Language Study at Key Stages 2 and 3

Nikki

The day I decide to split, Kirsty sends this: WASSU? ItsYaLif but RUsureNowlsTRltTIm? CUatSCL?

I don’t know about right time. When your mum’s boyfriend’s trying to get in your pants and your mum won’t believe you it’s time, that’s all. And no, Kirsty, you won’t see me at school. I answer: GOdblBadTIms MOvnOn II KIT.

Moving on. Sounds easy, right? Romantic even. I feel pretty cool too, standing on the corner with my bag between my feet, phone in hand, texting. I picture myself tonight, in a room of my own with a lock on the door somewhere north of the river where Ronnie can’t find me. That’s his name by the way: Ronnie. Call me Dad he says, like I would. Anyway, he’s history as far as I’m concerned; a fragment of the past as somebody once said.

Nick

It com so cold middle of December Jack sez, wiv fings so tite I gotta let you go, Nick. Jack’s a coster. I bin his boy from young. He bin treat me rite, him and Bet. She’s Jack’s wife.

I sez, tite? Wot about Ma, Connie and little Fan? Tite wiv you’s titer wiv us.

I know, he sez, and I’m sorry. Here. He presses a gen in my hand. That’s a shilling in coster langwige. That’ll get yer a few dinners, he sez. Bestist I can do. I looks in his eyes and knows it’s the troof. Fings’ll buck up boy, he sez, com spring.

How to liv till spring, that’s the trick. How to fill Ma’s belly, and the little gels. In good times Ma gets needlework and Connie helps wiv it, but ther’s none to be had since the cold set in. Cold? You never seen such cold. The river, wot never had as a dab of ice on it befor in Ma’s lifetime, is solid from bank to bank, so that a cove mite walk from sent Pauls to the new cut wivout settin foot on a bridge. Last nite some chap in the beer-shop – a scholard – reads owt a bit in the paper sez the winter of fifty-free – that’s this winter – will go down in histry. Aye, yells one wag, and we’ll, and we’ll all go down wiv it if it don’t let up direcly

He was rite, that wag. Plenty gon down alreddy: down the workhouse, down the churchyard, down to ell for ought I know. Ther’s undreds wivowt work, wivowt dosh, wivout a roof.

Now we’re of that happy band, Ma, the gels and me.

Nikki

• Diary format – present tense – use of personal pronoun ‘I’
• Colloquial vocabulary: split; get in your pants; he’s history; pretty cool
• Use of text messages – suggests young teenager – impatient – questionings
• Use of italics for emphasis – suggests speech intonations and stress
• Dialogue – interactive questions: Sounds easy, right?
• Mirroring speech patterns: nominal reversal: That’s his name by the way, Ronnie
• Abbreviated sentences: Romantic even
• Anyway: used as a discourse boundary in speech to indicate change of direction
• Suggests rebellious teenager: Sounds easy, right?
• Use of And to connect spoken sentences
• Spoken use of contractions: don’t; that’s; won’t
• Interactive questioning: use of questions

Nick

• Diary format – present tense – use of personal pronoun ‘I’
• Uses Non-Standard English: wot never had; bestist I can do
• Mirroring speech patterns – nominal reversal: he bin treat me rite, him an bet
• Graphics reflect regional accent: wiv: tite; direcly; histry
• Vocabulary suggests Victorian times: coster; gen; wag; scholard (dialectal)
• Grammatical parallelism for emphasis: down the; down then; down the
• Written words mirror very much as they are spoken: gels; yer; wivout
• Suggests similar teenager, but downtrodden: but there’s none to be had since the cold set in
• Spoken use of contractions: you’s