Professor Angela Goddard: Are you a bot, or not? - Issues of language and identity in new communication contexts

In this talk, Angela Goddard will help you to think about the language of new communication tools, focussing particularly on how your language use constructs your identity.
 
You will learn about some important approaches to analysis, both of digital texts themselves, and of their representation in public discourses.

Angela Goddard is a Professor of English Language, a National Teaching Fellow, and a Chair of Examiners for English Language A Level at a major UK examination board. She is currently Guest Professor at University West, Sweden. Angela edits and writes for the Routledge Intertext series.

Dr Marcello Giovanelli: Texts, Modes and Meanings – Analysing and Evaluating Texts from Spoken, Blended and Written Modes

This session takes a senior examiner's perspective on the ways in which students can approach the analysis and evaluation of texts from written, spoken and blended modes. It offers strategies for applying linguistic methods and for considering the importance of contextual factors in the shaping of meaning.

Dr Marcello Giovanelli has worked as a Head of English, Assistant Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher in secondary schools and has taught English Language and Linguistics at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. He holds senior examining and moderating positions for a leading awarding body for both A Level English Language and English Literature. He wrote the ENGB1 section of the Nelson Thornes AS English Language student textbook, is a regular contributor to emagazine and has run courses on teaching A Level English across the country.

Dr Tim Grant: Forensic Linguistics – Case Studies and Text Analysis

This talk describes how linguists can and do draw on linguistic theory and understandings to assist the police in their investigations. Tim Grant will describe three cases to illustrate the casework of a forensic linguist. He’ll show how the linguistics of gender, age and dialect, techniques developed for lexicography and analysis of linguistic evidence in text messages, have all been used to break alibis, draw up profiles of writers to make convictions and reveal conspiracies to murder. In dealing with serious crime, some of the evidence can be a bit shocking, so you might want to prepare your students for some strong language and real-life cases!

Dr Tim Grant is Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University and has worked across the disciplines of forensic linguistics and forensic psychology for nearly 20 years. He publishes principally in the areas of forensic authorship analysis and on the linguistics of the investigative interview. Recent publications concentrate on determining authorship in short form messages such as SMS, Twitter and Facebook status updates. He has worked on criminal and civil cases in the UK and overseas. In the criminal field he has worked as an investigative advisor, written expert reports and provided expert evidence in numerous cases across a range of offences involving terrorist conspiracy, murder and stalking. He has also assisted in civil cases of literary and student plagiarism and intellectual property theft.

Professor David Crystal: Pragmatics – the Final Frontier

It has taken language scholars a long time to realise the centrality of pragmatics – the study of the choices we make when we use language, and of the factors governing those choices. This talk illustrates the way pragmatic factors enter into everything we say and write, and are a crucial factor in explaining why people use language in the way they do. 

David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bangor, and works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster.  He read English at University College London, specialized in English language studies, then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics, first at Bangor, then at Reading, where he became professor of linguistics. He received an OBE for services to the English language in 1995. His books include The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language and The Stories of English. A Little Book of Language, and Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language were published in 2010 and Internet Linguistics: A Student Guide in 2011. The Story of English in 100 Words, and an audiobook version, are due out in October 2011. He was consultant for the British Library 'Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices' exhibition (November 2010 to April 2011), and author of the accompanying book, Evolving English.