AQA Mock Exam Response

 

       1)    Text A is an online forum about the topic of ‘proms’ and the issues surrounding it. The website, ‘mumsnet’ is a place for discussion and offering advice. This can be supported by the ‘mumsnet’ logo being shown at the top of the page. Furthermore, it is clear that the purpose is to converse because there are adjacency pairs throughout. An example of this is woollyideas’ comment ‘Yes Kayano’ in response to a comment made five minutes before. It can be said that this shows interaction between the users of the site. The audience of the forum would most likely be mums of teenagers aged 16-18. This is because at this stage, parents would be in the process of buying prom gear for their children and so will be seeking advice.

Colloquial language is used in Text A. Examples of this are ‘back in the day’, ‘naff’ and ‘max’. This lexis is used because of the informal register of the forum and the fact that there is no need to be speaking with correct grammar. It could also be said that the forum consists of a hybrid of written and spoken language. The adjacency pairs, for one, but also the non-standard English such as ‘Yep’ used in many peoples comments.

A grammatical feature such as a subordinating conjunction is used by muckycarpet. For example, ‘Although the helicopter is way too OTT!’ following ‘Don’t be a grump!’ The use of the conjunction ‘Although’ shows that the commenter sees both perspectives to the issue and shows support towards woollyideas.

Graphological features such as the ‘confused’ emoji in woollyideas’ last comment is a feature of online usage. It uses computer aided communication to express emotions and feelings (without the use of lexis.) This is relevant to the form of the forum because modern advances in technology allows us to use different features online. This could lead us to suggest that woollyideas is more up-to-date with the technology we are familiar with today.

To summarise, Text A is an online forum with an informal register such as ‘Am I being unreasonable?’ followed by interaction between people. It can also be said that, because of the frequent use of interrogatives, the purpose is to seek guidance and advice.

  

      2)        Text B is an online newspaper article by ‘The Mirror’. This is shown by the recognisable logo at the top of the page indicating that the article is reliable and trustworthy. The purpose of the article is to inform. The frequent use of technical lexis as well as facts and figures supports the fact that this article aims to educate people of the issues surrounding prom. The audience of the article would be parents and carers of teenagers aged 16-18. This is because it very much revolves around the subject of money. Stereotypically, the parents would be the people paying for prom outfits, and so this article would interest them. Despite this, the article may also be aimed at teenage boys because it involves them, therefore they may be interested.

Proper nouns are used throughout Text B. For example, ‘formal shirts, shoes and bow ties’ as well as ‘tuxedos’ are nouns used to describe the extent to which boys are buying things for prom. This is also an example of field specific lexis. This is used to create a definite subject are of the article, and so readers know what type of items boys are buying.

Complex syntax is used throughout text B. Longer sentences such as ‘We have seen an increase in occasion wear sales since January whereas guys have been rushing in last minute to get ready for the big night.’ This is used to fulfil the form and formal register of the newspaper article.

The statement that boys are ‘looking to celebrities such as David Beckham and Daniel Craig for their inspiration’ uses proper nouns. Pragmatically, this syntax connotes the fact that it is not just females who face the pressures of society. Males also try to gain unrealistic outcomes and have the expectations of looking like movie stars. This is further supported by the image of Daniel Craig at the top of the article. The article signifies the fact that boys are aspiring to be the people on TV, which is not realistic at all. Furthermore the noun ‘Boys’ used in the headline has negative connotations. Usually, when we say ‘boy’ we immediately think of a childish male who has not yet matured (as opposed to a ‘man’.) This really highlights the fact that males who are buying prom outfits will never reach their goals of looking like their role model because they are still children.

 

      1)       Text A, an online forum on the website ‘Mumsnet’ uses colloquial language throughout when people are conversing with each other. These are features of every day conversation which are used because of the informal register of the forum. Dissimilarly, Text B is a newspaper article with a much more formal register than Text A. It uses technical lexis such as ‘spending on average £385. It is clear that these two texts are different in their register and mode.

