amazon.co.ukLanguage Discourses
A* revision for AQA 7702/2 Section B and OCR directed-writing tasks: analysing attitudes to language use, change, gender and power, deploying discursive devices, and winning the 40-mark analysis and 30-mark opinion article.
🎯 Learning Objectives
- Identify language discourses - texts debating language use, change, diversity, gender and power - and connect them to the wider debates they draw on (AO2).
- Analyse attitudes and perspectives: how texts represent language, construct the producer's identity and position the reader (AQA spec 4.2.3; AO1/AO3).
- Deploy the discursive-device catalogue - prescriptive claims, anecdotes, appeals to authority, modality, evaluative lexis, metaphor, hyperbole - as evidence of stance (AO1/AO3).
- Compare how two texts present views on a language issue, evaluating how effectively each presents its case (AQA 7702/2 Question 3, 40 marks: AO1 10 + AO3 15 + AO4 15).
- Write a directed or opinion piece for a non-specialist audience: assess ideas from the texts, refer to ideas from language study, argue a view (AQA 7702/2 Question 4, 30 marks: AO2 20 + AO5 10).
- Adapt to OCR's discourse tasks: Language in the media (H470/02 Section B, 24 marks: AO2 12 + AO3 12) and the topical-issue directed writing (H470/01 Section B, 24 marks).
📋 Key Definitions and Core Concepts
Language discourse: A way of talking or writing about language: the attitudes, debates and representations circulating about language use, change or variety - the topic of the texts, not their grammar alone.
Prescriptivism: The view that language should conform to fixed rules of 'correctness'; in discourse texts, prescriptive claims assert decline, error or threat ('texting is destroying English').
Descriptivism: The view that language should be described as it is used, without legislating correctness; in discourse texts, descriptivists cite corpora, dictionaries and linguists against alarmism.
Standard language ideology: The belief that one standard variety is inherently superior and 'proper'; the backdrop to most prescriptive discourse and to debates about accents and dialects.
Verbal hygiene: Cameron's (1995) term for the everyday and institutional practices by which people debate and attempt to 'clean up' language - prescriptivism studied as a real social practice rather than dismissed.
Appeal to authority: A discursive move citing experts, dictionaries or institutions ('the OED now lists...') to license a claim about language; the descriptivist's favourite device, often cherry-picked by prescriptivists.
Anecdote: A personal story used as pseudo-evidence ('I recently overheard...'); marks conversational register, positions the writer as relatable, and substitutes narrative for data.
Modality: The grammar of certainty and obligation ('must', 'surely', 'arguably'); high modality marks a prescriptive stance, hedged modality a tentative or evidence-led one.
Evaluative lexis: Words carrying judgement of language itself ('sloppy', 'decadent', 'vibrant', 'lazy'); the fastest lexical route to a writer's stance.
Metalinguistic commentary: Language used to talk about language - corrections, quotations treated as objects of complaint ('so-called innovations'), and labels applied to other speakers' usage.
📌 Key Points
AQA 7702/2 Section B: Question 3 = 40 marks (AO1 10 + AO3 15 + AO4 15) analysing how two texts present views; Question 4 = 30 marks (AO2 20 + AO5 10) - an opinion article.
AQA spec 4.2.3: discourse texts represent language, construct an identity for the producer, position the reader and connect to wider discourses about language - four bullets, four jobs.
Devices double as stance evidence: high modality + evaluative lexis + hyperbole + anecdote = prescriptive; hedging + corpus citation + named linguists = descriptivist.
June 2023's texts were both on the full stop (The Conservative Woman and MailOnline, 2020) - same issue, opposing personas: the examiner tests how each presents, not what they claim.
OCR places discourses in H470/02 Section B (Language in the media, 24 marks - multimodal text, AO2 12 + AO3 12) and H470/01 Section B (topical statement directed writing, 24 marks, ~500 words).
Question 4's three bullets are a checklist: assess the ideas and issues raised in Text A and Text B, refer to ideas from language study, argue your own views - hit all three or lose marks.
What language discourses are - and where they appear
Language discourses are texts about language: newspaper columns, letters pages, blogs, Mumsnet threads, radio phone-ins, speeches and public statements that debate language use, change, diversity, gender and power. AQA assesses them in Paper 2 Section B (7702/2) - a 40-mark analysis of two texts presenting views (June 2023: both articles on the full stop, from The Conservative Woman and MailOnline, 2020) plus a 30-mark opinion article - and the diversity/change essay in Section A also demands 'social attitudes to, and debates about, language' (spec 4.2.1). OCR places discourses in H470/02 Section B (Language in the media: a multimodal media text analysed with theories of power, gender or technology - 24 marks) and H470/01 Section B (directed writing on a topical statement - June 2024: 'Americanisms are taking over the English language.', a speech for an English class, ~500 words - 24 marks).
