Basics (AQA A-Level English Language): Revision Notes
Analysing written texts
Understanding Section A
In Paper 1, Section A of your A-Level English Language exam, you will be asked to analyse various types of texts. These might be written, spoken or electronic texts, and you need to be prepared to examine any combination of these modes. The ability to analyse different text types is a crucial skill you'll need to develop through practice.
The section consists of three questions that test your analytical abilities:
- Questions 1 and 2 ask you to consider the meanings of texts within their contexts
- Question 3 requires you to explore similarities and differences between two texts
The mark allocation reflects the importance of contextual understanding. Question 3 carries 15 marks (assessed under AO3, which focuses on contexts), whilst Questions 1 and 2 together carry 10 marks (assessed under AO1, which focuses on language analysis). This distribution means you should adopt an approach that roots your analysis firmly in the texts themselves and the various contexts that have shaped them.
Key factors to consider
When analysing texts for Section A, you need to examine several interconnected factors. Understanding these elements early will help you build a comprehensive picture before diving into detailed language analysis.
Mode
Mode refers to whether texts are written, spoken or multimodal. Written texts have particular characteristics that distinguish them from spoken language. For instance, written texts often employ more formal structures and carefully crafted sentences, whilst spoken language tends to be more spontaneous and features different patterns.
Consider what the written mode offers that spoken or electronic modes might not. Written texts allow for revision and editing, creating opportunities for more complex sentence structures and sophisticated vocabulary choices.
Genre
Genre describes the type of text and how it might be categorised. Different genres have recognizable features that help readers understand their purpose and content. For example:
- Persuasive texts (such as opinion articles) typically use rhetorical devices
- Informative texts (such as guide books) present factual information clearly
- Instructional texts employ grammatical choices that guide readers
- Entertainment texts (such as comic books) use language to engage and amuse
When identifying genre, think about what conventions or patterns the text follows. A charity campaign leaflet, for instance, belongs to the persuasive genre and will likely feature emotive language and appeals to readers' values.
Audience
Audience refers to who each text is aimed at, or appears to be aimed at. These are the text receivers - the people intended to read, hear or view the content.
Text producers make deliberate language choices based on their target audience. A wildlife charity campaign might address potential donors as caring individuals interested in conservation. A property brochure might target people seeking a blend of tradition and modernity, using adjectives like traditional, sociable and contemporary to appeal to this audience.
Remember that texts can have both an ideal audience (who the text appears to address directly) and real readers who may differ from this constructed target. For example, a coffee shop board asking "Do you need coffee?" directly addresses its ideal audience of coffee drinkers with an interrogative and second person pronoun, setting up the whole structure of the text as something that follows from this question.
Purpose
Purpose identifies what each text is designed to do. Texts can serve multiple purposes simultaneously, and these purposes shape the language choices made by text producers.
Common purposes include:
- Persuading - convincing readers to adopt a particular viewpoint or take action
- Informing - providing factual information or knowledge
- Instructing or advising - guiding readers on how to do something
- Entertaining - amusing or engaging readers
A text that persuades might also inform readers along the way. Similarly, a text that advises may also seek to entertain, making its guidance more engaging.
It's essential to remember that texts can have multiple purposes just as they can have multiple audiences. They rarely just inform or instruct or entertain or persuade. For example, texts that entertain may seek to persuade readers to think in particular ways, whilst texts that advise may also inform the reader at the same time.
Time and place
The age of each text and where it originates provides important contextual information. Time and place influence language choices in significant ways.
Older texts - potentially dating back as far as 1600 in your exam - may feature vocabulary, grammar or graphology that appears unfamiliar compared to modern texts. However, considering time as a factor remains relevant even with contemporary texts. Language choices and meanings might be linked to the age of each text, and sometimes this is easier to see in older texts where the vocabulary, grammar or graphology might appear unfamiliar, but it is also worth considering with modern texts.
Understanding contexts
All texts exist within contexts. They don't appear in a vacuum. Every text has been produced by a person (or people) to fulfil a communicative need, and has been designed with an audience in mind.
Context shapes meaning in fundamental ways. When you analyse texts, you're exploring how the circumstances of production and reception affect the language choices made. Understanding context helps you see why particular words, structures or stylistic features appear in a text.
