English Language A2 Investigation

Hi everyone,
Just wondering if you could give me some advice on what to do with my chosen topic of investigation.
My teacher suggested doing how male magazines reinforce gender stereotypes. I'm going to out today a magazine (probably GQ) but before I do I wondered if I could get some help on this topic before I buy the magazine.

So could anyone please give me a few ideas as to what kind of things I could possibly write about in the investigation? What kind of gender stereotypes could there be about males in magazines (my mind has gone blank!)?
Thank you so much to anyone who replies!
Any general ideas that could help me too would be fantastic!
Thanks again!

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Reply 1

Tom_green_day

The thing is for the investigation you're meant to do it about something you're passionate about, or at least know a lot about. If you have to ask on the internet about it, it's probably not a great area to investigate.

Reply 2

Armstrongy

I know, I originally was doing something I was passionate about but my teacher said no on Friday last minute and she suggested to do this, sorry..

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Reply 3

Riss2013

could anyone tell me if they think my idea is any good please . finally found one I'm really interested in, its " how has the Caribbean vernacular influenced London slang" i want to investigate something to do with London slang. im thinking of getting my data from recording people whilst on the buses etc

Reply 4

sanjay92

Hey guys I'm doing a investigation on how the 'F' word has changed through out the centuries. Any thoughts/ advice on this?

Reply 5

The Empire Odyssey

Original post by Riss2013

My background is from the Caribbean and I really (like anyone for that matter) would appreciate you privately recording someone's conversation.

If I were you, I'd go to a shop and ask them to be recorded? I would find it challenging looking at London as a whole so just try somewhere in London.

PS: 'London slang'? Presume you want to call it that, wouldn't you have to look other regions to challenge your investigation? I don't know if this is part of the c/w, I haven't started it yet but it's definitely an original piece, but a hard concept and the way to go about it, is challenging too. IMO

Reply 6

Riss2013

do you mean any local newsagents and ask them if they can record their customers I don't think they'll be willing to though , i don't want to make my investigation to wide ( if you get what I mean) as It would be really difficult to collect data. thanks for replying its highly appreciated

Reply 7

Nerol

Original post by Riss2013

You could look online (maybe on here) for volunteers. It's unethical to record people without their consent, and in your investigation you will need to write about how you made sure your data collection was ethical. Some volunteers may allow you to record some of their conversations, which I'm sure would be useful.

I'm also getting started on my A2 investigation now and I too need to record some conversations. I'm probably just going to ask my friends to do it.

Reply 8

Nerol

Original post by sanjay92

Hey guys I'm doing a investigation on how the 'F' word has changed through out the centuries. Any thoughts/ advice on this?

You could look at movies from different time periods. I was going to do this, but because I am doing English Language A, it wasn't considered a suitable topic. I did a bit of research into it, though, and it was interesting. There are websites that list the number of times certain swear-words are used in different movies. Also, look at how the BBFC have changed the way they classify movies over the years - this can be linked to bad language in some places. You would also need to look into WHY these changes have occurred - maybe you could do a survey, aimed at people from different generations asking them what they think about using bad language.

It's a rough idea, but I found it to be quite interesting.

Reply 9

EmmmaaH

I'm doing my investigation of how lexical choice has changed over time within written communication. I was thinking of looking at letters from the early 1900s and comparing it with emails from present day! Any thoughts and ideas?

Plus I need to choose a specific area to focus on.... I wanted to do war but was told that was not allowed as it was an exam question a few years ago. Any ideas? I'm now thinking love letters

Reply 10

Riss2013

okay thank you , im starting to look for data however im finding it difficult formulating my question for my investigation , im looking at " the relationship between jamaican patois and london youth slang" should i say " has jamaican patois influenced london youth slang?".

Reply 11

sanjay92

Original post by Nerol

Thank you for the help. I was also wondering to put on my intoduction that how industry revolution influenced the english language and the language became informal therefore seen acceptable to use F word as a adverb then just a verb. Also could you link me the websites please, could't find any. Any advice on this?

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 12

figuresk8rstudent

Original post by EmmmaaH

Hey
Which spec are you doing?
I was thinking of doing love letters too. Written form way back when to tweets/messages on buildings etc.
What did your teacher say?

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Reply 13

Riss2013

HI guys I really need some help with my language investigation in reference to the linguistic frameworks I should apply to it . My investigation is " to what extent is the language of youth culture influenced by caribbean vernacular " my teacher has to me not to force frameworks on to it , on use those that fit . so far ive looked at the lexical , phonological and grammatical frameworks , do you think theres any else I could possibly use ? thanks

Reply 14

buzzkill

Original post by Armstrongy

You could look at the images. There are a lot of studies on the hypersexualization of women on the covers of magazines, particularly rolling stone.

You could look at the language used in these magazines to write about women. A friend of mine once looked at the violence encoded in the language that males use in discussing women. There are also lots of studies about that, you know, when they say things like, bang, tap, cut, hit that, smack that, tear that up, batter that. There's clearly violence and objectification in the word that. Maybe you could just buy several and try to find something interesting/ topical that unites them.

Reply 15

buzzkill

Original post by Riss2013

You probably should focus on only a few aspects rather than get bogged down with too many things and not do any thoroughly.

You could consider semantics, pragmatics, etymology, maybe try to get at the sociolinguistic angle. Don't know if you would be interested in the morpholocigal angle. I'd say stick with your teacher's advice.

Reply 16

merkatron

Original post by Riss2013

You shouldn't really force theories into this (but case studies and research can be really helpful), but you have to use methods/frameworks or you can't hit the high end of the mark scheme. You sound like you're looking at the right kinds of thing, but why not have a look at the background to things like MLE and British Black English. There's some really good stuff on the Linguistics Research Digest about MLE from the people who first studied it. The first post is here and there are several others too.

You might also want to look at some articles about MLE from the mainstream media. Some here and here.

For Jamaican English and British Black English, you could try Mark Sebba's page and the links from it.

Reply 17

Riss2013

Original post by buzzkill

hi , thanks for the help , i like the idea of semantics ,what do you think I should look out for when considering semantics? ( Sorry I find this framework a little difficult but I know its really relevant to my investigation study )

Reply 18

Riss2013

hi guys , could really do with some help , im applying for an internship for a small magazine . they've asked me for my previous writing experience , however I obviously haven't gotten my grades yet . my teacher said I have to promote my A/S coursework ( 2 creative writing pieces) and my A2 language investigation piece so far this is what I have come up with
"During my time at college studying English language I have developed a passion for the subject. In my AS year I was able to develop and learn skills in writing such as what makes a good piece of writing , how writers use specific linguistic features and terminology and the fact you have to take into consideration genre , audience , purpose tone in order to create an excellent engaging , entertaining piece of writing . also learning how writers manipulate language to appeal to a target audience ,at A2 undertook a language investigation where choose a topic to investigate,collected data from a large variety of sources and pieced together the information I had gathered. " i know this crap, but could someone help me expand of what I've written and also suggest what else I could include. :frown: