Welcome to Language Diversity: Mastering Paper 2, Section A
Welcome to your study notes for Paper 2, Section A (Language Diversity) for the AQA AS Level English Language (7701) course. In this section of the exam, you will write a discursive academic essay exploring how and why language varies across personal, social, and regional contexts across the British Isles.
Don't worry if the idea of writing an academic essay about language seems a bit daunting at first! Once you understand the core debates, theorists, and linguistic levels, you will be able to construct well-balanced, high-scoring essays with confidence.
1. Exam Structure and Assessment Breakdown
To succeed, it helps to understand exactly what the examiner is looking for and how your time should be spent.
Exam Snapshot
• Exam Component: Paper 2: Language Varieties (Component code: 7701/2)
• Section: Section A – Language Diversity
• Total Exam Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes (70 marks total across Paper 2)
• Recommended Timing for Section A: Approximately 40 minutes
• Task Format: You choose one essay question from a choice of two options (Question 1 or Question 2).
• Total Marks for Section A: 30 marks
The Assessment Objectives (AOs)
Section A tests you on two distinct Assessment Objectives:
• AO1 (10 marks): Apply appropriate methods of language analysis, using associated linguistic terminology and coherent written expression. This means identifying specific linguistic levels (such as phonology, lexis, grammar, and pragmatics) and writing clearly and accurately.
• AO2 (20 marks): Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues relevant to language use. This means exploring theories, models, real-world examples, and evaluating different perspectives.
Note: AO5 is not assessed in Section A; it is assessed in Section B of this paper.
The Exam Prompt and Data Stimulus
Every Section A question provides you with a prompt and a short piece of language data or a text (for example, a table of survey findings, a statistical chart, or an extract illustrating language in use). Prompts typically follow this structure:
"Discuss the idea that [statement/issue]. In your answer you should discuss concepts and issues from language study. You should use your own supporting examples and the data in [Figure 1 / Text A] below."
Key Rule: You must integrate the provided data into your essay alongside your own learned linguistic case studies and theoretical knowledge. Treating the data as optional is one of the most common pitfalls!
2. Essential Foundations: Core Terminology & Debates
Before diving into specific topics, make sure you are confident with these fundamental distinctions:
• Accent vs. Dialect:
– Accent: Refers strictly to phonological variation (how words sound and are pronounced).
– Dialect: Refers to lexical (words) and grammatical (sentence structure) variation.
• Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism:
– Prescriptivism: The view that there is an absolute "correct" or "standard" form of English, and that non-standard variations represent "bad," "lazy," or "decaying" language.
– Descriptivism: The objective linguistic approach that observes, records, and analyses how language is actually used without making moral or aesthetic value judgements.
• Overt Prestige vs. Covert Prestige:
– Overt Prestige: High status acquired by using socially dominant, standard, or formal varieties of language (such as Standard English and Received Pronunciation).
– Covert Prestige: Status gained within a specific peer group or subculture by using non-standard or localized varieties, signaling group loyalty, solidarity, and identity.
3. Topic 1: Language and Gender
Gender research has evolved significantly over the last century. Rather than viewing any single model as absolute truth, your job in a discursive essay is to evaluate how these models contrast with and challenge one another.
A. The Deficit Model
This early approach viewed women's language as weak, deficient, or inferior to an unspoken male norm.
• Otto Jespersen (1922): Claimed in early writings that women's speech was emotionally driven, featured smaller vocabularies, and used simpler sentence constructions.
• Robin Lakoff (1975 – Language and Woman's Place): Identified specific features characteristic of "women's language," arguing that social conditioning makes women use language that sounds uncertain, subordinate, and unassertive. These features include:
– Hedges & Boosters: "sort of", "kind of", "really".
– Tag Questions: "It's cold, isn't it?" (seeking validation).
– Polite Forms & Hyper-correct Grammar: "Would you mind...".
– Empty Adjectives: "lovely", "charming", "sweet".
B. The Dominance Model
This model argues that differences in male and female speech reflect the imbalance of power in a patriarchal society.
• Don Zimmerman and Candace West (1975): In a recorded sample of mixed-sex conversations on a university campus, they found that men were responsible for \(96\%\) of all interruptions, arguing that men actively use interruptions to dominate conversational floor space.
• Dale Spender (1980 – Man Made Language): Argued that language itself is constructed by men to sustain patriarchal power, making it difficult for women to express their experiences outside male terms.
• Pamela Fishman (1983): Recorded conversations between heterosexual couples and found that women did the conversational "shitwork" (maintenance work)—asking questions and using tag questions to keep conversations alive because men frequently failed to respond or gave minimal responses.
C. The Difference Model
This model suggests that men and women belong to different sociolinguistic subcultures from childhood, resulting in contrasting conversational goals and styles rather than deliberate dominance.
