English Language: Paper One

English Language: Paper One

1. Language Levels

   • Grammar
     • Pronouns
     • Sentence types
     • Formality- standard or non-standard grammar
     • Word classes (verbs, nouns, modal auxillairies (can is a modal aux. of ability)
     • Sentence structure- clauses, phrases
     • Active or passive voice
   • Lexis
     • Formality of text, have e.g.s
     • Taboo and euphemisms
     • Connotations
     • Restricted or non-restricted lexis
     • Semantic fields/ field specific
   • Graphology
     • Colour schemes and font choices- are they linked to the audience, or pragmatics of gender associations?
     • Image-text cohesion, images and logos
     • Layout- toolbars, sidebars - what is the level of formality? Does it appeal to the audience and subject of the text?
     • Interactive features, font size and style
   • Discourse Structure
     • Order of ideas/layout of text
     • Discourse markers (well, I mean, so, right, okay)
     • Formulaic features: idioms (figurative phrase-kicked the bucket), expletives (swearing), proverbs (phrases with meaning 'catch more flies with honey than vinegar) and pause fillers (like, um, er)
     • Topic loops, shifts
     • Adjacency pairs
     • Politeness markers (e.g. sir, would you mind if I go now?) to avoid FTAs, use tag qs and qs and titles
   • Phonology (mostly spoken discourse)
     • Sound devices- Alliteration, rhyme, assonance, onomatopoeia
     • Prosodic features- Volume, pitch (intonation patterns, e.g. German accent), stress
     • Paralinguistic features (Body language, gestures, facial expressions, tone and pitch of voice- e.g scream)
     • Fillers, pauses, caps to indicate increased volume
   • Pragmatics
     • Face to the reader or other people
     • Politeness
     • Assumed knowledge/inference
     • Irony
     • What meaning and representation does it convey? (e.g. meaning a product is aimed only at men, representing men as appealing to blue and black colours)

2. Terminology/ Starter sentences

   • Connotations (underlying idea or feeling, e.g. unhappy connotation)
   • Colloquial: slang
   • ...is splt into short paragraphs, where, necessary so that the audience can skim read the text easily, which is often the nature of online reading

3. Annotating

   • Mode- is it spoken, written or electronic mode
   • Genre (e.g. webpage) Audience (e.g. swimmers) Subject (e.g. desserts) Purpose (e.g. to entertain)
   • The contexts of production and reception are (say the view of the author and whether they use emoticons, punctuation or creative spelling)
   • Find the most important language levels e.g. graphology (image-text cohesion), pragmatics (gender associations- colour and images, picture and product)
   • Find key examples for the chosen lang. levels

4. Use the word represent or representations earlier in the essay

   • Also try to find the representation of the people using their background and mention stereotypes