AQA's spec (4.2.3) lists four things discourse texts do - and each is a line of analysis: they represent language (as decaying organism, as property, as living thing), they construct an identity for the producer (the exasperated purist, the amused descriptivist, the concerned parent), they position the reader and seek to influence (direct address, inclusive 'we', rhetorical questions), and they connect to discourses about language (the decline narrative, the gendered critique of 'vocal fry' and 'uptalk', the Americanism panic, the political-correctness debate, apostrophe protection).
- Recurring topics: Americanisms and borrowing (the 'taking over' narrative - Crystal's Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 is the classic descriptivist counter to the texting panic), accent hierarchies and prestige (link to the Language Diversity strand), politically correct language, punctuation panics (Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves), and generational complaint ('young people are ruining English').
- Gender and power discourses are tested too: the 'vocal fry' and 'uptalk' panics target young women's speech and recycle prescriptive anxiety in gendered form - the descriptivist counter is that the criticism is about the speakers, not the phonetics. Political-correctness debates position 'the woke' as language vandals; the counter is that all institutional language change (titles, terminology) has always been negotiated. Power discourses - political spin, euphemism, institutional jargon - draw on the Language and Power strand, and the same device catalogue applies: nominalisation concealing agency, modality asserting authority.
- Electronic discourses: social media threads (Mumsnet, X) as discourse venues - direct address, escalation, and screen-based register; comment sections make reception visible, so writers design language for engagement as much as argument.
- The two texts are usually paired around one issue with opposing or complementary stances - so the analysis target is how each presents, not a verdict on the linguistics.
Analysing attitudes and perspectives (AO3)
Stance identification is a method, not an impression. Work the levels systematically, and anchor every attitude claim to a quoted device:
- Lexis: evaluative load ('sloppy', 'vibrant', 'decadent', 'lazy') reveals stance before any argument is made; semantic fields build the representation - decay ('ruin', 'erode', 'slide') vs growth ('evolve', 'enrich', 'borrow').
- Modality: high modality and declaratives ('texting is destroying', 'we must resist') mark prescription; hedging and evidence-conditional phrasing ('arguably', 'the evidence suggests') mark descriptivism.
- Pronouns and positioning: inclusive 'we' recruits the reader into the stance; 'us and them' divides defenders from vandals (young people, institutions, Americans); synthetic personalisation (Fairclough) simulates intimacy in mass-audience texts.
- Metaphor: the decline/decay/infection frame vs the evolution/growth frame - Aitchison's three models (damp spoon, crumbling castle, infectious disease) are themselves discourse metaphors: spot the metaphor in the text, name the model it echoes, and dismantle its fallacy in your evaluation.
- Hyperbole and numbers: inflated claims ('everyone knows', 'completely destroyed') and empty quantifiers substitute volume for evidence; precise corpus figures (Google ngrams, OED citations) are the descriptivist counter.
- Producer identity: the persona built through anecdote, self-deprecation or authority-citing - the exasperated purist's persona licenses complaint; the amused descriptivist's persona licenses mockery of the complaint.
- Irony and sarcasm: stance markers that invert surface meaning - quote them and read both layers.
- Media context (AO3): producers and audiences shape the register of complaint - a niche blog (The Conservative Woman) can be more polemical than a mass tabloid (MailOnline), whose online mode forces shorter, bolder syntax and clickable headlines; mode and era are the fastest context marks.
Deployment: every paragraph should name the attitude, quote the device that constructs it, and tie both to the text's purpose and audience - an attitude asserted without a quotation is assertion, and a quotation without an attitude claim is description.
Positioning in detail earns the AO3 top band: ask of every text who is given authority (the writer? a quoted expert? 'common sense'?), who is cast as the problem (young people, institutions, Americans, 'the woke'?), and what the reader is invited to feel (alarm, amusement, superiority, solidarity). The answers usually explain the text's structure: an anecdotal opening gives the writer eyewitness authority; an authority citation transfers it; a rhetorical question hands the turn to the reader. A discourse text is an argument about language built entirely through positioning - read it as persuasion, not information.