• Deborah Tannen (1990 – You Just Don't Understand): Outlined six core contrasts between male and female communication styles:
1. Status vs. Support: Men seek conversational dominance; women seek connection.
2. Independence vs. Intimacy: Men value autonomy; women value closeness.
3. Advice vs. Understanding: Men jump to fix problems; women offer empathy.
4. Information vs. Feelings: Men focus on conveying message/data; women on emotional rapport.
5. Orders vs. Proposals: Men use direct imperatives; women use indirect suggestions.
6. Conflict vs. Compromise: Men are open to verbal conflict; women strive to prevent disputes.
• Jennifer Coates (1989): Observed all-female conversations and highlighted their collaborative, supportive nature, featuring overlapping speech as a sign of solidarity.
• Jane Pilkington (1992): Found that women in same-sex talk build rapport through positive politeness strategies, whereas men in same-sex talk frequently use banter, teasing, and mock insults.
D. The Diversity and Dynamic Social Constructivist Approach
Modern linguistics challenges broad gender stereotypes by arguing that gender is dynamic and heavily influenced by context, social roles, and individual identity.
• Deborah Cameron (2007 – The Myth of Mars and Venus): Argued that the idea that men and women speak different languages is a cultural myth. Differences between individual men and women are far greater than differences between the gender groups as a whole.
• Janet Hyde (2005 – The Gender Similarities Hypothesis): Conducted a massive meta-analysis of psychological and linguistic studies and found that males and females are overwhelmingly similar in most communicative abilities.
• Judith Butler: Introduced the concept of gender performativity, proposing that gender is not something you fundamentally are, but something you perform through repeated social and linguistic behaviors.
Gender Section Key Takeaway: Move away from treating early deficit/dominance models as absolute rules. Use modern theorists (like Cameron and Hyde) to evaluate and challenge older claims in your essays.
4. Topic 2: Language, Region, and Social Class
How do our social backgrounds, geographical roots, and social networks shape the way we speak?
A. Social Class, Phonology, and Prestige
• William Labov (1966 – New York Department Store Study): Studied the pronunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ (e.g., in "fourth floor") across three department stores representing distinct social classes (Saks = upper, Macy's = middle, S. Klein = working class). Labov found that speakers in higher-prestige stores used the post-vocalic /r/ more frequently. He also observed hypercorrection among lower middle-class speakers who overused prestige markers when paying careful attention to their speech.
• Peter Trudgill (1974 – Norwich Study): Investigated phonological and grammatical variation across social classes in Norwich:
– Variable (ng): Pronunciation of /-ŋ/ vs. non-standard /-n/ dropping (e.g., walkin' vs. walking). Working-class speakers dropped the /-ŋ/ far more frequently.
– Third-Person Singular Present Tense: Dropping the standard -s marker (e.g., "he go" instead of "he goes").
– Gender & Prestige: Men across all classes were more likely to use non-standard forms (seeking covert prestige), while women tended to use standard forms closer to prestige norms (overt prestige).
• Malcolm Petyt (1985 – Bradford Study): Explored /h/-dropping (e.g., 'at for hat) across social classes in Bradford, finding that \(93\%\) of lower working-class speakers dropped the /h/, compared to only \(12\%\) of upper middle-class speakers.
B. Social Networks and Dialect Levelling
• Leslie Milroy (1980 – Belfast Study): Investigated working-class communities in Belfast. Milroy distinguished between:
– Closed Networks: High network density and multiplexity (people live, work, and socialize together). These tightly knit networks reinforce and maintain strong non-standard dialect and accent forms.
– Open Networks: Low density and uniplex ties (individuals have separate social, geographical, and work circles), leading to more standardized language use.
• Paul Kerswill: Explored dialect levelling (the process where local regional dialect features diminish and are replaced by broader regional or national forms due to social and geographical mobility). Key focal points include:
– Milton Keynes: New towns where younger generations develop shared, leveled speech distinct from their parents' regional backgrounds.
– Multicultural London English (MLE): A dynamic sociolect and urban variety incorporating diverse linguistic influences (Caribbean, South Asian, West African) driven by youth culture and shared social space rather than ethnicity alone.
– Estuary English: A blend of London/Cockney features with Received Pronunciation spreading across the south-east of England.
C. Accent Perception and Accommodation
• Howard Giles (1970s – Matched-Guise Technique): Giles used a single speaker reading the same text in different accents to isolate listener perceptions. Findings consistently showed that standard accents (e.g., RP) scored higher for status, intelligence, and competence, while non-standard regional accents scored higher for solidarity, warmth, and trustworthiness.
• Howard Giles (Communication Accommodation Theory – CAT): Explains how individuals adjust their speech in interaction:
– Convergence: Adapting speech patterns to become more similar to the conversational partner (to reduce social distance or gain approval).
