What the questions want
- Paper 1 Question 2 (8 marks) and Paper 2 Question 3 (12 marks) ask how the writer uses language to create effects.
- Write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms. Use subject terms accurately, but always explain the effect: naming a technique alone earns little.
Words and connotations
- Zoom in on single words and their connotations (the ideas they suggest). 'Crept' suggests secrecy or fear; 'marched' suggests purpose or aggression.
- Think about word classes: verbs (actions), adjectives (description), adverbs (how something is done) and nouns.
Techniques
- Imagery: similes, metaphors and personification. Sound: alliteration, sibilance and onomatopoeia.
- Also look for semantic fields (groups of linked words), hyperbole, repetition, contrast and emotive language.
Sentence forms
- Short sentences create tension or emphasis. Long sentences can build detail or overwhelm the reader. Questions, exclamations and lists all have their own effects.
Writing a strong paragraph
- Make a point, give a short quotation, explain its effect on the reader, zoom in on one word, and link it to the writer's purpose.
- Example: 'The writer describes the wind as "screaming", personifying it to make it seem violent and threatening.'
Other boards
- Edexcel asks about language and structure together: Paper 1 Question 3 (6 marks) on the fiction extract, and Paper 2 Question 3 (15 marks) on the first non-fiction text.
- OCR and Eduqas also ask you to analyse language in both fiction and non-fiction texts, often together with structure. The skills are the same.
Key terms
- Connotation
- An idea or feeling that a word suggests.
- Imagery
- Language that creates a picture in the reader's mind.
- Simile
- A comparison using 'like' or 'as'.
- Metaphor
- A comparison that says something is something else.
- Personification
- Giving human qualities to something that isn't human.
- Semantic field
- A group of words linked by the same topic.
- Sibilance
- Repeated 's' sounds.
- Onomatopoeia
- A word that sounds like what it describes.
- Hyperbole
- Deliberate exaggeration.
- Sentence form
- The type and length of a sentence.