Language Exam Papers & Questions

Hi all,

Please see attached the document which outlines each paper, questions and the assessment objectives for your exams. Use this to inform your revision and prepare for the mocks.

Paper 2, Question 1 Revision

Morning all,

We are doing some paper 2 revision today, specifically question 1. We've done a lot of work on the article analysis and comparison question, but that's only one question on the paper and you have 2 others to complete - the opinion article and the discursive essay.

Q1 of your paper 2 will be the discursive essay. My group will remember that we did a lot of work on how to approach a discursive essay last year and what makes this different to an analytical essay that you will do in the meanings and representations questions, for example.

For this task you will be given a choice of 2 statements. No data or prompt, just the statements, which could be on anything from language and gender to occupation to social groups/social class to language change. The questions will look like this (click here).

Your job is to construct an essay which seeks to explore this statement, using everything you know about the topic, focusing mostly on theories and studies. You are marked out of 30 for this question: 10 marks for AO1 (written expression and terminology) and 20 marks for AO2 (language concepts and theories).

Click here to see a B grade response to the gender discursive question. This is the style that you should be seeking to emulate, however since this is a high B grade, there is still room for improvement, specifically in the clarity of the written expression which is not always consistent, and the lack of specific examples in the discussion of theory.

Your task today is to get into pairs and plan a discursive response to the following question:

'Evaluate the idea that language change can be controlled and directed.'

Start by mindmapping everything you know about the topic of language change, including the argument of descriptivism vs prescriptivism, terminology, theories/theorists, articles you have read (look back through my blog at the wider reading post), documentaries, TED talks, context and anything else you can think of. This will give you a good foundation of what things you could include and refer to.

You then need to work together to write the essay, which is due in tomorrow without fail. To put this in perspective: in the real exam you allocate 45 minutes to complete this task - I am giving you today and tomorrow, which is 3 hours not including homework.

Usethe exemplar essay above as an example, but please be aware that it needs improvement. The best 2 essays will be typed up and given out as exemplars to use for your revision.

Any questions, let me know. Enjoy!

Monday 29th Jan

Morning all

Please continue working on your investigations. You need to address all the comments I made on your drafts last week, and you need to write a conclusion (see last week's blog post).

As I mentioned last week, I cannot take in and mark another draft. However if you want to send me a paragraph here and there, I can give you minimal feedback on this.

A reminder that the final deadline for the investigation is MONDAY 19TH FEBRUARY.

Investigation feedback and final deadline

Morning all

You'll all have your marked drafts of your investigation back today. As you are only entitled to one draft, you now need to work on all feedback given (some of you only handed in 300-700 words, so you have a lot of catching up to do) and ensure that it is all completed and up to scratch.

The final piece that is missing is the conclusion in which you evaluate your findings and decide whether or not these have proven your hypothesis. Some general advice:

Conclusion/Evaluation:

• check it is tentative and that you have mentioned problems with generalisability, reliability etc despite your careful methodology
• link back to quantified data and theory to evaluate how far your hypothesis is supported (tentatively!)
• contextualise speculatively considering any contact that might have affected the data e.g. age, dialect, social group etc.
• what would you need to make a more effective investigation? e.g. more data, more focussed hypothesis, another section/technique etc.
• don't be self-critical but do be evaluative of the investigation

Click here for some more detailed general feedback.

Final deadline for the finished investigation: FIRST MONDAY BACK AFTER HALF TERM

ESSENTIAL wider reading & research: Jean Aitchison's metaphors & British linguistic and historical timeline

Hi everyone,

Attached are the resources from our last 2 lessons, and a number of wider reading materials that I've gathered for you. As I mentioned in a previous lesson, as A2 students it is an expectation that you don't just simply stick to the syllabus and regurgitate everything that is presented to you in your lessons; at this point you should be using our lessons as a starting point and then doing your own research to fully understand the topic. In order to excel and get good grades (not just top i.e. A*-B, but certainly C grades) you need to demonstrate a clear degree of critical and independent thinking. Language change is a huge topic that we can't really even scratch the surface of in class, so the onus here is 100% on you to fill in the gaps.

Firstly, here is a link to Jean Aitchison's 'Language Web' lectures on Radio 4. We listened to the first lecture in the series which can be found here (and here is a link to the transcript so you can read along and take quotes). They are each only 30 minutes long and are an excellent resource for context, but also just to learn more about the language you are studying and I recommend you listen to all of them.

You copied down the historical and linguistic timeline for the UK from the textbook last lesson, so here is a link to a fantastic interactive timeline on the same topic from the British Library website, and here is a link to a PowerPoint which provides a detailed account of the history and development of the English language. Please use these resources to flesh out your timelines.


Please click here to find an eMagazine article on prescriptivism vs descriptivism. If you need to login to access, copy and paste the credentials below:

Username: stbren
Password: eMag16*

When you are logged in, take some time to explore the website for articles like this one which details the importance of context for language change, and not just on language change but CLA and all the AS topics.

Please make a point of ensuring you do at least 1 hour of dedicated wider reading and research for English every week as part of your study and revision. Those of you that do will see your confidence and understanding of the subject noticeably increase, and if you can see it, so will the examiner!

Language Change - Writing an Opinion Article

Morning all,

Today you will be writing your opinion articles on Language Change using the ideas presented in 'Word of the Year' (click to access) and using some of the terminology from the PowerPoint I went through on Thursday (click to access). You have the whole lesson to write this article so I am expecting one from everyone by the end of the lesson.

This is essentially a version of the task you will need to do on Paper 2 of your A Level exam which may focus on the topic of language change. Below are some materials to support you in this task:

Links to the question paper (it is the last question on the paper) and the link to the second supporting article that you can take ideas from:

Question Paper
Second Article

And a link to 2 student responses with commentary from the examiners - one response is around a D and the other a B, so look at the differences between the two. (look for Question 4 in this document)

Student Responses

Any issues, let me know.

Final computer room lesson term 1

Morning all

As this is our last computer room lesson of the term this is a good time to get some revision and knowledge consolidation done. You need to ensure, as I mentioned last week, that you fully understand the CLA topic as we have now finished our study of this and will only return to it for revision (if we have time) at the end of the term before your exams. If there is anything you are unsure of, now is the time to revisit it and ensure that you understand it. Additionally, you need to ensure that you are working on your understanding and knowledge of terminology

Useful revision techniques:

• Make revision cards
• mind maps
• consolidate your knowledge by reading articles that I have posted, or find your own wider reading
• revisit the PPTs we've been through in class
• research the theorists
• tidy up your notes from class/on your blog
• re-read your essays you've done so far and read over my comments to decide what it is you need to work on

If you feel confident with CLA, then you can move on to do some research on to our next topic of study we will be covering after Christmas which is Language Change. If you don't get onto this today, this is the work you need to do over the Christmas break:

• Find a short section of text (fiction or non-fiction) from 1600ish and translate it into modern English. Then analyse differences using as much linguistic comment as you can e.g. syntax, semantic shift (what sorts?) etc.
• Research a word that has changed and any phrases, collocations or uses (previous or current uses) that illustrate the different meanings e.g. not quite ready vs quite tired. This is a good resource - the etymology dictionary - which you can use to map the change and development of a word or phrase.
• Find two articles that show differing attitudes to a 'language change' issue e.g. an article that criticises young people's language and one that objectively describes it or is positive about it (look at the links at the side of my blog as a starting point). Or one about the change in the word 'literally' or on the use of non-gendered pronouns etc. Analyse the language used to represent the change/issue, comparing the two texts.

This task is due Wednesday 3rd January 2018; post to your blogs.

Any problems, let me know.