PUB TALK & THE KING’S ENGLISH

I. Preliminary

Questions

II. Author & Historical

Context

III. Language Points

IV. Organization Analysis

V.Thematic Analysis

VI.Rhetorical Analysis

VII.Writing

Pub Talk and the King’s English, (Published in the 1970s)

•What do we expect from such a topic?

•What is a pub? Is it a bar?

•What is pub talk according to the passage?

•What is the King’s English according to the passage?

•What is the relation between pub talk and the King’s English?

•What was it like in the 1970s?

I.

Henry Fairlie (1924-1990)

•A writer publishing on both sides of the Atlantic

•A freelance writer, The Spectator, The New Republic,

The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and many other

papers and magazines

•The Kennedy Promise: The Politics of Expectation, 1973

•A conservative. Is he conservative in this article?

II.

Washington Post

•A national newspaper

•Left-wing or neo-conservative?

English Monarchs (400 AD - 1603)

• The Anglo-Saxon kings, Laying the Base for the English Language

• The Normans, French Influence

• The Angevins

• The Plantagenets

• The Lancastrians

• The Yorkists

• The Tudors

United Kingdom Monarchs (1603 - Present)

• The Stuarts (1603-1714)

• The Hanoverians (1714-1901)

• Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1826-1918)

• The House of Windsor (Founded in 1917)

• The House of Windsor from 1952

1689? 1707?

Codification&

Edification

Pub Video & Extensive Readings in Our QQ Group

Language Points: A Quick Look

III.

Organization

1. Conversation is the most social of all human activities.2. The charm of conversation is that it does not really starts

from anywhere, and no one has any idea where it will go as it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows.

3. Bar conversation has a charm of its own.An anecdote (para. 4-para. 7) moved desultorily here and there, from the most commonplace to the thoughts of Jupiter, without any focus and with no need for one…the alchemy of conversation took place, and all at once there was a focus

IV.

Organization

the glow of the conversation burst into flames.There is always resistance from the lower classes to any attempt by an upper class to lay down rules for “English as it should be spoken.”Para. 8 on. The conversation was on wings.? What is the King’s EnglishPersonal attack on the Australians, “the descendants of

convicts”, the lower classesHistorical example: the Saxons churls and their Norman

conquerors

Organization A historical re-examination of the King’s English; yet the abuse

of languageA cultural re-examination of the King’s English. A cultural

dominance. A class representation of reality The King’s English is a model, a rich and instructive one; but it

ought not to be an ultimatum.4. The difference between talking and writing (para. 18-para. 21): the conversation…flows freely here and there…leaps back in time to the Norman Conquest…nothing to think about the next morning…

Organization: A Dualist Layout

Conversational English The King’s English

• Starts from nowhere

• Meanders

• Leaps and sparkles

• Glows

• A representation of the lower classes

• Talking

• Focus?

• English as should be spoken

• A representation of the upper class

• A racial discrimination

• A cultural dominance

• A cultural model

• Writing

• Focus!

Focused Questions

• What should be conversation? Then it develops as what is

conversation and why it should be defined so.

• The differences between conversational English and the King’s

English? Then it develops as what is conversational English and

what is the King’s English, and what differences or similarities

they have.

• Something between? The author as a moderate conservative?

Good conversation

Good conversation

Good Conversation

Theme •Conversation, the preferred communication, has its charm and it

should be distinguished from writing.

•What are the merits of a real conversation?

•Questionable statement: The bother about teaching chimpanzees how to talk is that they will probably try to talk sense and so ruin all conversation.

•Representation, selectivity, partiality and prejudice in the article•Cultural Imperialism; Cultural Particularism

V.

Points of Interests: Ironies1. The King’s English should better be avoided in conversation. Yet it is a standard that should consider

changes “from below.”

2. A focus in conversation should be avoided; but anyway there will be a focus in conversation somewhere.

3. The King’s English has been resisted by the lower class. Yet the maids seem to speak the King’s English,

while the master, in a rage, has an abuse of the King’s English and speaks the language of the lower

class, some conversational English instead.

4. Conversational English belongs to the lower class; but the author argues that first of all conversation is

most characteristic of human beings and that it is irresistibly charming. The King’s English, on the

other hand, does not seem to share this charm.

5. The author seems to be trying to avoid any injustice. However, his imperialism, discrimination and

prejudice is rampant and arresting indeed.

Rhetorical Devices

•Allusions

•Quotes

•Metaphors

•Antonomasia/Metonymy

•Synecdoche

•Analogy

•Transferred Epithet

•Phonetic Devices?

VI.

Allusions

•Shakespeare

•Other writers

•Historical allusions

Metaphors

•Ordinary Metaphors

•Mixed Metaphors

Writing Assignment

•What would be a more appropriate or expected title for this

essay? Why? For example, is the word “talk” or conversation

better, considering their frequencies in this article?

•“And here in America now, 900 years later, we are still the

heirs to it.” What do you think of this statement? For

example, considering Henry as a British citizen, does this

statement not suddenly turn out very interesting?

VII.