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AQA English Language AS Level 2015 2nd June

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Does anyone have any advice on how to structure an answer for the section of Language and Power/Gender/Technology? We have been given no structure for it and I am lost on what to talk about in order to get the top grade.
Thank you!
Original post by Tabatha Gregg
Does anyone have any advice on how to structure an answer for the section of Language and Power/Gender/Technology? We have been given no structure for it and I am lost on what to talk about in order to get the top grade.
Thank you!


My teacher sent us this essay plan help sheet! i hope it's useful :smile:
Basically going through all the frameworks systematically: discourse, pragmatics, semantics, lexis, graphology etc. Then linking it to the context of the text (AO3)any relevant linguistic features (AO3II) and relevant theories (AO2)

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Original post by WaywardWriter
Basically going through all the frameworks systematically: discourse, pragmatics, semantics, lexis, graphology etc. Then linking it to the context of the text (AO3)any relevant linguistic features (AO3II) and relevant theories (AO2)

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Thank you :smile:
Original post by deadlxcks
My teacher sent us this essay plan help sheet! i hope it's useful :smile:


Thanks this is great :smile:
Original post by deadlxcks
my grouping teacher often got us to spot stuff like morphology etc in the grouping texts as a way of contributing to our groups, for example (our most common example) if you grouped by formality you would look at the main type of sentences within the texts you've grouped (are they complex, compound or simple?) and you could use that as part of your argument for the group. I suppose you could add this in with morphology and cohesion in a similar structure; morphology could refer to the audience the text producer is addressing or the purpose of the text (e.g. 'the morphology present in the phrase "the workers must..." distances the gap between the text producer and the text receiver, increasing the formality and the use of deontic (sp.?) verbs also increases the instrumental power behind the text.' I realise this is sloppily worded and applies more the section B but you get where I'm going with this).

Thank you. That's really helped !! Hopefully I can implement some of this stuff into my essays on Monday!
hi, just revising for this, does anyone have any ideas as to if they think it will be spoken power/written power?


also, can someone explain deontic and epistemic modality as we havent learned this :frown:
Original post by elainethepain
hi, just revising for this, does anyone have any ideas as to if they think it will be spoken power/written power?

also, can someone explain deontic and epistemic modality as we havent learned this :frown:
deontic is often a forceful verb e.g. "you must/cant/have to/should"whereas epistemic is like "you would/could/might/etc." so it's more guidance/gives you more of a choice. although, when learning this, our class found many verbs that crossed over, for example "you should consider" could be thought to be epistemic even though it would be thought to be deontic. I hope this helps!
does anyone know what sort of mode might come up? or which comes up the most eg. transcript, web page?
Original post by Walkingdeadfan
does anyone know what sort of mode might come up? or which comes up the most eg. transcript, web page?


my teacher said there will always be a spoken transcript on the grouping
Reply 70
Hey can someone help me please, what kinds of categories do you put the texts into in part A? Thanks
Original post by Abbie98
Hey can someone help me please, what kinds of categories do you put the texts into in part A? Thanks


hello! you should have around 3-5 categories and attempt to use all of the texts in each category (obviously sometimes this may be too difficult/impossible)the four obvious and main categories are: mode, purpose, audience and genre. however, these groupings may be difficult to score high marks and/or reach the top grades if that's what you're aiming for, so you could do additional groups of formality, lexis choice (e.g. jargon/slang/standard english) or i recently did a grouping of whether the text contained members' resources, however, my teacher suggested if i was going to do this in the exam, i should define members' resources in my topic sentence. Obviously the groupings depend on the texts given but those are my usual go to groups :smile:
Hi I have a question on how to group texts onto representation. For example how would you say what is similar and what is different and what to talk about for representation?
Help Please!!! I know the A01 features but don't know how to categorise.. e.g. my group is spoken discourse and the features relevant to the text e.g, spontaneous- hedging, fillers, back channelling ... but then what do I write about them and carry on with my grouping... and how do I end my grouping.

What if I have a small group of e.g. interrogatives... what do I write about these small groups?

Plus, if for example I include texts A,C,E,C,F & G in my grouping do I have to talk about them all?
Original post by leahnesbit
Hi all, just thought I'd make this thread as one hasn't been made yet (I think). It's just to chat and help each other with the AQA English Language AS Level exam on the 2nd of June. I know it's quite a while away but the earlier revision starts, the better! Anyway, feel free to chat and ask me any questions if you like? Haha I have been getting A/Bs throughout the year so I guess I could help if you need any. Thanks!





Help Please!!! I know the A01 features but don't know how to categorise.. e.g. my group is spoken discourse and the features relevant to the text e.g, spontaneous- hedging, fillers, back channelling ... but then what do I write about them and carry on with my grouping... and how do I end my grouping.

What if I have a small group of e.g. interrogatives... what do I write about these small groups?

