AQA AS English Language - 23rd May 2016

Yes - this is what I wrote! Except I also mentioned that if Rouleur were to write negatively about Lizzie Armitstead, casual readers and other cyclists might stop reading because they expect the writing to reflect the good sportsmanship that all athletes should aspire to.

Oh, that's a good idea! I didn't think of that one. I can't remember the exact quotation, but didn't the writer write something along the lines of everybody treated her like she'd won even though she came in second place? That might have tied in nicely to your comment in that people admire and like her a lot, and since when do we ever like reading negative things about those we like!

I don't think it was lacking per say, but rather a lot of the points were kind of hard to get out of your head and onto paper and there just isn't enough thinking time.. There were technically two people being represented in that text - the writer and the athlete - and you had the writer's words and then the quotations from the athlete to comment on separately. The informality of the article too was rather peculiar, too. There definitely, definitely is not enough time for reading those texts fully! I only highlighted, never annotating because I felt the time-constraint the moment I wrote down my timings in the margin. In the comparison question, I commented on that anonymity under the idea of that the writer couldn't really express a negative opinion due to the potential of being accused of slander and what not, meanwhile the users in text B could have been as nasty and awful as they liked!


A little bit! Most of my comments on the Olympics was mostly on how Lizzie Armitage was portrayed as being loyal which was ideal considering she's an athlete for her country. Graphology was definitely boring. I wrote a small paragraph in either the first question or the third question in which I stated the readership was probably quite high for the article as the clean and professional interface indicated money spent on a professional design.

Oh, that's a good idea! I didn't think of that one. I can't remember the exact quotation, but didn't the writer write something along the lines of everybody treated her like she'd won even though she came in second place? That might have tied in nicely to your comment in that people admire and like her a lot, and since when do we ever like reading negative things about those we like!

What I did was I wrote how the colours in Text A and Text B show how they are attracting mature, refined people as the colours are not bright or eye catching etc.

Ah, good point! I didn't think of that haha.

What representations did everyone pick up on specifically, did anyone mention the gender stereotypes in texts A & B?


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For Q3, I wrote about the comparison between the use of 'cycling' and 'bike riding' to describe the same thing
.
The word 'cycling' shows competitive edge etc
The phrase 'bike riding' shows the casual side of what seemingly is the same activity.

Good point or nah? Be as critical as you want

I think that's a good point! The two words are synonymous however their connotations are definitely different, as you've stated!

What if he wrote about how the difference in language use presents the two differently - how Rouleur is willing to use field-specific lexis unlike the internet forum, which is ironic because the commenter's behaviours suggest that their community consists of experienced cyclists.

I think that's a good point! The two words are synonymous however their connotations are definitely different, as you've stated!

Thanks! Obviously, I went into more detail in the exam, but really couldn't be bothered writing my answer out

I also compared how Text A used opinions and quotes from a professional cyclist to represent cycling in a positive way, where as Text B used statistics from individuals to represent cycling in the same way. Those statistics, although could be lies, the other uses of the forum have to take them on face value as the truth due to the unwritten rules of speech. Those unwritten rules applying to the forum as it is a multi-modal platform.

That point good too?

Haha, I know what you mean!

Yes, I'd say that's a great point too! It's the Internet so people tend to quote figures without sourcing them, and of course there is Grice's maxim of quality which we do expect people to adhere to (albeit people tend to violate it more so on the Internet.)

Those were my two points for the final question, what band would those be in, would you reckon. Like a really rough mark out of 20?

(I know it would be hard to judge)

Oh gosh, I think you'd definitely be in band 4 if your whole paper reflects the standard seen here, perhaps pushing for band 5!

Also, I just remembered a very out-there idea I thought of in the exam. I noticed the username of one poster was 'cruzcampo' and with my comments of how, despite his perceived superiority of himself his grammar was not the best (sentence fragments, improperly place commas, what not), that a potential reason could be that he or she was a non-native speaker of English as the forum is accessible to everybody regardless of country. 'Campo' made me think of 'countryside' and 'cruz' made me think of a shortened version of 'cruzar'. Of course, now that I Google it, I see it's a Spanish beer! Do we think that might have been a valid point anyway?

Hey did anyone do inspector calls? And of mice and men?