A 10 lesson unit comprising of a 67 slide PowerPoint, 9 different worksheets (including texts for analysis) exploring the topic of Language and Social Groups (with lots of work on Language and Age) and a summary terminology and theory sheet.
Each lesson includes a starting discussion prompt which acts as a learning objective, detailed notes on the theories and concepts listed below, a worksheet (with the exception of lesson nine) and activities, and a homework task. The following theories and concepts are covered:
- Idiolect, dialect, sociolect and ethnolect
- Communication Accommodation Theory (Convergence, Divergence, Interpersonal & Intergroup Communication) – Giles (1971)
- Communities of Practice – Lave and Wenger (1991 and 1998)
- Social Network Theory
- Belfast Study – Milroy (1975)
- New York Study & Martha’s Vineyard Study – Labov (1966 and 1963)
- Follow up to Martha’s Vineyard Study – Blake and Josey (2003)
- Reading study and ‘Age and Generation-specific use of language’ – Cheshire (1982 and 2006)
- Emerging Adulthood in Sociolinguistics – Bigham (2012)
- Trends in Teenage Talk – Stenström, Andersen and Hasund (2002)
- Age in Sociolinguistics – Eckert (1997)
- Age identity in Japan and the US – Ota, Harwood, Williams and Takai (2000)
- Teenage Talk – Eckert (2003 and 1989)
- Teenage language in West Yorkshire – Ives
- Bolton Study – Moore (2010)
- Teenage Slang – de Klerk (1997) and Zimmerman (2009)
- Teenage Talk – Stenström (2014)
- The Language of British Teenagers – Martínez (2011)
- Use of tags – Berland (1997)
- ‘Like’ as a discourse maker – Odato (2013)
- Creative linguistic processes in teenage slang – Fajardo (2018)
- Elaborated and Restricted Code – Bernstein (1964 and 1971)
- Criticisms of Bernstein – Rosen and Labov (1972) and Ivinson (2017)
- Discourse Community – Swales (1990)
There are some references to AQA-style A Level specification questions, but you can adapt these if needs be. These can be found on slides 56-64. Lesson 9 is based on an AQA A Level question.
The final lesson is a consolidation activity complete with guided revision cards. Alternatively, you could use an app such as Quizlet so that the students could produce digital revision resources.
