to broker meanings afresh with every new usage:
Communication ... must make use of the language, the texts, of
others and because of that, those other voices provide both
amplication and limitations of our own voices. A text which is
appropriated for use in mediated action brings with it the
conventionalizations of the social practices of its history of use. We
say not only what we want to say but also what the text must
inevitably say for us. At the same time, our use of texts in mediated
actions changes those texts and in turn alters the discursive practices.
(Scollon, 1998, p. 15)
(Chapter 5, Reading C: Angela Goddard, Discourses? Us: Intertextuality as
a creative strategy in Interactive Written Discourse (IWD), p. 259)
(g) This contrast [of voices relating to the speakers own identity or the
identity of the person being addressed or targeted] can be systematised
and elaborated with Bakhtins notion of double-voicing. Double-voicing
describes the way that utterances can be affected by a plurality of
competing languages, discourses and voices. With double-voicing,
speakers use someone elses discourse (or language) for their own
purposes, inserting a new semantic intention into a discourse which
already has ... an intention of its own. Such a discourse ... must be seen
as belonging to someone else. In one discourse, two semantic intentions
appear, two voices (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 189).
In fact, though, there are several kinds of double-voicing, and one of
these is called uni-directional. With uni-directional double-voicing,
speakers go along with the momentum of the second voice, though it
generally retains an element of otherness which makes the appropriation
conditional and introduces some reservation into the speakers use of it.
But at the same time, the boundary between the speaker and the voice
they are adopting can diminish, to the extent that there is a fusion of
voices. When that happens, discourse ceases to be double-voiced, and
instead becomes direct, unmediated discourse (1984, p. 199).
(Chapter 3, Reading B: Ben Rampton, Language crossing, p. 137)
Comment
(a) Chandler uses two quotations here to support his point about vir tual
identity, and he also cites Rheingold as the source of the term virtual
community. Notice that whereas he gives bibliographic details for the two
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
academic sources, he treats the well-known web aphorism as a piece of

popular knowledge that does not need to be referenced.
The phrase Lakoff and Turner suggest ... is a neutral way of introducing a
reported voice, which does not commit the writer to full agreement. The
reference to Freeman is also neutral, so the reader is not likely to be surprised
when Lynne Cameron starts to argue against these voices, by suggesting that
the cognitive focus may once again downplay the affective impact ...
Notice how this paragraph moves between Rheingolds voice questioning
authenticity in cyberspace to Jungs voice noting the truthfulness of weblogs.
Chandler distances himself from both of these voices through the use of
neutral reporting verbs: has argued that and claim that. His own voice
seems to come through most strongly in the middle, with the argument that
different media and modes have different effects. Clearly Chandler is arguing
against Rheingolds position, but though he uses Jungs comment in support
of his point about blogs, it is not clear whether he fully agrees with it.
Neal Norrick refers to Falk both to support his argument and as the source
of the particular term duets, while he argues against the interpretation of
Cederborg and Aronsson. Notice the signals carried by the choice of verbs:
Falk shows ... while Cederborg and Aronsson see ... as ....
This paragraph exemplies the use of different references to establish the
theoretical basis for the writers position. Mary Bock represents these
voices indirectly, and uses only one quotation, to introduce a term which
she then uses in several other places in the reading.
(f ) Angela Goddard uses Scollons voice here to support the argument she
has been making. Whats interesting is that the quotation occurs at the
very end of the reading, as if to function as the clincher. Notice too that it
is introduced only by a colon, showing that it is reinforcing the previous
statement. These features suggest that Goddard views Scollon as an
authoritative voice.
(g) At the beginning of the paragraph, Ben Rampton explains his purpose in
referring to Bakhtin: he wants to use the concept of double-voicing to
systematise and elaborate the contrast he has found in his data, so he
needs rst to establish the theoretical basis. Rather than quoting chunks
(as in the Tannen extract used in Activity 5), he uses short quotations,
which also help to clarify the terminology he will be using.
Being aware of the way that reported voices are being used in an academic
text can help you to read that text more critically. For example, the sources
that writers use to set up the basis for an argument may indicate their
allegiance to a particular school of thought; this can help you understand their
argument, but may also alert you to the possibility of alternative approaches
that have not been considered. Its obviously impor tant to identify whether
109
110
STUDY GUIDE 1
sources are deployed as support or opposition, but you also need to notice
whether writers commit themselves to a view or remain neutral about it.
Have a look at the reported voices in your own academic writing. Can you
identify the same functions? Could you improve the way you indicate your
support or opposition to these voices? Noticing other writers use of reported
voices may perhaps give you some ideas of how to build up a stronger
argument through effective use of sources.
Data collection and analysis: reported voices in conversation
ACTIVITY 7
Ongoing
If possible, record a brief extract of conversation which includes the use of

