VCE English Language

VCE English Language explores the ways in which language is used by individuals and groups and reflects our thinking and values. Learning about language helps us to understand ourselves, the groups with which we identify and the society we inhabit. English Language builds on students’ previous learning about the conventions and codes used by speakers and writers of English. Informed by the discipline of linguistics, it provides students with metalinguistic tools to understand and analyse language use, variation and change. 

Students studying English Language examine how uses and interpretations of language are nuanced and complex rather than a series of fixed conventions. Students explore how people use spoken and written English to communicate, to think and innovate, to construct identities, to build and interrogate attitudes and assumptions and to create and disrupt social cohesion.

Language and Communication

Language is an essential aspect of human behaviour and the means by which individuals relate to the world, to each other and to the communities of which they are members. In this unit, students consider the way language is organised so that its users have the means to make sense of their experiences and to interact with others.

Areas of Study:

1.  The nature and functions of language

2. Language acquisition

Language Change

In this unit, students focus on language change. Languages are dynamic and language change is an inevitable and a continuous process. Students consider factors contributing to change over time in the English language and factors contributing to the spread of English. They explore texts from the past and from the present, considering how all subsystems of the language system are affected – phonetics and phonology, morphology and lexicology, syntax, discourse and semantics. Attitudes to language change vary considerably and these are also considered.

Areas of Study:

1.  English across time

2. Englishes in contact

Language Variation and Social Purpose

In this unit students investigate English language in contemporary Australian social settings, along a continuum of informal and formal registers. They consider language as a means of social interaction, exploring how through written and spoken texts we communicate information, ideas, attitudes, prejudices and ideological stances.

Areas of Study:

1.  Informal language

2. Formal language

Language Variation and Identity

In this unit students focus on the role of language in establishing and challenging different identities. There are many varieties of English used in contemporary Australian society, including national, regional, cultural and social variations. Standard Australian English is the variety that is granted prestige in contemporary Australian society and it has a role in establishing national identity. However, non-Standard English varieties also play a role in constructing users’ social and cultural identities. Students examine a range of texts to explore the ways different identities are constructed.

Areas of Study:

1.  Language variation in Australian society

2. Individual and group identities

Mr Matthew Greenwood: mgreenwood@cmc.vic.edu.au

Ms Kate Watts: kwatts@cmc.vic.edu.au 

Ms Sally Nicholson: snicholson@cmc.vic.edu.au