Text A uses interrogatives throughout. For example, ‘who are these parents who think this sort of expenditure on a night out for a teenager is okay?’ This phrase could suggest that woollyideas is criticising the actions of parents who do spend money on their children. In context, it could also suggest that woollyideas is happy to criticise because this is on the internet. Therefore, people do not know of her identity and so she can say what she likes.

In contrast, Text B does not use any interrogatives, but declaratives instead. For example, the way role models ‘are smartening up male school leavers’. The auxiliary ‘are’ is stating that this is definitely happening. This, as well as the technical terms used is relevant to the purpose of informing, whereas Text A is to discuss.

Throughout the article of Text B, technical lexis such as facts and figures are used to exaggerate the issue of boys and proms. This could link to the Grice’s Maxim of Quality, because the lexis is as informative as it can be. In contrast to Text A, it lacks in technical lexis because of the purpose and informal register of ‘Mumsnet’.


Question Paper: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77011-SQP.PDF
Data Booklet: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77011-SDB.PDF
 

 

Word Classes

Word class	Sub-class	Description	Example
Nouns	Proper	Refer to names of people or places	James, England
	Abstract	Refer to states, feelings and concepts that do not have a physical existence	love, anger
	Concrete	Refer to objects that have a physical existence	countable (can be pluralised, e.g., cup)
			non-countable (do not take a plural form, e.g., furniture)
Verbs	Material	Show actions or events	hit, jump, wash, build
	Relational	Identify properties or show states of being	be, appear, seem, become
	Mental	Show internal processes such as thinking	think, believe, wish
	Verbal	Show external processes of communicating through speech	say, shout, scream, whisper
Adjectives and adverbs	Base	The basic form of an adjective or adverb, modifying another word	big, interesting, carefully
	Comparative	A form used to compare two instances either adding ‘-er’ or using ‘more’	The parcel was bigger. That was a more interesting game. He read more carefully.
	Superlative	A form used to compare more than two instances, identifying a best example	That was the biggest parcel. The most interesting game. It was the most carefully he had ever read.
Pronouns	Personal	Refer to people and are differentiated in terms of person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular or plural) and gender (male or female)	I (first person singular), you (second person singular/plural), she (third person, singular, feminine), they (third person, plural)
	Demonstrative	Orientate the reader or listener towards a person, object, or idea either nearby or further away	this, these, that, those
	Indefinite	Refer to a person, object or idea that is non-specific	someone, anybody, everything
Determiners	Articles	Show that something is definite or indefinite	the (definite), a/an (indefinite)
	Possessives	Show ownership	my, your, her, our
	Quantifiers	Show either specific or non-specific quantities of a noun	one, two (specific), some, any, a few (non-specific)
Conjunctions	Co-ordinating	Link words or larger structures such as phrases and clauses together where they are equal	and, but, or, yet
	Sub-ordinating	Link clauses together to show one is dependent on another	because, although, while, for

Remember:

• When making comments make sure you support it by paying close attention to language features
• Make sure you relate to the context of the article - make comments on the significance to the text as a whole

Foo Fighters Review

*Contains offensive language*

Recently, I travelled to Milton Keynes to see on of my favourite bands live. The Foo Fighters, along with Royal Blood and Iggy Pop were absolutely amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. One thing I did notice was how the language they used really got the crowd going. 

The frequent use of the words 'fucker', 'fucking' and just 'fuck' in general by all bands seemed to encourage the audience to shout and sing louder. Maybe it was the fact that the taboo that we put on words like these make it seem so much more rebellious and crazy when they are spoken. All bands used swear words quite a lot, despite the fact that they knew kids were watching. But, this behaviour is what we expect from these kind of rock bands, and in some way it's what we love about them.

Overall, I really did enjoy this experience of seeing 3 amazing artists all in one night, despite the fact that Dave Grohl was stuck on his 'throne' all night, he did manage to pull off a sensational performance in which I would love to experience again.