A catalogue of discursive devices
Memorise the devices as evidence of stance - each carries a recognisable effect and reveals what the writer wants from the reader.
| Device | Example form | Effect and what it reveals |
|---|---|---|
| Prescriptive claim | High-modality declarative + evaluative lexis: 'Texting is destroying the English language.' | Asserts decline as fact; reveals standard language ideology - the claim assumes one 'correct' English exists. |
| Anecdote | 'I recently overheard a teenager say...' | Pseudo-evidence; positions the writer as relatable eyewitness; substitutes narrative for data. |
| Appeal to authority | 'The OED now lists...'; 'linguists agree that...' | Licenses the claim institutionally; descriptivists cite corpora and named linguists, prescriptivists cherry-pick. |
| Empty quantifier | 'Everyone knows', 'no one says anymore' | False consensus substitutes for evidence; a hyperbole marker of prescriptive alarmism. |
| Slippery slope | 'Next it will be...' | Projects a single change into total collapse; the decline narrative in miniature. |
| Golden-age nostalgia | 'English used to be spoken properly.' | Aitchison's crumbling castle - there never was a peak; dateable counter-evidence exists in any historical text. |
| Straw man | 'Descriptivists think anything goes.' | Misrepresents the opposing case to demolish it; descriptivists in fact describe systematic variation. |
| Corpus/data citation | 'Google ngrams show usage rising since 1990.' | The descriptivist counter-move: evidence replaces anecdote; precision signals expertise. |
| Faux-informal intimacy | Direct address, asides, contractions in blogs | Builds reader rapport in opinion pieces; the register design of the directed-writing task. |
- Structural devices: anecdotal openings (foregrounding the complaint), listicle format (a modern media convention), rhetorical questions as topic shifts, and punchy conclusions that restate the stance - structure evidences purpose, so analyse it.
- Deployment: in the 40-mark comparison, pair devices across the two texts - the same device (an anecdote) doing different work in each text is a ready-made AO4 point.
From catalogue to analysis: the device list is a starting inventory, not the answer. The top band comes from connecting devices to stance and stance to discourse: a single paragraph should move from quotation ('I recently overheard...') to device (anecdote as pseudo-evidence) to stance (prescriptive, nostalgic) to the wider discourse it echoes (the decline narrative - Aitchison's crumbling castle). That four-step chain, repeated across both texts and then compared, is what 'examine any similarities and differences... explore how effectively the texts present their views' rewards.
Directed writing and the essay method
AQA Question 3 (40 marks = AO1 10 + AO3 15 + AO4 15): 'Analyse how language is used in Text A and Text B to present views about changing uses of language. In your answer you should: examine any similarities and differences you find between the two texts; explore how effectively the texts present their views.'
- For each text: the representation of the language issue, the stance (prescriptive/descriptivist or a blend), and the devices constructing both - anchored in quotation.
- Compare (AO4): points of similarity and difference in how the views are presented - persona, register, evidence type, structure - not just what the views are.
- Evaluate effectiveness (the second bullet): does the evidence support the claim? does the persona engage or alienate the reader? does the register fit the audience? - judgement earns the top band.
- Timing: Section B is 70 marks in roughly 90 minutes - about 50 for Question 3 and 40 for Question 4, after 15 minutes reading the texts.
AQA Question 4 (30 marks = AO2 20 + AO5 10): 'Write an opinion article on views about the changing uses of language. In your article you should: assess the ideas and issues raised in Text A and Text B; refer to ideas from language study; argue your own views.' The three bullets are a checklist: assess (weigh the texts' claims - where they hold, where they fail), refer to ideas from language study (original examples beyond the texts - Aitchison's models, Crystal's descriptivism, standard language ideology - this is the AO2 20), and argue your own views (a thesis, not a summary). Craft for the non-specialist audience: headline, accessible but informed register (OCR targets a 'reasonably well-educated, non-specialist audience'), counter-arguments addressed, and an engaging voice - that voice is the AO5 10.
OCR's versions: H470/01 Section B (24 marks) gives the statement, format and audience - 'Write a speech for an English class arguing for or against the statement. Aim for 500 words': plan a stance, three arguments with named examples from language study, address the class audience directly, use rhetorical devices sparingly. H470/02 Section B (24 marks = AO2 12 + AO3 12) asks you to 'investigate how language features and contextual factors construct meanings' in a multimodal media text: apply theories (language and power - Fairclough; gender; technology) to linguistic and graphological features, and tie each to the media context - it is a discourse-analysis task, not an opinion piece.
