GCSE: Tom Leonard: from Unrelated Incidents
- Peer Reviewed essays 4
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How does Tom Leonard present his Views about Language and Culture?
5 star(s)if a toktaboot thi trooth lik wanna yoo scruff yi widny thingk it wuz troo. jist wanna yoo scruff tokn. thirza right way ti spell ana right way to tok it. this is me tokn yir right way a spellin. this is ma trooth. yooz doant no thi trooth yirsellz cawz yi canny talk right. this is the six a clock nyooz. belt up. This is a poem which conveys his anger that working class and Scottish people, because of the way they speak, are undervalued and dismissed as 'second-rate' by society.
- Word count: 1683
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Half-Caste Unrelated Incident use of satire comparison
4 star(s)The way the newsperson assumes that a Scots accent is less credible than an RP accent and that there is a 'right' way to talk could show what the BBC viewed as 'proper' English at the time and how they imposed this idea at the Scottish people by telling them to 'belt up'.
- Word count: 602
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Unrelated Incidents and Half-Caste
4 star(s)However, in the poem Half-Caste, only the first stanza is written in Standard English, which implies that the narrator attempts to conform but switches back to his Caribbean dialect, which is then revealed as part of himself that he feels tht he cannot deny and accepts. Leonard's use of Glaswegian dialect is ironical as the point of the poem is that someone with Received Pronunciation or a "posh" accent should read the news. This causes the reader to understand that people who speak with a working class accent are not inferior and should not be regarded as such.
- Word count: 514
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How Do The Two Poets HighlightThe Difficulties Of Living In A Different Culture In the two poems 'Unrelated Incidents' by Tom Leonard and 'Half-Caste' by John Agard?
4 star(s)As the poem progresses the language becomes more and more dialect-like, this is to make it seem as though the poet is translating the 'BBC accent' into his own way of speaking. The words run together to convey the characteristics of colloquial language. Te poet ends the poem with 'belt up.' It seems that either he is disinterested with anyone who labels him because of their accent or he's directly telling them to shut up. The poet is proud of his heritage and this is an exhibition of this as his boldness and aggressiveness builds up.
- Word count: 738
