tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5546746085251950112024-03-05T16:23:41.276-08:00LANGUAGEWISEComments, thoughts, questions and (some) answers on language & other topicsAlan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-10539577963494062612010-12-09T02:29:00.000-08:002010-12-09T02:32:47.256-08:00More on feesI was interviewed on BBC Radio Newcastle yesterday. The interview is on iPlayer, with the link here. My piece starts at 10:30. I was questioned about my blog entry (below) in support of the student protests - so at least someone is reading my blog!
Today I received a note from one of my old friends, who teaches in an FE college in the UK. Here's his note, followed by my reply:
Craig Wheeler
Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-44652274460273219112010-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:002010-12-06T17:47:27.702-08:00Newcastle University Students ProtestMy letter below was posted on the Newcastle University Occupation blog:
I was due to teach in the Fine Arts Lecture Theatre tomorrow, but the venue has been changed due to student protests - my response? BRAVO to you for your COLLECTIVE convictions and your determination to stand up (and sit-in) for a cause that transcends political parties, generations and social class! The planned cuts will Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-90757739675905783112010-12-04T06:04:00.000-08:002010-12-07T18:58:06.544-08:00Panoramic self-indulgence & Bid Failure
I don't think it was that BBC's 'Panorama' pointed a long accusatory finger at FIFA in their programme broadcast earlier this week - 2 days before the vote - that did most of the damage.
It was, rather, how the investigation was carried out - in good old in-yer-face, 'go on then, sunshine, hit me', knockabout Roger-Cook style. This might make for 'fun' TV, but was surely the final nail Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-22372752084997566462010-12-02T03:48:00.000-08:002012-01-16T18:12:48.786-08:00Geordie Snow
SNOW has been THE feature of life in Geordieland this last week and has affected almost every aspect of it - 300+ schools closed, traffic chaos, etc. - not helped by Newcastle City Council's refusal to clear footpaths in the city centre - which makes even walking in the city centre treacherous, not least for the elderly (see the photo above, as an example of the treacherous conditions). We pay Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-60239301758633913522010-11-23T09:33:00.000-08:002010-11-23T19:23:43.515-08:00'Mr Angry' - Data Session
Ever called a helpline and got really angry at the 'helper(s)' on the other end of the line? Today I presented data at our weekly MARG meeting and took the opportunity to revisit the fascinating 'Mr Angry' transcript/recording - a recording of a man who becomes extremely angry when the helpline will not help him unless he first pays money for the help. He sees himself as a long-time 'Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-67461248242227492342010-11-06T18:29:00.000-07:002010-11-07T10:00:21.941-08:00Your PresentationsI very much enjoyed your presentations - well done everyone for being so engaged and enthusiastic! It was great that we covered such a wide range of issues. I also felt that our discussions were most interesting and useful. I'm keen to know what you think of the module so far - how's it going for you?
Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-2732918534896835192010-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:002010-11-17T17:43:15.798-08:00Session 4, 28 Oct 2010: The Questionable Core, Skin & Cog of the Lingua Franca Core
Jennifer Jenkins has done a great deal to advance research in English as a 'lingua franca'. She has been prolific and writes with a zeal and fervour - rare qualities in academic writing. But this should in no way prevent us from engaging critically with her work, and the more I look in detail at Jenkins' 2002 article on the 'Lingua Franca Core', the more I scratch my head over the fact that theAlan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-33939401476896325502010-10-22T05:58:00.000-07:002010-10-28T20:18:27.073-07:00Session 3, 21 Oct 2010: Ownership & imperialismBoth notions examined in class are ripe for your own detailed discussions and explorations. The claim that some form of ownership can be manifest in various ways, as can orientations to other people's orientations - not least in micro-terms, i.e. in social interaction - need to be examined carefully. How, for example, is 'ownership', in its various guises, displayed in spoken interaction, when Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-75682639472134392252010-10-14T14:19:00.001-07:002010-10-28T20:17:54.371-07:00Session 2, 14 Oct 2010So did Kachru catch you? The 'Concentric Circles' model and the thinking it contains was a significant step forward when it was published in the mid 1980s, marking a shift of emphasis from native English speakers to the possibility of a variety of possible 'models', which in turn is based on a critical deconstruction of some of the most powerful, almost (to some) axiomatic notions in Applied Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-90504710048134463662010-10-07T11:57:00.000-07:002010-10-28T20:17:14.265-07:00Session 1, 7 Oct 2010A new year begins with a new group of students - I really enjoyed meeting you all today! And so begins our orbit around the issues surrounding the current and future status of English as a 'World' or 'international' language or, indeed, as a 'lingua franca'. I hope you enjoyed the session today - I certainly did.
