English Language (WJEC) NEA help

hi! i’m a second year doing eduqas english language and have already done my coursework on language and gender and got my grade back but the i just had a look at wjec nea exam spec and it is incredibly similar to eduqas (owned by wjec so it makes sense). i always found the “using relevant data, analyse and explore how blah blah blah” is a really easy structure to use to cole up w a title. so maybe something like “using relevant data, analyse and explore the different ways gender stereotypes affect how male and female speakers present their respective identities” or something like that. i don’t fully understand what it is you’re planning on looking at specifically so feel free to explain it to me a bit more and i might be of some more use to you haha also this is one of the wjec spec things i was looking at- https://www.wjec.co.uk/media/qzvapb2n/nea.pdf just so you know i’m not giving you any suggestions that aren’t relevant for wjec- if you haven’t seen that document already it might be worth having a look at, i relied on stuff like that so much when i was deciding on my topic

Thank you so much! I think my exam board is WJEC but the worksheets I receive say Eduqas but I thought there were the same thing just different words for the same exam board. 😂 I’m not sure about my NEA, considering I have to be researching now.
Could I ask what grade you got and what your experience was like? If you don’t mind. I want my title to somewhat link to Sociology bc I do it and I feel like it would be easier to link to theories and stuff but Ive heard that your title cant link to ur subjects and that it actually might not be a good idea. I am just sure that I want to do identity and gender because ik I can get a lot of sources for it. Since I did EPQ last year, it would pretty much be the same thing, I’m guessing.
I was planning to confirm my title, get my research and write it before the next skl year and just edit it onwards to save a lot of time but I’m not even sure of my title yet and would that be considered a good idea? If you have any tips, please helpp!

I am so happy for youu, that is so good! That’s what I am aiming for considering that English is not my STRONGEST subject.
I am just really unsure of what to do with my own title, do you have any title ideas that you think has a lot of resources. I never considered politics with gender but now that it has been mentioned, it seems interesting. I haven’t looked at any texts or anything because it is kinda overwhelming to know what I want to do, like I wouldn’t know where to start.
A lot of ppl in my class are doing the gender questions about men and women’s texts and speech. Yeah, it might be a good topic but bc it is so common, it won’t be as “unique” 😂. I want it to like stand out but not too much.
During your project did you use any websites or vids etc. that helped along the way? Or any docs you did that you think helped?
Enjoy your showerr! 😂🩷

I am so happy for youu, that is so good! That’s what I am aiming for considering that English is not my STRONGEST subject.
I am just really unsure of what to do with my own title, do you have any title ideas that you think has a lot of resources. I never considered politics with gender but now that it has been mentioned, it seems interesting. I haven’t looked at any texts or anything because it is kinda overwhelming to know what I want to do, like I wouldn’t know where to start.
A lot of ppl in my class are doing the gender questions about men and women’s texts and speech. Yeah, it might be a good topic but bc it is so common, it won’t be as “unique” 😂. I want it to like stand out but not too much.
During your project did you use any websites or vids etc. that helped along the way? Or any docs you did that you think helped?
Enjoy your showerr! 😂🩷

if politics interests you i highly suggest it there are SO many sources you can use
i mainly relied on google scholar to find stuff to reference like studies and articles you can just search anything to do with your topic and find loads of articles and studies and all sorts on jt. most of them are behind a paywall so it’s easier to just use the ones that have a pdf link next to the link that every one has (that might make more sense if you’ve used google scholar before)
also exploring the contextual factors outside of just gender is really good for getting marks so picking a specific context is helpful- i.e. i could talk about what are typical features of speeches and issues facing each prime minister at the time of the speech as well as the impact of gender on their speech.
if you want it to link to sociology stuff you might be able to use transcripts specifically of young boys and girls to compare and also link to socialisation or smth like that.
with specificity id just recommend making sure it’s specific enough that you have a context to explore but not so niche that you can’t find any helpful studies about it
if you want other suggestions for politics stuff i’ve seen other people do what i did but with prime ministers LAST speeches as prime minister and that seems really fun.
if you like getting into politeness and face threatening acts and how women (especially in politics) are perceived perhaps look into how female vs male politicians talk in prime minister’s questions? there’s loads of transcripts you can use for that and LOADS of studies to reference bc you’re covering politics, persuasion, gender differences, politeness, combativeness etc like it’s a GOLD MINE and i haven’t seen anyone else do anything about PMQs
other stuff like the way politicians apologise for things/address scandals would be good.
maybe looking into how they campaign or how male vs female councillors try to persuade people to vote for them in local elections
these might be good for sociology bc you can touch on like women being perceived as more aggressive for the same behaviours as men or like the whole idea that politics is a ‘man’s club’ or how women have to balance being masculine and competent with also appealing to traditional gender roles for women like being a mother. i don’t do sociology so that might not be anything to do with sociology lmao
(if you do end up doing politics stuff i love politics in general so i can dig up my coursework and see some of the stuff i referenced if you’d like)
my teachers gave us a lot of sample courseworks other people have done in the past, maybe ask your teachers for some of them? they might have some they just haven’t shown your class yet
if not politics, what other areas interest you? i mean stuff that could be a ‘context’, like for example men vs women in terms of celebrities accepting awards or something like that

