How does Tom Leonard present his Views about Language and Culture?

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How does Tom Leonard present his Views about Language and Culture?

The poems from 'Unrelated Incidents' by Tom Leonard explore different prejudices and social attitudes regarding his culture. The poet uses different methods and means to show the reader his thoughts; they use different techniques for different reasons to help convey their message. Both of the poems use mainly non-standard English, which is written phonetically, this is because Tom Leonard come from an area where there are accents and the poets want to show the readers that they are the same as everyone else, their accent and culture makes no difference. Accent is very important in the poems 'Unrelated Incidents' this is because this is the main prejudice that Tom Leonard is dealing with. He wants his readers to know that there no language or accent that is better or more sophisticated than another.

The most obvious technique that Tom Leonard uses is phonetic language, we can see this in a number of his poems for ‘Unrelated Incidents’, for example: ’this is thi six a clock news’.

‘this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. 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.  

He uses this to portray his accent and to express his culture and try to prove the point that there should not be just one way of writing and one way of spelling. The poem imagines a BBC newsreader explaining that, if he read the news in Glaswegian dialect, people would not believe it. He says there is a right way to speak and spell, and that people who cannot do so clearly don’t know the truth and cannot be trusted. In particular, we can see this when he says: ‘yooz doant no thi trooth yirsellz cawz yi canny talk right.’

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During WWII, BBC newsreaders spoke ‘properly’ with a southern dialect to establish the BBC news as ‘true’ in the propaganda war with the Nazis’ newsreader (Lord Haw-Haw) who spoke in a ridiculous accent. On the surface, it appears to be dismissive of people who talk with a strong accent (this is what we tend to feel when we meet someone who ‘does not talk proper’), but note that the underlying message of the poem is that we are wrong to do so.

This is why the poem challenges our prejudices.

 

The content of the poem imagines a ...

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The Quality of Written Communication is fine. There is limited use of puncutation, though the candidate's use of lanugage and a wide range of grammar more than show the examiner a worthy candidate for a top band answer.

The Level of Analysis is very good here. The candidate comments on a wide range of poetic devidces employed by Leonard to expose the prejudices against his culture, with the candidate also recognising contextually, how an RP accent (or "BBC newsreader" accent) is often deemed the 'right' way to speak, and any other dialectal variation considered unfit for reasons of 'propriety', hence why the news is read by speaker with an RP accent. The candidate comments on Leonard's phonetic use of laguange; the involvement of the reader via rhetorical questions, Second Person address and accusatory language; the effect on the reader; and also the attitudes the Leonard displays in his poems towards culture ("Leonard also feels class pride", "Leonard is sarcastic", "the word ‘belt’ carries the idea of being hit/punished and makes it very aggressive, even violent"). All in all, this is a very well-constructed answer that discusses numerous elements in 'Unrelated Incidents' that show the poet's attitude to langugage and culture, with an excellent use of quotes to evidence the points the candidate makes.

This essay asks candidates to discuss how the Scottish poet Tom Leonard presents his views of culture. The key here is to comment on the poetic devices and the attitudes conveyed in his poetry (the candidate has chosen 'Unrealted Incidents', a series of poems which the candidate appropriately notes "explore different prejudices and social attitudes regarding his culture". The foucs on the question is consistent, and there is some contextual appreciation evident as well. Overall, this exam response is a very wel-evidence piece of work written by a knowledgeable candidate, though extra practice in writing concisely may be required as this is not reflective of the content that many candidates could write in one hour including planning and proof-reading.