Programme 2

Activities

Suggestions for using the programme in the classroom

After viewing
1. Ask the pupils to read the two following passages. The first is a poem, written by Robert Burns in Scots dialect, and then to read the passage below it, from Emily Brontë's novel, 'Wuthering Heights', in Yorkshire dialect. Can you identify what each speaker is complaining about?

My curse on your envenom'd stang,
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang,
An' thro' my lugs gies mony a bang
Wi' gnawin vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter twang, Like racking engines.

T' maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath nut oe'red, und t' sahnd uh't gospel still I' yer lugs, and yah darr be laiking! Shame on ye! Sit ye dahn, ill childer! They's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em; sit ye dahn, and think uh yer sowls!

(NB 'laiking' means playing.)

(Sources: 'Address to The Tooth-Ache', by Robert Burns; Wuthering Heights Ch. 3, by Emily Brontë._

2. Either:
a) Read 'The Collier's Wife' by D.H. Lawrence, which you can find at: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/pieces/lawrence/colliers_wife.shtml

Or:
b) Read the poem Death and Life, by Savage-Armstrong (1901)
'Puir Wully is deed!' - 'O, is he?'
'Ay, caul' in his coffin he's leein'!'
'Jist noo A em muckle tae busy
Tae trouble me heed about deein'
There's han's tae be got fur the reapin'
We're gaun tae the wark in the murn;
An' A'm thinkin' the rain 'ill come dreepin',
The-night, an' destroyin' the curn.'

Glossary

puir	poor
deed	dead
caul'	cold
leein'	lying
jist noo A em muckle tae busy	just now I am much too busy
me heed	my head
han	hand (worker)
gaun tae the wark	going to work
murn	morning
dreepin	dripping/dropping
the-night	tonight
curn	corn

Ask the pupils to discuss whether they find that the dialect words make the poems sound more realistic or more difficult to understand.