All texts have a purpose and many texts have multiple purposes. Often these texts can be grouped together because they perform similar roles. It is important to consider what a text is designed to do by the text producers because this will often dictate some of the language choices made.
Audience is also very important to consider because texts are often designed to be read by a specific person or group of people.
A connected aspect of text analysis is to consider what type of text you are analysing. One way to think about written texts is to consider the genre they belong to and how this influences the language choices made. The genre a text belongs to will often give you some useful starting points for analysis in Questions 1 and 2, but can also allow you to explore the similarities and differences between the pair of texts for Question 3.
A final concept that is important here is mode. The texts in this chapter all make use of the written mode and it is therefore helpful to consider what the written mode offers that the spoken (and, to some extent, electronic) mode might not.
Genre is often connected to what a text is designed to do (its purpose) and who it is aimed at (audience). Before you start to look in more detail at what a text is actually about, you might want to consider these aspects and think about how they can shape the meanings as well.
Text purposes and characteristic features
Texts perform various functions, and recognizing these purposes helps you understand their language choices. Most texts have multiple purposes, though one usually predominates.
Texts that persuade
Persuasive texts aim to convince readers to adopt particular views or take specific actions. Opinion articles exemplify this purpose, using rhetorical devices to build arguments.
Rhetoric / Rhetorical: Rhetoric is the study of persuasive language, an area of study dating back to ancient Greece.
Persuasive texts often employ:
- Emotive language to appeal to readers' feelings
- Rhetorical questions to engage readers directly
- Repetition for emphasis
- Evidence and examples to support claims
Worked Example: Persuasive Language in Wildlife Campaigns
A wildlife charity campaign might represent animals as "one of the cutest animals on the planet", using the superlative adjective cutest with the emotive noun animals. The texts also represent these animals as being under threat using the adverbial "endangered since 1990".
This combination of emotive language and factual time markers creates both an emotional connection and a sense of urgency.
Texts that inform
Informative texts provide knowledge or facts to readers. Guide books serve this purpose, presenting information clearly and systematically. These texts typically feature:
- Factual statements and specific details
- Clear organizational structures
- Objective tone (though not always)
- Technical or specialized vocabulary when appropriate
Texts that instruct or advise
Instructional texts guide readers through processes or offer recommendations. These texts employ grammatical choices to instruct, such as:
- Imperative verbs (commands)
- Sequential connectives (first, then, next)
- Clear, direct language
- Step-by-step structures
Texts that entertain
Entertainment texts engage readers through humour, drama or interesting narratives. Comic books exemplify this purpose, using language to create enjoyment and maintain interest.
While it is important to think about the characteristic style features when you read and analyse a text, it is equally important that you actually get to grips with the text there in front of you. Don't assume that just because a text is of a certain genre it will automatically have certain features. Look for what is in the text and what that tells you.
Analysing structure
Written texts employ various structural techniques to organize information and create meaning. Recognizing these patterns helps you understand how texts achieve their purposes.
Narrative structures
Texts that tell stories construct narratives using specific language devices. Written texts often make use of different structures. For example, part of a charity leaflet involves telling a person's story. Look at the ways in which the narrative is constructed using different language devices and techniques to sequence the events that have taken place and the times when they occurred.
Key structural devices include:
Tense choices - Texts use different tenses to create different effects. For example, present tense ("Prem works two jobs") and past tense ("his family fled violence") work together to create meanings and representations.
Adverbials - These elements establish time relationships and sequence events. Use of adverbials includes clauses ("When he was still a child..."), prepositional phrases ("in 2010"), and noun phrases ("almost 20 years").
Noun phrase: A phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its main word (called the head word).
Patterns of organization
Different text types employ characteristic organizational patterns. A brochure might move from traditional features to contemporary attractions, creating a sense of historical continuity alongside modern vitality.
Worked Example: Organizational Patterns in Property Brochures
The text might describe a place as being "Blessed with many traditional independently owned shops - from hatters and ironmongers to delicatessens and designer boutiques" - whilst also having a "sociable and exceptionally friendly café society, with contemporary bars and restaurants sitting comfortably alongside traditional pubs and cosy tea-shops".
Notice how the text creates a balance between traditional and contemporary elements, appealing to readers who value both heritage and modernity.
Working with older texts
Your exam may include texts from various time periods, potentially as far back as 1600. While the texts you analyse in the exam might be selected from any genre or mode, be aimed at any target audience, and be for any purpose, you know that one of them (Text B in the exam) will always be an older text (as far back as 1600, potentially).