Yess for google scholar, you always have to pay for them but I have seen the pdf links for a lot of them.
For the topic, now that you have mentioned politics it genuinely seems really interesting. I was interested in topics like how boys and girls present themselves in schools/home. Or at one point I considered identity and culture - about people’s dialects and accents and how they are treated and etc. but it wouldve been too broad. I was thinking about celebs or using transcripts like songs and etc but honestly didnt interest me enough.
Bc we have just started NEA lessons, we hvnt been given a lot of sample resources yet so they more may eventually come.
Honestly, I might consider that last speech politics and gender one and do it bc it seems really interesting. I would defo appreciate some of your sources or what it is you’re talking about, if you dont mindd 🩷
What would you suggest I do as of now, building up sources? Starting my essay? Bc my teacher also said we have to draft 1000 by next month.

Okayy, so I understand a majority of what youre saying but not really “dont get too settled…” and onwards.
So from this, I would pick 4 PM’s and they would have 4 speeches each.
My question from here is:
What would I search up to get the right sources and would it be from google scholar?
What would the 4 speeches be about (each one of them) bc ik one would be their last speech but the others?
If I was to pick a diff PM other than Rishi Sunak, who should it be?
What do you mean when you say secondary reading? I understand theories but would the reading be other people’s opinions or such?
And for my provisional title, would it be like this if i decided to researchtheir last speeches “using relevant data analyse and explore how gender affects the way politicians present their identity in their last speeches as prime minister"
I really appreciate your help, it has genuinely made it SO much easier to approach this. Thank you soo muchhh 💞

secondary reading is the stuff you’d be referencing in footnotes (or whatever referencing system you’re using, if you’ve thought about that yet) so this can be random articles you find anywhere online, proper studies you’d find on google scholar, linguistic or even sociological theories. just any supporting ‘evidence’
also i mean one speech per prime minister for four prime ministers, speeches are FULL of rhetorical devices so there’s a lot to analyse and compare so just the one last speech of each pm would be enough (believe me the word count soon runs out so you don’t want too much to be comparing)
id suggest doing the four most recent PMs bc if you included david cameron his situation is too different bc it was a coalition with nick clegg or if you go a prime minister before that it was labour so the party values are too different to compare them well.
for the secondary reading i recommend having some for the general topic and some more specific ones
general:
in google scholar, search “female rhetorical style” or “women in politics linguistics” anything vaguely like that even if it doesn’t make sense and it’ll give you some general differences between women and men’s speech
specific:
search in google scholar “gender differences in apologies” or “gender differences in accountability” or anything like that and you should find stuff
off the top of my head
sarah child’s a feminine style of politics
george orwell politics and the english langauge
them two would be a good place to start but i wouldn’t recommend looking into them until you’ve got your four transcripts and started analysing them a bit and looking into context

Okay, that makes sense and so does everything elsee
Thank you so much for your helpp!! this has made it much clearer with how I want to start.
I appreciate your help 🩷

glad i could help! if you need anything else further into your coursework i’ll still be more than happy to help so feel free to ask whenever

Hii! Back againn, hope you’re good 💗 idk if there is any other way to contact you through Studentroom but it doesn’t show an option other than public posts.
I just need some help with my essay structure, basically an essay plan please and most recommend way to lay it out my intro, paras and conc.
I have gathered all the necessary info needed, I put it on all on Word (I can show you if needed) and now we r expected to do our Introduction but I honestly dk how to start it, is there any way u would recommend going through with it or could u suggest what helped u write yours and the way I should set my whole essay out.
Any tips would be great, thank youu