Word of Mouth - The Top 20 Words in English by Michael Rosen

This radio show by Michael Rosen revolves around the most common words used in the English language today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06z2pmp

Joined by Dr Laura Wright, linguist at Cambridge University, they speak about the issue. From the conversation, it is gathered that the most common words used are: the, be, to, of, and, with, I, you and have. It is clear that there are no nouns included, and few verbs. 

They are later joined by Jonathan Culpeper from the University of Lancaster. It is apparent that we don't even realise that we say the most commonly used words, because it is programmed in our brains so much that we don't have to think about it any more. Another important point discussed is that the inbuilt sexism of language is shown with the word counts of lexis in English. 'He' is the 16th most commonly used, 'His' is 23rd and 'She' is only 30th in the list. This underlines the fact that sexism is even present in the language we use. 

Another point discussed is that we have grammatical words and content words in our language. Grammatical words are the small and useful words which act as a glue to how we form sentences. Whereas content words are the ones which have meanings. They talk about the fact that 'Google' won't even pay attention to the grammatical words, just the content words.

Jonathan speaks about the word frequency units that he counted for pop songs. The most popular grammatical words were 'I', 'me' and 'my' whereas the content words were 'love', 'make', 'baby', 'alone', 'rain' and 'sad'. This implies that artists are very ego-centric and also speak a lot about romance. 

One of the final topics they talk about is how technology allows us to make words frequency lists (like the lists above.) The ever growing world that we live in is developing and so this means that we can make statistical comparisons between the language used for different purposes. This means that we can track social attitudes, much like a lot of companies do nowadays. 

Word of Mouth - Slang by Michael Rosen

This radio show by Michael Rosen revolves around the use of slang from the past to the present day. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06wd268

He is joined by Dr Laura Wright, a linguist at the University of Cambridge to talk about this type of language. Some important points discussed included the fact that 'everyone uses slang to an extent' even though we may not realise it. It is language that has been around for generations and so greatly impacts how we speak. Michael even said that 'great' used to be a slang word in the 1960's when he was 14. His parents avoided saying it, by using 'super' instead.

They were later joined by Jonathon Green, a lexicographer of slang who wrote a short introduction on the issue. He explains some of his theories starting with the theory of 'slang' is a counter language, reversing the standard English that we use in every day life. He explains that a lot of people associate slang with 'bad' people, however slang originates from the 'correct English' and is misunderstood. 

Michael, Laura and Jonathon discuss the opinion that white working class men generated the English Language. However, many different classes, genders and ethnicities are influencing the language we use today. The overall agenda from the radio talk is that creating and using slang is a very innovative and clever way of speaking, and has no relation to the intelligence of the person. Slang is not something that only certain people use, everyone contributes to the ever changing development of our language.

Mind Your Language

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language

This page on the guardian is all about language use. It includes articles styled by The Guardian editors all about 'language usage and abusage.'

Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English Language

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/27/eight-words-sexism-heart-english-language

This article written by David Shariatmada states the opinion that the English language is sexist. Over the years, certain words have completely changed their meanings because of attitudes towards women and how they are seen in the society we live in. 

The Oxford dictionary is also discussed and how even the publisher is criticised for being sexist bias. In the book, its purpose is to show how words are used in the real world, and one certain example has caused an issue. 'Nagging' is followed by 'wife', being a word that relates to it in every day life. The OUP (Oxford University Press) stated that this was not an intentionally sexist action, but said 'The example sentences we use are taken from a huge variety of different sources and do not represent the views or opinions of Oxford University Press.'

From the 8 words that have completely changed meaning since when they were first used, here are some examples: 

• 'Madam' used to be the female version of 'sir' but now means 'a conceited or precocious girl or young woman; a hussy, a minx.'
• 'Wench' used to mean a young girl or unmarried woman, but now means 'a wanton woman; a mistress.'
• 'Tart' used to mean 'sweetheart' in the 19th century, whereas now it means 'a female or immoral character; a prostitute.'