Exam Board Guidance on English language work



Summary of the AQA Exam Board Guidance on language work for A level (16-18 years). 

For AS and A level, learners can analyse texts by exploring four functions of language:

  • the expressive function – how a text represents its writer or producer and conveys their attitudes and values

  • the experiential function – how a text represents people, institutions and events

  • the relational function – how a text creates an ideal audience position, creating a power relation between producer and audience, and shaping the audience’s response

  • the textual function – how texts create coherence and cohesion

Linguistic Frameworks

Phonological:

alliteration, assonance, rhythm, rhyme

the forms and functions of non-verbal aspects of speech

Lexical-semantic:

denotational and connotational meaning, figurative language, structural semantics (semantic fields,
synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms), jargon, levels of formality

Grammatical:

nouns: proper/common; singular/plural; concrete/abstract

adjectives: comparative/superlative; attributive/predicative

adverbs: manner, place, direction, time, duration, frequency, degree, sentence

verbs: infinitive; mood (imperative/interrogative/declarative/exclamative);

main/auxiliary/modal auxiliaries; present and past participles; person; tense; voice; aspect (progressive/perfective),

pronouns: personal (person, number and function); interrogative; demonstrative

prepositions

determiners: definite/indefinite articles; demonstrative adjectives; numerals

conjunctions: co-ordinating, sub-ordinating

sentence functions: statement, command, question, exclamations

sentence types: minor, simple, compound, complex, compound-complex

clause types: main, sub-ordinate , co-ordinate

clause elements: subject, verb, object, complement, adverbials

Textual:

text structures

cohesion (lexical, grammatical and graphological)

the forms and functions of graphological features  of texts

discourse features of texts (eg speaker switches and the management of turn-taking; the nature and purpose of feedback)

Language Development

For this topic candidates should study how children go through the initial phases of language acquisition and how they develop writing skills.

Candidates should study:

  • the functions of children’s language

  • the development of phonological and pragmatic competence, lexis, grammar and semantics

  • the relationship between children’s spoken and written language

  • the development of the conventions of writing and multimodal texts

  • theories about language development: imitation, innateness, cognition, input, socio-cultural, genre theory

Useful References

Helpful ideas about ways of approaching textual study, the use of re-writing and textual interventions, and how ideas about language are generated can be found in:

Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power, London:Longman.

Pope, R. (1995) Textual Intervention, London: Routledge.

Crowley, T (1989) The Politics of Discourse: The Standard Language Question in British Cultural Debates, London: Macmillan.

Dr Ian McCormick is the author of The Art of Connection: the Social Life of Sentences
(Quibble Academic, 2013)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poems of Love and Loss: Remembering and Celebrating

Image
During bereavement we often want to express the sense of love and loss but find ourselves lost for words. In this case poetry can have a very powerful emotional and spiritual effect. Poems can also challenge and provoke different ways of thinking about difficult experiences. But it is often quite difficult to find a poem that is suitable for a public service that expresses both celebration and loss. In this blog I have selected several poems that may help you to mark your sense of loss, and aid reflection, commemoration and celebration. I have tried to encompass a variety of moods, tones and approaches to reflect the different phases of grief. Gitanjali -  Rabindranath Tagore I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards. Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. Today the summer has come at my window with its ...
Read more

Comedy: famous quotes

Image
“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” --- Charlie Chaplin. "Dramatic comedy, from which fictional comedy is mainly descended, has been remarkably tenacious of its structural principles and character types." (Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism ) "The days of Comedy are gone, alas! When Congreve's fool could vie with Moliere's bete :   Society is smooth'd to that excess,  That manners hardly differ more than dress." --- Byron "Man is the merriest species of the creation, all above and below him are serious." --- Addison “This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” --- Horace Walpole. “Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.” --- Peter Ustinov “The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.” --- Moliere. "In the hands of a comic genius the pretence of stupidity is the triumph of irony." "In my mind, the...
Read more

Sound must seem an echo to the Sense!

Image
The poetry of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is sometimes associated with a cramped 'classical' approach to the imagination. However, rhythmic life and energy are bound up in Pope's rhyming couplets. He has an ear for music and movement. In fact, he often speaks about dance or employs its as a metaphor. Rhythm and dance provide a rich vein of physicality. Like Dryden, Pope perfected his ability to hear the inherent musicality of words and their sinewy rhythmic potential. He is a master of the soft rhapsodic cadences of lyric and elegy as much as the harsh, rough music of snarling satire. Although many of Pope's poems present formidable challenges to modern readers it eill eb apparent that a judicious selection of extracts will repay close reading and recitation. Students should also attempt to write their own couplets as this creative process will enable them to understand the levels of subtlety and complexity that can be achieved. Alexander Pope's Essay on Criti...
Read more