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Edexcel A2 English Language

So which bits are people revising? Obviously we need to know everything for the varieties paper, but right now I'm concentrating on Old English.

Reply 1

tazzle

I don't know as I haven't even started yet lol! Ohhh dear! Been concentrating on Lit and that totally has paid off! But yeah.. everything in general, but the history of English is definitely an important section I reckon.. almost def likely to come up somewhere? I've just been doing loads of practice questions throughout the year, whatever type of question we get, it's the same sorta thing i reckon, just applying the knowledge. I spose il go 4 history of English, then lang acquisition, all diff varieties - black english, religious, legal, spoken/written (def looking back at the A/S stuff!) and then go on to stuff like attitudes towards lang 4 the language topics paper.. prescriptivism, gender etc! Yep, I am also thinkin right now how am i going 2 get through all of that in a week!?!?!?!!? Ahhh!

Reply 2

-CBee-

I'm only doing a bit of general revision but nothing too intense, English Language is about the least of my worries at the moment. I'd think that gendered language and political correctness is important to look at, as well as all the varieties like pidgins and creoles etc.

Reply 3

Cannibal6666

For the editorial my teacher told me to make sure I look at language change, Plain English, political correctness and a little bit of accent and dialect. She said that having a good knowledge of that for the commentary would get you high marks.

I'm dragging myself through all the historical English stuff though. Urgh.

Reply 4

dans

Yep Plain English campaign. If you add in little details then you pick up extra marks. So do not just say that there is a redundant 'e', say it is there either because of: the French influence from the Norman invasion in 1066; the fact that people wanted it to look like Latin as this was highly regarded; the fact that othographical rules were dictated by pronunciation, therefore some would have included it; or that printers added it to make the lines neat. BUT you can only do the last if it is after 1476 hehe.

Reply 5

Cannibal6666

I'm breathing a sigh of relief since we don't have to dwell on Old English too much. We're very unlikely to get an OE text. The historical aspects of English are taxing my brain.

Does anyone have any predictions on what topic we may get for the editorial question?

Reply 6

dans

Yeh the features and why it became how it did.

Reply 7

dans

And the rest!! For instance it started off from Anglo Saxon etc which is like the modern day Flemish. You have not got Johnson's Dictionary (1755) and the invention of the Printing Press (1476) - if these are the only two dates you learn, then know them! They are the most important dates over the whole of history of English!

Reply 8

Cannibal6666

I think the list was a work in progresss, hence why we were supposed to be adding to it. I think anyway. :smile:

Off the top of my head, some of the features of EME are...

1500-1700

•

Expanded vocabulary. Due to more trade & scholorship with Asia, Africa, Italy, etc.

•

Intial stages of the dictionary. But only contained words spelt in SE (in other words contemporary usage for the time).

•

Shakespeare coins words, still used in LME.

•

More precise inflections, including plurals, possessives, 3rd person sigular.

•

Archaic 'est' and 'eth' inflections still used.

•

Pronouns from this period were pretty much standardised, though they did use ye for the 2nd person plural pronoun.

•

Great Vowel Shift changes pronunciation of long vowels.

•

Printing press puts an end to handwritten texts.

•

Full stops are now used, but generally used where we would put a comma.

•

No more runes.

Anyone have anymore to add? There's tons more, but that's all I can think of right now.

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