Style Shift

If you scroll down a bit, you will find a post about Rubbish English. I really enjoyed that ‘rant’ and was later surprised to find a radio programme touching on the same point.

It was on BBC Radio 4. I heard it on Tuesday 15 April. You can still find it via the internet. It was one of two programmes on the same topic. The presenter is Michael Rosen who is not only a presenter, but journalist, writer and poet.

The programme is called ‘Word of Mouth’ about social register. It sets out to examine the question, “Do we change the way we speak according to the social class of the person we are speaking to?”  You will hear some discussion about ‘to style shift’ and ‘social distance’ to explain how UK native speakers make changes.

The programme includes archive clips of comedy shows clearly using these changes, and of children who are able to switch from local to standard grammar and vocabulary. There are links to other programmes covering the topic.

I don’t have any images to support the above, but I do have some photos to share with you. Mathias sent them as a momento of his special birthday party. You can see me next to Freda, who I told you about earlier and look forward to seeing again.

I also decided to share the latest of my ‘works of art’. It was made yesterday. It is based on a flower photo I took on my last visit to Britzer Gardens, and posted a report to this blog. I had fun changing the image to create what you see as a card. Perhaps I should have thousands printed and sell them:-)