Task 3

Mind Your Language



The British comedy television series Mind Your Language was premiered on ITV in later 1977. The television series is set in an adult college in London and focuses as english as a foreign language. The classes take place every evening and are taught by Mr Brown. There were 4 seasons to the television series.


Throughout the television series there is trouble between the Sikh character Ranjeet Singh and Ali Nadeem. The drama series portrayed a culture conflict between the two as they battle and verbally fight against eachother. The television series has light comedy in which depicts the partition of India which happened in 1947 is why the two characters hate eachother which connote the troubles and issues between India and Pakistan. The digetic sound in the scenes of the television series is mainly dialogue of the characters talking to eachother, also in the audience can hear a laugh which signals and forces the audience to laugh at the characters. In one scene of the television drama we see the differences and cultural clash between the Sikh and Muslim character. As the Sikh character is in need of 10 pence the Muslim character offers to give him the 10 pence if he repeats “All Muslims are nice, kind and wonderful persons” , the Sikh character Ranjeet repeats what Ali says but after runs off with shouting “All Sikhs are good at lying”. This connotes to the audience the differences between them but however it is turned into a laughing matter and the seriousness of the issue is hidden and not shown.


The camera movement between the series mainly shot-reverse-shots with the students looking at the teacher and medium and long shots showing the whole class sitting and listening to the teacher. Compared to the drama Britz, Mind Your Language is a light hearted comedy with no serious issues or debates. The series Mind Your Language connotes and portrayed how much society has changed over the years as Muslims are more stereotyped in today’s mainstream media.


The mise-en-scene in the drama connotes that the students are from abroad and are foreign. This also connotes to the audience that each character has their own identity and their own place in the english learning class. The mise-en-scene also connotes the mood of the class and connotes to the audience what type of character each of the characters is. The television series depicts the change that Britain went through during immigration, in which there were no signs of moral panics. The television series Mind Your Language shows that serious matters could be taken and laughed about however matters such as 9/11 and 7/7 cannot be laughed about and there is always a seriousness issues and matter laying underneath dramas such as Britz.