The essay method for Section A's diversity/change essays applies here too: define the claim, evaluate both sides with named linguists and dated examples, judge - but Section B adds the reader: who is positioned, how, and how effectively.
Timing across Paper 2: 2 hours 30 minutes for 100 marks - roughly 1 hour 5 for Section A (an evaluative essay), then 15 minutes reading the Section B texts, about 50 minutes on Question 3 and 40 minutes on Question 4. Plan before writing on all three: a thesis for the essay, a comparison grid for Q3, and a stance-plus-arguments outline for Q4. The directed-writing genre is fixed by the task (article, speech, letter) - read the format instruction and the audience, then design the register for both: accessible enough for a non-specialist, informed enough to cite language study.
💡 Worked Example
Exam-style: Analyse how language is used in Text A and Text B to present views about changing uses of language. In your answer you should: examine any similarities and differences you find between the two texts; explore how effectively the texts present their views. [40 marks] (AQA 7702/2, June 2023, Question 3 - Text A: The Conservative Woman, 2020; Text B: MailOnline, 2020, both on the full stop)
Mark-scheme logic: Mark-scheme logic (AQA 7702/2 Section B Question 3: 40 marks = AO1 10 + AO3 15 + AO4 15, per the June 2023 mark scheme):<br><br><strong>AO1 - systematic analysis (10):</strong> lexis/semantics (evaluative lexis and semantic fields constructing the representation of language - decay vs preservation), grammar (high modality, declaratives, rhetorical questions, hyperbole), pragmatics (presuppositions, synthetic personalisation, irony, direct reader address), discourse (anecdotal openings, appeals to authority, structure), graphology (headline, images, layout) - each claim anchored in precise quotation with accurate terminology.<br><br><strong>AO3 - context woven (15):</strong> the producers and audiences (a niche conservative blog vs a mass-circulation tabloid), the online mode of 2020 (clickbait headlines, shorter paragraphs, comment-enabled engagement), and the subject context - the wider discourse each text connects to (decline narrative, generational complaint). Context explains the language; it is never listed.<br><br><strong>AO4 - connections and evaluation (15):</strong> integrated comparison - same issue, opposing or complementary presentations: similarities (both represent language change as a story, both use anecdote and authority), differences (persona - the exasperated purist vs the knowing reporter; register - polemical blog voice vs tabloid breeziness; evidence type - anecdote vs quotation). Then <em>how effectively</em>: judge whether each text's evidence supports its claim, whether its persona engages or alienates its audience, and whether its rhetoric fits its mode - the second bullet is where the top band lives.<br><br><strong>Craft:</strong> every attitude claim anchored to a quoted device; comparative connectives throughout; the effectiveness judgement explicit in the conclusion. For Question 4 (30 marks = AO2 20 + AO5 10): assess both texts' ideas, deploy original language-study examples (Aitchison, Crystal, standard language ideology), argue a thesis in an engaging, accurate non-specialist register.
❓ Practice Questions & Mark Schemes
Write an opinion article on views about the changing uses of language. In your article you should: assess the ideas and issues raised in Text A and Text B; refer to ideas from language study; argue your own views. [30 marks] (AQA 7702/2, June 2023, Question 4)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO2 20 + AO5 10):<br><br><strong>Bullet 1 - assess the texts' ideas:</strong> weigh Text A's and Text B's claims - where they hold (some usages do shift; some anxieties are shared) and where they fail (the decline narrative, Aitchison's crumbling castle; anecdotes as pseudo-evidence). Assessment means evaluation, not summary.<br><br><strong>Bullet 2 - refer to ideas from language study (the AO2 20):</strong> deploy original material beyond the texts: Aitchison's three models dismantled (damp spoon, crumbling castle, infectious disease), Crystal's descriptivist case ('all living languages change'), standard language ideology, Cameron's verbal hygiene, plus dated examples - borrowing, semantic shift, the inkhorn precedent.<br><br><strong>Bullet 3 - argue your own views:</strong> a thesis stated early and returned to - not a neutral summary.<br><br><strong>AO5 (10):</strong> headline, engaging non-specialist register, accurate writing, coherent structure, counter-arguments addressed. Hit all three bullets - an article that only summarises the texts caps its mark; one that ignores the texts loses the assessment marks entirely.
