spoken language

What do I need to do in my spoken language controlled assessment?

Here’s the question: Explore different social attitudes to the ways digital communications are affecting language.
You must refer to public attitudes towards digital communication, and explore a range of attitudes. READ the articles. Make notes about the different points of view around digital communication. For example, some people think that it is damaging to the language and encourages poor spelling and grammar, while others think it is a creative way of playing with language. Explore these ideas in your essay. You are expected to give a personal response. Perhaps you think that it doesn’t matter or you believe that it does not help you with spelling and grammar or you enjoy playing with language. It’s not about just saying that you think that digital communication is a good thing. It’s about showing that you’ve thought about the issues and can relate them to how you use language yourself.

Remember that the question asks to you explain the range of devices people use to maintain brevity (missing out letters, using symbols for letters and words, using numbers instead of words, using pictures such as emoticons to express emotions, using acronyms) and also relate it to ordinary speech.

It’s a really good idea to bring some digital communications of your own in or those of some friends. Just write them up. This will make your writing individual and will enable you to write accurately about your own experience of digital communication.

You must explore how and why text language is adapted in different situations. Explore what you do when digital communication and what people you know do.
For example, you might: text in different ways to different people have a type of phone with a QWERTY keyboard so you don’t abbreviate words have your own personal style of digital communication text your parents in a different way to the way you text your friends change your style of digital communication in order to communicate with people in different languages

You should use the data throughout your response to support your points. Use it as evidence, just as you use quotes from digital communications in PEE. Don’t just ‘translate’ the data – it’s not a big achievement to say that ‘LOL’ means ‘Laugh Out Loud’.

A possible structure for your essay:
Paragraph 1 - Introduce the idea of digital communication and how it has emerged in response to new technologies. Write about your own experience of using text language. Do you use it a lot, for example, or is it something that other people do.

Paragraph 2 – Explore ways in which digital communications are affecting language and your own opinion.

Paragraph 3 - Explore an idea about digital communication (e.g. that it is damaging to the way people spell and use grammar) and your response to it. Use some evidence from the data to support your ideas.

Paragraph 4 - Explore a different idea about digital communication (e.g. that it is a valid expression of the culture of young people) and your response to it. Use some evidence from the data to support your ideas.

Paragraph 5 - Explore a third idea about digital communication and your response to it. Use evidence from the data to support your ideas.

Paragraph 6 - Conclude by summarising your views on digital communication and how you feel about its use.