AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) analyzed an author’s rhetorical strategies, and 2) (as it turned out) discussed varieties of speech communities and their particualr lexicons.
Period 5, you began by reading three current peices about the accustations of doublespeak being traded between Sens. McCain and Obama: “McCain accuses Obama of ‘double speak’” , “Free Ride for the Straight-Talk Express” , “McCain draws scrutiny over $1m loan to campaign”. These led to our discussion of the Lutz piece, which then led to a pretty lively discussion of the ways and words we use to communicate to each in our own speech communities. You came to discover that each of you is a member of and can operate comforatbly in a great number of speech communities.
The discussion got me thinking about a possible ethnographic project, perhaps something in the vein of the Ethnologue or Phonological Atlas of North America, but on a smaller scale. I’ll ponder over that before I make a decision.
Your timed-writings are in and the conference revision schedule is up. I wanted (with permission from the student-rhetor who wrote it) to mention the argument I enjoyed most from the timed-writing in support of Forster: “If one needs help because their car ran out of gas, is it their country that comes to bring extra gas?” Hmmm.
NOTE: Lest some think I was unfair to Hillary Clinton during our discussion of the Obama photo, I’d like to clarify that that her campaign quality-control has been under scrutiny for some time (“CNN debunks false report about Obama”) and continues to this day, particularly recently in TIME magazine: “Bill Clinton: The Bitter Half”. I don’t writes the news kids, I just offers it for consideration through our little class website, Mr. Girard Online.