GDE750 – WEEK 6

Refining the direction and anchoring the theory

This week I focused on tightening the direction of my critical report. I already knew the broad subject, but I wanted to find the version of the topic that felt meaningful and linked clearly to my practice. I spent the first half of the week re reading my earlier notes and trying to find the gaps in my thinking.

I returned to the idea that dialect is not simply a collection of linguistic features. It is a cultural performance. It signals belonging and shapes how people position themselves in relation to others. This is where sociolinguistics became really helpful. Paul Kerswill’s work on accent and social meaning gave me a stronger academic grounding. His explanation of how accent shapes perception reminded me that dialect has consequences. It changes how people are read. It changes how people read you. That made my argument feel more urgent and relevant to contemporary design.

I also created a working structure for the report. I broke it down into four key sections: Introduction, context and conversation, methodology, conclusion. This helped me see how the argument could unfold naturally without jumping around. The context and conversation chapter will frame dialect as cultural identity, the design examples will show how others have handled expressive or identity driven typography, and the practice section will ground everything back in my own experiments.

I did not add too many new sources this week. Instead, I organised what I already have. I made a separate document for quotes, references and key ideas so I can find them quickly when writing. I also wrote short summaries of each source to remind myself why it is relevant.

This week has strengthened the foundation for the report. I feel clearer about where it is going and what I want to say.

TUNE OF THE WEEK