'Americanisms are taking over the English language.' Write a speech for an English class arguing for or against the statement. Aim for 500 words. [24 marks] (OCR H470/01, June 2024, Question 2)
Answer: Method: the statement, format and audience are given - plan a stance, three arguments, and a voice for the class.<br><br><strong>Against (the stronger case):</strong> (1) borrowing has always enriched English - Norse, Norman French, global loans ('sushi') - and Americanisms are the latest layer, not a takeover (functional theory: new concepts demand new words). (2) Aitchison's crumbling castle - the 'proper English' baseline never existed; the inkhorn controversy attacked loans now unremarkable. (3) Speakers adopt selectively - exposure does not guarantee uptake; British usage still differs ('holiday' vs 'vacation').<br><br><strong>For (if you prefer it):</strong> global media dominance accelerates American lexis ('movie', 'gotten'); some British forms retreat ('whom'); register loss in formal writing.<br><br><strong>Craft:</strong> direct address to the class ('you', 'we'), one anecdote used knowingly, named linguists and dated examples (the AO2 credit), rhetorical devices sparingly, ~500 words with a clear stance and a punchy conclusion. OCR rewards audience design and a sustained argument - not a list.
Using your understanding of relevant ideas and concepts, investigate how language features and contextual factors construct meanings in this text. [24 marks] (OCR H470/02, June 2024, Question 2 - Language in the media: a multimodal media text)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO2 12 + AO3 12):<br><br><strong>AO2 - concepts and theories applied:</strong> this is a discourse-analysis task, so lead with theory: language and power (Fairclough - synthetic personalisation, presupposition, agency), language and gender (representations, marked and unmarked terms), language and technology (mode affordances) - each applied to linguistic and graphological features with quotation.<br><br><strong>AO3 - contextual factors:</strong> the media context (publication, audience, era), the multimodal mode (layout, image, typography as meaning-making - Kress & van Leeuwen), and the purpose (inform vs persuade vs promote - covert purposes drive representation).<br><br><strong>Structure:</strong> opening thesis - what the text represents and through which discourse; then paragraphs by representational angle (lexis, grammar, pragmatics, graphology), theory woven into each; conclusion returning to the discourse the text connects to. 'Investigate' is OCR's command word for theory-led analysis - description without a named concept caps the AO2 half.
Analyse how language is used in Text A and Text B to present views about the apostrophe. In your answer you should: examine any similarities and differences you find between the two texts; explore how effectively the texts present their views. [40 marks] (AQA 7702/2 Section B Question 3 style)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO1 10 + AO3 15 + AO4 15):<br><br><strong>For each text:</strong> the representation of the apostrophe (as endangered property - 'save our apostrophes'; as redundant clutter), the stance, and the devices: evaluative lexis ('vandalism', 'pedantry'), high modality, anecdotes (shop sign complaints), appeals to authority (the Apostrophe Protection Society vs style guides that drop the greengrocer's apostrophe), metaphor (the apostrophe as 'casualty').<br><br><strong>AO4 comparison:</strong> the same device doing different work - both texts may use anecdote, but one uses it as evidence and one as comedy; register differences (letters-page formality vs blog informality); structure (indignant opening vs ironic opening).<br><br><strong>Effectiveness:</strong> judge the rhetoric - does the anecdote support the claim or replace it? does the authority cited actually say what is claimed? does the persona fit the audience?<br><br><strong>AO3:</strong> producers and audiences shape the register of complaint; online mode forces shorter, bolder syntax. Every attitude claim anchored to a quotation; comparative connectives throughout; explicit effectiveness judgement in the conclusion - that is the top band.
Evaluate the idea that it is an advantage to be able to switch between different varieties of language. [30 marks] (AQA 7702/2, June 2023, Question 1 - Section A diversity option)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO1 10 + AO2 20) - the diversity essay, included here because Section A and B skills overlap:<br><br><strong>AO1 evidence:</strong> named varieties and switching contexts - regional dialect and RP, occupational repertoires, code-switching between home and school varieties, style-shifting within one conversation.<br><br><strong>AO2 evaluation:</strong> <em>Support:</em> audience design, Giles' communication accommodation theory (converge for approval, diverge for identity), Gumperz's situational and metaphorical code-switching; occupational and educational mobility reward standard command. <em>Challenge:</em> standard language ideology makes switching survival rather than choice for many speakers; accent-based discrimination persists regardless of repertoire; the 'advantage' claim assumes freedom many speakers do not have. <em>Judgement:</em> switching is an advantage where the speaker controls it and a burden where the standard enforces it.<br><br><strong>Craft:</strong> define 'switching', evaluate both sides with named linguists and examples, judge explicitly - the same evaluative method the discourses questions reward.