reported voices. See how far this conrms the patterns emerging from your
analysis of the CD-ROM bands, and points from the chapter and the Readings
by Tannen and Bakhtin. It may be helpful to record informal conversation
round an activity such as a family meal where people are likely to chat about
recent events.
Moving on ...
You have now completed your work on the rst half of the course. In the
second half, we shift the focus away from creativity in everyday talk and
literacy and on to creativity in literature and the media. You will, however,
nd that there are many interesting parallels between these two parts of the
course. The remaining units will give you an opportunity to apply the
understanding and skills that you have developed so far, as well as extending
them in new ways.
REFERENCES
References
AMRITAVALLI, R. and UPENDRAN, S. (1990) The humorous bilingual: the
possible significance of jokes in Indian and English, paper presented

at the National Seminar on Perspectives on Indian English, Central
Institute for English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.
COATES, J. (1996) Women Talk: Conversation between Women Friends,
Oxford, Blackwell.
COATES, J. (2003) Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities, Oxford,
Blackwell.
DURANTI, A. (1997) Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
GOFFMAN, I. (1967) On face-work, in Interaction Ritual: Essays on
Face-to-Face Behavior, New York, Pantheon.

LABOV, W. (1966) The Social Stratification of English in New York City,
Washington, D.C., Center for Applied Linguistics.

LABOV, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns, Philadelphia, University of
Pennsylvania Press.
LAKOFF, R. (1975) Language and Womans Place, New York, Harper and Row.
LATHAM, R. and MATTHEWS, W. (eds) (1970) The Diary of Samuel Pepys,
vol. 1, London, G. Bell and Sons Ltd.

OCHS, E. (1979) Transcription as theory, in E. OCHS and B.B. SCHIEFFELIN
(eds) Developmental Pragmatics, New York, Academic Press.

RAMPTON, B. (1998) Language crossing and the redefinition of reality, in
P. AUER (ed.) Codeswitching in Conversation, London, Routledge.
SACKS, H., SCHEGLOFF, E.A. and JEFFERSON, G. (1974) A simplest systematics
for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation, Language, 50,

pp. 696--735.
SWANN, J., DEUMERT, A., LILLIS, T. and MESTHRIE, R. (2004) A Dictionary of
Sociolinguistics, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

TRUDGILL, P. (1974) The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

TURNER, I., FACTOR, J. and LOWENSTEIN, W. (2nd edn 1978) Cinderella Dressed
in Yella, Richmond, Australia, Heinemann.

WALES, K. (2nd edn 2001) A Dictionary of Stylistics, Harlow, Longman.
111

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The art of the everyday

Putting on the style

Language and creativity

Making connections with new technologies

Writing the self

Literacies, collaboration and context

The 19th-century communication revolution

Locating creativity in texts and practices

Welcome to E301 The art of English. Through the course as a whole we

Organising your study

a summary of what materials you need to study that week.

a list of learning points specific to the unit.

activities relating to the CD-ROM, eDesktop and other material

Use of additional material

Personal examples of creativity

Using the CD-ROM

The course eDesktop

Using Study Guide 1

Course book 1: The art of English: everyday creativity.

CD-ROM 1: Everyday creativity.

The art of the everyday

This unit of study

Familiarize yourself with the course materials -- Course Guide, Study

Calendar, Assignment Guide, and E301 eDesktop (allow 2--3 hours).

Work through the following course materials and corresponding

sections of this study guide:

Introduction and Chapter 1 of Book 1, The art of the everyday (allow

about 7--8 hours).

CD-ROM Band 1, Common talk (allow about 40 minutes).

CD-ROM Band 2, Bilingual puns (allow about 40 minutes).

CD-ROM Band 3, Why play with language? (allow about 40 minutes).

Data collection and analysis: puns and word play (ongoing).

links to other useful sites.

the argument that there is some continuity between such everyday

the argument that the presence of creativity in everyday spoken language

different models of literariness that underpin these arguments, including

different approaches to the study of spoken language, including those that

Study notes: Course book 1, Chapter 1

the different forms taken by verbal art: Ronald Carters distinction, in

Carters distinction between inherency, sociocultural and cognitive

the argument that verbal art is functional in interactions -- for example,

the different approaches to the study of language use (textual or more

UNIT 1 THE ART OF THE EVERYDAY

UNIT 1 THE ART OF THE EVERYDAY

Listen to the discussion on Band 2 and consider what Amritavalli and

More about puns

An example of a bidialectal pun playing on Geordie (Newcastle upon

CD-ROM Band 3: Why play with language? (duration approx.

UNIT 1 THE ART OF THE EVERYDAY

times, cultures and languages (Course book 1, p. 43). In his discussion of