Monday, June 19, 2017

A level Paper 2: revision tips final part

I'll cut the boring intro this time and just say that in this post we'll have a look at what to think about when you're actually analysing texts for Section B. What should you be doing with the texts and what kinds of approaches work? As with everything posted for revision this year, I'm not suggesting there's only one right way to do this, but here are a few things that I've found useful and that you might like to think about. Again, I'm only referring to sample material here and what has previously been set by AQA on their old A and B specs.

Basically, what you're doing here is a form of what is called Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and in a post in 2014 for the old AQA A spec (which this part of the paper is very similar to), I outlined a few approaches to analysis which I thought might help.

... you're using language analysis to work out the ideological position a text producer is taking in discussing a language issue. So, this could mean you're using language analysis to work out how a writer is using the following:
  • pronouns to address the reader and position him/herself in relation to the ideal reader (direct 2nd person address, inclusive 1st person plural, maybe some synthetic personalisation)
  • lexical formality to suggest closeness to the ideal reader/distance and expertise
  • modality to suggest elements of certainty or doubt, sometimes in the form of modal verbs, but also modal adverbs
For example - and I've shamelessly nicked this from an article I did for emagazine last year - with last January's question on the supposed Americanisation of English, Matthew Engel positioned himself in particular ways:
...in an article for The Daily Mail on Americanisms entering English, the columnist Matthew Engel, seems to humbly and self-mockingly position himself as out of touch by saying “Old buffers like me have always complained about the process, and we have always been defeated”. Should we take such a move at face value? Perhaps not. Engel goes on in the article to stridently berate the UK for adopting what he calls “ugly Americanisms”: “Nowadays, people have no idea where American ends and English begins. And that's a disaster for our national self-esteem. We are in danger of subordinating our language to someone else's - and with it large aspects of British life”. That doesn’t sound too much like the stance of a man who’s labelled himself an “old buffer”, but the words of a man who feels he’s still got battles to fight and wars to win (if not, home-runs to hit). His self-effacing positioning earlier on helps him appeal to his reader as a gentle, even rather defeated and pessimistic, sort of character, which his subsequent warnings and call to arms belie.


So, back to the new specification and Paper 2. In many ways, I don't think what you are doing here is much different to what you will have done on Paper 1 analysing language and representations, but the focus on Paper 2 is always language itself - views, opinions, debates, arguments about language - rather than cycling, the Olympics, goths or school proms...

AO1 is still about applying different language frameworks/methods/levels to pull apart the nuts and bolts of language and as with Paper 1 the more range and depth you offer, the more marks you can get and the more interesting your analysis can become. One thing to remember is that while grammar can be a very important aspect of what you analyse (word classes, phrases, sentences and clauses, etc.) you shouldn't ignore the other areas - semantics, graphology, pragmatics and discourse structure, for example.

If you look at the top level of AO1, patterns are important and I think that one of the things you can do here to show that you understand a text is to describe not just individual appearances of certain kinds of word, semantic field, sentence, image or hyperlink - but patterns you notice in how they are used. Are patterns established? Why? Are patterns broken? Why? Is there an overall discourse structure to the texts? How has this been used to convey a viewpoint?

AO3 is about meanings and representations again, so think about how language is represented but also how the writers of the texts represent and position themselves to present their views. To hit the top level (5) you need to evaluate all of this, so think about how successfully (or not) these ideas are presented. The other thing to be aware of is that AO3 is about contextualised meanings, as well. What do language choices mean in the texts themselves, in specific places? What ideas, values and beliefs about language are being presented in these articles/book extracts/online pieces? Does the context - a regular newspaper column, an online response to another article, a self-help guide (all previously featuring in old AQA papers) - help influence the meaning?

Of course, the other aspect to all of this is the new AO, AO4 and this is one to really think about before putting pen to paper, because it could be a factor in how you structure your answer. AO4 is all about connections between texts and is worth 15 marks on this question (same as AO3), so think carefully about how to use the connections (similarities and differences) to organise your answer. Remember to consider not just superficial connections (topic, audience, mode etc.) but aspects of language use, the discourses used and the wider discussions about these issues.

That's the lot for Paper 2 and all the new A levels for this year. All I can say now is best of luck and hope that the paper is kind to you so you can show your knowledge and bare skillz.




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