When examining older texts, consider:
Vocabulary differences - In the texts you have looked at so far, you have not been asked specifically about time as a factor. How relevant might it be to each text? Which language choices and meanings might be linked to the age of each text? Sometimes this is easier to see in older texts where the vocabulary, grammar or graphology might appear unfamiliar, but it is also worth considering with modern texts.
Worked Example: Historical Language in Advertising
A 1933 car advertisement addressing "FOR THE BIG CAR MOTORIST" and describing the vehicle as "amazing moneysworth!" reflects Depression-era values and pre-war British society. The language choices would be very different from a contemporary car advertisement.
Key differences to note:
- The term "moneysworth" reflects economic concerns during the Depression
- The capitalized address creates a formal, authoritative tone
- The exclamation mark suggests enthusiasm and persuasive intent
Historical context - Consider how the time period shapes the text's language and meaning.
Social attitudes - Historical texts reflect the attitudes, beliefs and circumstances of their time. An eyewitness account of a historical event reflects the social tensions and political climate of its era.
Examining perspectives and representations
When analysing texts, particularly in Question 3 where you compare texts, you need to explore how language shapes representations and conveys perspectives.
When you analyse texts in the exam, you will need to consider:
- The different positions adopted
- The perspectives offered
- The ways in which language shapes different representations
How texts represent subjects
Consider how texts represent people, places, events or ideas through language choices. For example, a text might represent a town as having a mixture of traditional and contemporary attractions for people who live there. These adjective choices present a town with a sense of history but also an up-to-date atmosphere.
How texts construct viewpoints
A film review might express a subjective perspective through statements like "Psycho is not a long film but it feels long" or "I couldn't give away the ending if I wanted to, for the simple reason that I grew so sick and tired of the whole beastly business that I didn't stop to see it". These choices reveal the writer's perspective and position.
Multiple representations
The pictures in a wildlife charity leaflet are part of the language too (graphology) and they help represent two different images of the animals - a realistic one of the animal in the natural world and a child's soft toy version, perhaps appealing to two different audiences.
Key terminology
Generic: For general use or general reference.
Rhetoric / Rhetorical: Rhetoric is the study of persuasive language, an area of study dating back to ancient Greece.
Style: In language study, a distinctive way of speaking or writing for different contexts (akin to styles of dress in studies of fashion).
Noun phrase: A phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its main word (called the head word).
Exam tips
Start with the big picture: It is vital to get to grips early on with what each text is about and how language is being used within it to create meanings and representations. It also makes sense to start with a clear grasp of the bigger picture of each text before moving into the language details.
Root analysis in texts: As there are 15 marks for AO3 and 10 for AO1, it makes sense to take an AO3-led approach to text in Section A. This means that you should root your analysis in the texts in front of you and the various contexts that have contributed to them.
Don't make assumptions: While it is important to think about the characteristic style features when you read and analyse a text, it is equally important that you actually get to grips with the text there in front of you. Don't assume that just because a text is of a certain genre it will automatically have certain features. Look for what is in the text and what that tells you.
Consider multiple purposes and audiences: It is important to remember that texts can have multiple purposes just as they can have multiple audiences; they rarely just inform or instruct or entertain or persuade. Texts that entertain may seek to persuade readers to think in particular ways. Texts that advise may also inform the reader at the same time. In addition, a text may appear to be addressed towards a sense of a constructed ideal reader, but real readers will often be very different from that. Discussions of audience should cover both, where possible.
Practice with varied texts: One of the best ways to ensure you are ready for different texts in the exam is to read a range of different genres and practise analysing them. Go through the different text types and genres and find examples to use for practice.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
- Section A requires you to analyse written, spoken or electronic texts, considering mode, genre, audience, purpose and time/place
- Questions 1 and 2 focus on meanings in context (10 marks), whilst Question 3 compares texts (15 marks)
- All texts exist within contexts that shape their language choices and meanings
- Texts often serve multiple purposes simultaneously - persuading, informing, instructing or entertaining
- Structural analysis examines how texts organize information through tenses, adverbials and noun phrases
- Both older and modern texts deserve consideration of how time influences language
- Effective analysis explores positions, perspectives and representations created through specific language choices