– Divergence: Emphasizing linguistic differences to establish social distance, assert distinct identity, or show group loyalty.
Region & Class Key Takeaway: Regional and class differences are not random errors—they are structured linguistic systems governed by social networks, group identity, and prestige dynamics.
5. Topic 3: Language and Occupation
Workplace language (occupational sociolect) is functional, structured, and shaped by professional goals.
• John Swales (1990 – Discourse Communities): Defined a professional discourse community by six specific characteristics: members share common public goals, have mechanisms for intercommunication, use participatory mechanisms to provide feedback, utilize one or more specific genres to communicate, possess a specialized threshold level of specialist lexis (jargon), and have an evolving ratio of novices to experts.
• Paul Drew and John Heritage (1992 – Institutional Talk): Identified distinct characteristics of workplace and institutional interactions:
1. Goal Orientation: Conversations focus on specific workplace tasks.
2. Turn-taking Rules or Restrictions: Certain settings have explicit or unspoken rules about who speaks and when (e.g., courtroom cross-examinations or doctor-patient consultations).
3. Allowable Contributions: Constraints on what topics or comments are acceptable.
4. Asymmetry: Power imbalances where one participant holds institutional authority (e.g., employer vs. employee).
• Michael Koester (2004 – Relational Talk): Emphasized that workplace communication is not solely about transactional tasks. Non-transactional, relational talk and phatic communion (small talk) are essential for building workplace solidarity, teamwork, and overall operational efficiency.
Occupation Key Takeaway: Jargon and institutional rules serve specific communicative purposes within discourse communities; they establish efficiency and identity, but can also enforce professional hierarchy and exclusion.
6. Step-by-Step: Writing the Discursive Essay
A high-scoring discursive essay is not a one-sided argument or a list of remembered facts. It is an exploration of a linguistic debate that evaluates multiple perspectives.
The Discursive Structure Formula
1. Introduction: Unpack the key terms of the prompt (e.g., define the specific diversity issue: gender, class, occupation). State the central debate clearly and briefly signpost the perspectives you will evaluate.
2. Body Paragraphs (Balanced Analysis):
– Step 1: Point & Theoretical Concept: Introduce an idea/theory addressing the prompt (e.g., dominance/difference models, covert prestige, or institutional talk).
– Step 2: Concrete Linguistic Evidence: Support your point with precise linguistic examples (e.g., specific lexical choices, phonological variables like /h/-dropping, or grammatical forms).
– Step 3: Integrate Stimulus Data: Link your point directly to the provided exam data/text (Figure 1 or Text A), interpreting what the data demonstrates.
– Step 4: Critical Evaluation / Counter-Perspective: Challenge or nuance the point (e.g., using Cameron to critique Lakoff, or pointing out methodological limitations of early studies).
3. Conclusion: Synthesise your argument without introducing new theorists. Offer a final, nuanced evaluation of the prompt statement.
7. Pitfalls to Avoid in the Exam
Examiner reports frequently highlight the following common mistakes. Make sure to keep them in mind:
• Ignoring the Stimulus Data: Do not treat the provided data table or text extract as an optional extra. Reference it explicitly and evaluate its findings in your paragraphs.
• "Theory-Dropping": Simply naming a theorist (e.g., "Tannen says men want status and women want intimacy") without explaining the linguistic mechanics or critically evaluating the study will cap your AO2 marks.
• One-Sided Arguments: Writing a purely one-sided polemic prevents you from reaching Levels 4 and 5 in AO2. Always weigh multiple viewpoints.
• Anecdote Overload: Relying on personal stories rather than formal linguistic studies, data, and precise terminology.
• Confusing Accent and Dialect: Keep pronunciation (accent/phonology) strictly distinct from words and grammar (dialect/lexis/grammar).
• Core Spelling Traps (AO1): Watch out for frequent spelling errors noted by examiners, including: accommodation (double 'c', double 'm'), interruption (double 'r'), and mixing up singular woman with plural women.
8. Quick Revision Checklist
Use this checklist to test your recall before the exam:
• Can I define prescriptivism vs. descriptivism and overt vs. covert prestige?
• Can I contrast the Deficit (Lakoff), Dominance (Zimmerman & West, Fishman), Difference (Tannen), and Diversity/Constructivist (Cameron, Hyde) models of gender?
• Can I explain the methodology and findings of Labov's department store study and Trudgill's Norwich study?
• Can I explain how Milroy's social network theory and Kerswill's dialect levelling account for regional language change?
• Can I describe Giles's Matched-Guise findings and Communication Accommodation Theory (convergence vs. divergence)?
• Can I identify the features of workplace talk according to Swales, Drew and Heritage, and Koester?
• Am I prepared to balance my wider knowledge with the specific stimulus data provided on exam day?