Particularly interesting to discuss with you the elevated status of 'the native Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-60708045280607327912009-12-09T11:54:00.000-08:002009-12-10T09:00:30.247-08:00Final sessionThe final session was really great, I thought - hope you all agree! Excellent to see your data and wonderful to see us connecting larger themes with micro-analytic detail. Lots of assignment possibilities emerged during the session. I hope you began to get a feel for how rich audio/video-data can be, in terms of theory.
I'm keen to hear your overall impressions of the module: what (if anything!)Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-65920060659088877972009-11-20T00:00:00.000-08:002009-11-24T04:21:22.286-08:00Interacting with ELF interactionNice session yesterday, thanks for your engagement and enthusiasm! Special thanks also to Chris Jenks and Seong Jeon for their contributions. Chris' point was well made - about ELF interactions being characterised as largely collaborative in nature, and the need to extend the database, but it's important to remind ourselves that this point has already been made in the literature (see my Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-29856938668216473342009-11-14T02:02:00.000-08:002010-12-06T04:40:17.376-08:00Interacting with the ELF elvesAnd so we came to examine interaction in ELF - one of my chief research areas. To me, empirical (data-based) findings should both generate and help us refine our theories on ELF and, indeed, on language and communication.
A key point I was trying to introduce and develop in the 1996 J of Pragmatics article was the notion that ELF interactions can and should be subjected to *unprejudiced Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-884820292933249892009-11-05T09:03:00.000-08:002009-11-15T05:12:50.006-08:00Your presentationsThanks for very thought-provoking and well-presented contributions today! I was pleased to see that your interests in ELF are wide-ranging - it's a broad research field, with all kinds of issues to consider, and your presentations reflected this - all very encouraging indeed, and we haven't even started looking in detail at ELF interactions yet!
I thought the format worked well, and we covered aAlan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-6531035457822817822009-10-29T10:31:00.001-07:002009-11-03T04:03:24.551-08:00Encore of the LF Core - or Cor Blimey?!Jenkins' 'ELF Core' has become very well known in the field of study, so it was important that we spent time looking in detail at her ideas. Mostly, I think there was agreement that although Jenkins does make some valid points about being aware of the negative impacts and effects of native speaker linguistic/pragmatic superiority, we also seemed to agree that perhaps Jenkins was taking matters Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-66620483892493676332009-10-22T16:06:00.000-07:002009-11-03T03:18:24.371-08:00Imperial ownershipThis week's session was, I thought, really excellent, with very nice discussions covering linguistic imperialism and linguistic ownership. These are clearly prime topics for further discussion and reflection and would be excellent areas to address in an assignment. It seemed to me that we really did get a good feel for the differences in the 'linguistic imperialism' debate, and the recordings Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-27203696598922497152009-10-19T17:57:00.001-07:002009-10-19T17:57:35.880-07:00Zones and CornersYesterday's class was an interesting and (I'm happy to say!) lively mix of old, new and the yet-to-be. I was especially intrigued by the 'English Corner' and 'English Zones' concepts (and related ideas such as Language Cafes) - these seem to be grassroots attempts to create a natural setting in which to use English, yet they are not problem-free, as we heard in class. Certainly these Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-85803798564539315192009-10-08T06:06:00.000-07:002009-11-24T04:22:47.103-08:00Enter the native speaker ...
Thanks to everyone for a great session today! It's wonderful that you are so engaged, willing and so very able to discuss ideas and points of view! It's also extremely valuable to have your experiences from so many different countries around the world.
Please continue to do the assigned reading in all future sessions - to ensure our discussions are informed by the research literature.
And so Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-17281511529026284182009-10-01T05:54:00.000-07:002009-11-24T06:02:39.311-08:00First impressions ... ...
Today was the intro to next week's first session proper, but we hit the ground running nevertheless, and I thought the comments and questions in class today were excellent and thought-provoking - so please keep that up in future classes!
By all means carry out your own investigations on what you raised. Here are some of the points that came up today:
Can a written form of ELF develop? Are Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-554674608525195011.post-32347748464350781292009-10-01T05:50:00.000-07:002009-10-04T18:03:06.153-07:00Intro to the intro ..
This blog will follow my thoughts, reflections and ruminations on my taught module 'English in the World'. I'm very keen to see how the module develops this semester and I'm excited about having the opportunity to work with you, in class, on ELF themes and issues. This is a new and dynamic research field, so I'm sure it will be a most interesting journey of discovery and exploration for all of Alan Firthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12959917991290748008noreply@blogger.com0