Plus, if for example I include texts A,C,E,C,F & G in my grouping do I have to talk about them all?
Does anyone know how to structure English language aqa A as, on child aquisition on non- theory?
I don't understand how to structure the essay on child aquisition help!!!
Reply 76
Original post by unsa98
Can someone please mark my Lang and Gender response and point out my weaknesses so I can work on them. I emailed my teacher but she didn't mark it. I want to know what mark I get in this. I have put a link to AQA past papers and mark schemes webpage
Thank-you
http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-language-b-2705/past-papers-and-mark-schemes

Lang and Gender-Jan 2013
Text H is part of a script from the soap Waterloo Road. The conversation starts off between two female teachers Jasmine and Jem. Jasmine is discussing what she thinks of ‘Mr Budgen’ as a teacher with Jem by using a mild expletive ‘Miserable git.’ Even though she is in a professional environment, they are both talking to each other as friends and not teachers so the atmosphere must be relaxed so that’s why the register of the conversation is informal. Jasmine is expressing her thoughts about Grantly with Jem. This links with Tannen’s difference model of women sharing their emotions and feelings with each other just like Jasmine is doing.
Further down in the text as part of the stage directions ‘Jasmine plays along putting on an air of mock-innocence’ Here she is putting on an act trying to make Jem laugh at her actions. This challenges Robin Lakoff’s theory stating the 10 elements of women’s language. One of her features to women’s language was that they lack in sense of humour but her it shows the opposite as Jasmine is trying to act humorous act as she ‘plays along’.
However in other parts of the text there are features of Robin Lakoff’s theory. This is shown when Jem uses a tag question against Jasmine by saying ‘Wow, you don’t mess around, do you?’ This sarcastic comment is said after Jasmine shows Jem Grantly’s ‘dossier’. She uses this feature to help Jasmine get Grantly fired because ‘he is so professional’. The use of the intensifier ‘so’ shows how much Jasmine wants to get rid of her colleague who is currently ‘head of department’.Jem encourages her to fire him as she uses an imperative ‘Go girl!’ and says to Jasmine who is a bit hesitant ‘if you don’t like something, change it’.
When Jasmine goes to talk to Grantly she speaks to him in overt prestige manner which supports Peter Trudgill’s theory of women using RP language no matter what social class they are from. She says to him ‘Mr Budgen, glad I caught you. As you’re probably aware, I have several issues with you as a teacher, a head of department and a colleague…’ This shows that a women like Jasmine is not like how women are stereotypically portrayed these days as being weak and innocent because in the text sounds as though Jasmine is the first person to speak to Grantly like this as after she speaks he interrupts her by saying ‘if only that were true’. Although Jasmine is shown as the less powerful participant because she is a teacher whereas Grantly is the head of department which makes him the powerful participant, she isn’t acting as a person of her hierarchical status should be acting.
When Jasmine is speaking to Grantly he interrupts her by saying ‘issues, Ms Koreshi?’ the first time and the second time she speaks and he interrupts her again by saying‘’if only that were true’. The reason why he does this is because he is shocked from what he is hearing from his employee as he is the dominant one because of his occupational status shown in the stage directions as its says that Grantly is left ‘gaping like a fish’. His interruptions link with Zimmerman and West’s theory of when they tested this theory and said that 96% of interruptions in a mixed sex conversation were made by men which is similar to what happened in between Grantly and Jasmine’s conversation.
At the end of the text Jem wants to have ‘cleared the air’ between her and Grantly because whilst Jem is showing Jasmine pictures of her house Grantly comes into the staff-room ‘warily’ and mocks Jem. She notices that Grantly is worried so she says to him ‘it’s just, you seem upset… you were a bit unhappy about me...’ as she is a new supply teacher so she doesn’t want to disappoint the ‘head of department’. This links to Deborah Tannen’s difference model as she says that women like to form bonds and be accepted which is what Jem wants as she does not want to ‘get off on the wrong foot’ with him. However Grantly hesitates byusing non fluency features such as filler as he replies to her by saying ‘no,no, er…’ This challenges Robin Lakoff’s theory as she says that women hesitateby using fillers but here it shows that Grantly is showing hesitation. supp��


Hi, I have also completed an answer for this question a few weeks ago. My teacher said that you must acknowledge that the script has a written purpose for entertainment which impacts on how the genders are represented in the text. Therefore, you must make it clear that the given text is not spontaneous but a planned text meaning that the producers of Waterloo Road may have purposely stereotyped the characters to 'realistic' gender roles.
Has anyone got any notes at all for Language and Technology? We haven't been given anything.Thank you!
Hi,

Struggling a little bit for this exam and my teachers haven't been very helpful...
Would anyone mind having a look at this essay I've just done for one of the groupings for section A of the exam tomorrow?? (Believe it was the May 2013 exam)
Would be grateful for any feedback anyone could give me!

Thanks
For those of you are doing AQA AS ENG A, I have created a new thread :smile:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3371865

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