Hii! Back againn, hope you’re good 💗 idk if there is any other way to contact you through Studentroom but it doesn’t show an option other than public posts.
I just need some help with my essay structure, basically an essay plan please and most recommend way to lay it out my intro, paras and conc.
I have gathered all the necessary info needed, I put it on all on Word (I can show you if needed) and now we r expected to do our Introduction but I honestly dk how to start it, is there any way u would recommend going through with it or could u suggest what helped u write yours and the way I should set my whole essay out.
Any tips would be great, thank youu

ok SO the structure we used for our introductions was
1. contextualisation
2. methodology
3. hypothesis
contextualisation is a little paragraph where you sort of just explain the angle you’re coming at your topic from and any relevant contextual factors that might be affecting the language use in your transcripts
for example in mine i sort of introduced the genre (PMs first speeches as prime ministers) and said how they’ve typically been used in the past i think i said something along the lines of “divisive issues like war, EU relations, financial crises and party in-fighting have been prevalent issues for prime ministers since as far back as margaret thatchers time as prime minister. these speeches have been used to address these relevant issues at the start of each prime ministers terms and blah blah blah”
just try to think what do people try and do with these types of speeches generally and then briefly touch on what the specific aims of theresa may/boris johnson/liz truss/ rishi sunak. why do they aim to do that, how are they trying to present themselves through these speeches, what effect are they hoping to have on their audiences perception of them. anything like that to put your investigation focus into context for the examiner (i’m happy to send you mine to have a look at my intro if you’d like)
for methodology you want to talk about how and why you chose your data, how you choose to go about comparing/analysing them and any important things about them
for example in mine i mentioned that each transcript was from a conservative politician so you know that the language differences won’t be because of party differences instead of gender differences, they’re all consecutive so the time differences won’t be affecting language as much etc think of it like the “fair tests” and variables from science gcse- you want to keep a decent amount of stuff that could affect language the same otherwise you might say their use of pronouns is a gender difference when really it’s just a contextual or cultural difference for example.
for your texts you’d want to mention that rishi sunak’s situation is different because he isn’t really resigning the same way the others are but there is still the element of “defeat” or a “fall from grace” (you’ll want to find articles to reference if you say stuff like that otherwise it’ll sound like you’re just being catty but it shouldn’t be hard to find articles w all sorts of opinions about him). if any texts are significantly longer and you had to cut them down/abridge then you might want to mention it here as well
hypothesis: think of the typical genre features or the agendas you would expect the speakers to have and then say stuff like “due to blah blah blah, i would expect to see the use of first person pronouns across all texts, as a typical feature of political speeches, but i would expect them to be especially frequent in speeches from male prime ministers” or smth like that (nice place to add some secondary reading or mention a feminine/masculine political style)
try to say why you’d expect to see each feature too like maybe bc of a stylistic difference between men and women presenting their identity, maybe there’s a contextual factor that could mean they’ll use more dynamic verbs for example
for your analysis section we were told we could do a paragraph analysing each transcript in turn if we only have four transcripts OR you can pick three or four features/aspects to explore across each text (this is the far far better way to do it in my opinion, id also suggest only doing three and doing them in good good detail because you really do feel that word count dwindle and the depth is SO important)
e.g mine were smth like these (i can’t remember exactly what i called each section)
1. pronoun usage:
2. self presentation
3. discussion of predecessor
and in those sections were a couple of language devices and stuff i’d compare across all of my speeches
also don’t forget to mention identity all the time- i know it sounds obvious and it might feel like when you’re mentioning gender differences that that amounts to mention of identity but it’s good to make it VERY clear i.e “…therefore female speakers demonstrated a marked preference for first person plural pronouns” isn’t quite enough and it’s better to just add smth like “,perhaps indicative of a feminine political style influencing the way women present their person identities” and tack on a reference/footnote to some study or article backing that up.
have you got any like numbers stuff done atm? what i mean by that is like text A has 50 first person singular pronouns text B has 20 etc
like do you have any tables of little things you’ve quantified? they’re super helpful to do if you haven’t already and if you have already i have a LOT of advice for those if you need it
i hope you’re enjoying your coursework so far tho! it’s really fun to sink your teeth into the transcripts i always found