Welcome to Language Discourses: Analysing Attitudes to Language
Welcome to one of the most exciting and dynamic areas of your AQA A-Level English Language course! In Paper 2, Section B, you get to explore how everyday people, journalists, and public commentators talk, argue, and complain about language. Whether it is an angry column about teenage slang, a heated debate on regional accents, or a blog celebrating the evolution of digital text speak, public texts are full of vibrant opinions about English.
Don't worry if analysing opinions about language feels a bit different from analysing traditional literary texts or spoken transcripts. Once you understand the underlying discourses and metaphors people use, spotting the patterns and writing top-band comparative essays becomes an organised, step-by-step process.
Exam Snapshot: Where Does This Fit?
• Exam Component: Paper 2: Language Diversity and Change (Code: 7702/2).
• Paper Total: 2 hours 30 minutes, 100 marks total (40% of your total A-Level).
• Section B Weighting: 70 marks out of the 100 total marks on Paper 2.
• Question 3 (Comparative Text Analysis): 40 marks (assessing AO1, AO3, AO4).
• Question 4 (Directed Writing / Opinion Article): 30 marks (assessing AO2, AO5).
• Recommended Timing for Section B: Spend approximately 15 minutes reading and annotating the texts, 45 minutes writing Question 3, and 45 minutes writing Question 4 (saving the remaining 45 minutes for Section A).
Key Takeaway: Section B carries the vast majority of marks on Paper 2 (70%). Mastering how to unpack language attitudes in Question 3 is the foundation for your success across the entire exam paper.
---What is a "Language Discourse"?
A discourse is a socially constructed framework of ideas, beliefs, values, and metaphors that people use to make sense of the world. A language discourse specifically refers to how society frames, judges, and talks about language itself.
When someone writes an article claiming that text messaging is "destroying proper English", they are not just sharing a personal preference. They are drawing upon centuries-old cultural discourses about standards, purity, social class, and intellectual decline. Your job in Question 3 is not to decide who is "right" or "wrong", but to analyse how language is used to construct and present these attitudes.
The Two Fundamental Ideological Stances
Almost all language debates sit on a spectrum between two primary approaches:
1. Prescriptivism:
• The Core View: Believes that language has an absolute, fixed, and "correct" standard (usually Standard English and Received Pronunciation).
• The Mindset: Non-standard forms, new slang, or grammatical variations are viewed as "errors", "illiterate", "lazy", or a "corruption" of the language.
• Everyday Analogy: A prescriptivist acts like a strict traffic warden checking parking rules. If you do not follow the written code down to the millimeter, you get a ticket!
2. Descriptivism:
• The Core View: Observes, records, and analyses how language is actually used across diverse social contexts without passing moral judgements.
• The Mindset: Language variation and change are seen as completely natural, systematic, functional, and inevitable adaptations to human communication needs.
• Everyday Analogy: A descriptivist acts like a botanist in a forest. They do not get angry at a new plant for growing; they simply classify it, observe its function, and marvel at its adaptation.
Key Takeaway: When reading any text in Section B, immediately ask yourself: Is the writer adopting a prescriptivist posture (policing rules) or a descriptivist stance (observing and validating change)?
---Public Discourse Metaphors: Jean Aitchison’s Frameworks
Linguist Jean Aitchison identified recurring public tropes and metaphors that non-specialists frequently use when expressing anxiety about language change. Spotting these metaphors gives you powerful analytical leverage in Question 3:
1. The "Damp Spoon" Syndrome (Discourse of Laziness)
• The Idea: Language changes because people are sloppy, careless, or intellectually lazy (just like leaving a damp spoon in a sugar bowl).
• How it Appears in Texts: Writers complaining about glottal stops, dropped consonants, shortened words in text messages, or informal contractions as signs of "sluggishness" or "sloth".
2. The "Crumbling Castle" View (Discourse of Vulnerability and Preservation)
• The Idea: The English language is viewed as a pristine, magnificent stately monument that reached its peak perfection in the past and is now decaying or crumbling under attack.
• How it Appears in Texts: Writers arguing that English must be "defended", "guarded", or "restored" to its historical purity before it falls apart.
3. The "Infectious Disease" Assumption (Discourse of Decay and Contagion)
• The Idea: Language change is framed as a sickness or pathogen that people "catch" from bad influences and blindly pass on to others.
• How it Appears in Texts: Writers warning that Americanisms, youth slang, or social media jargon are "infecting" classrooms, "poisoning" minds, or "spreading like a virus".
4. The Discourse of Invasion and Conflict
• The Idea: External language varieties (foreign loanwords, regional dialects, or corporate buzzwords) are treated as hostile foreign invaders conquering traditional English.
• How it Appears in Texts: Military lexis such as "assault", "infiltrate", "battleground", or "eroding our native tongue".
5. The Discourse of Ecology, Evolution, and Enrichment
• The Idea: Language is a living, breathing ecosystem that constantly evolves, cross-pollinates, and adapts to serve new human environments.
• How it Appears in Texts: Celebratory lexis focused on "vitality", "creativity", "richness", "organic growth", and "democratic expression".
Key Takeaway: Writers rarely just state their opinion; they construct vivid metaphors (disease, decay, war, or nature) to emotionally persuade their readers.
---Linguistic Toolkits: How Texts Position Their Readers
In Question 3, you must use methods of language analysis (AO1) to unpack how texts construct authority and shape reader responses (AO3). Look out for these key linguistic strategies:
1. Synthetic Personalisation and Audience Positioning
Writers in mainstream media often try to make a mass audience feel addressed individually. Look for:
• Direct Address: Second-person pronouns ("you", "your") that pull the reader into a direct conversation.
• Inclusive First-Person Plural: Pronouns like "we", "our", and "us" (e.g., "Our beautiful language is under threat"). This creates an artificial sense of shared community values and presupposes that the reader agrees with the writer's stance.
• Shared Cultural Assumptions: Rhetorical questions that assume a shared reaction (e.g., "Isn't it unbearable when someone uses 'literally' incorrectly?").
2. Construction of Authority and Self-Representation (Ethos)
How does the writer establish their right to comment on language?
• The Academic / Linguistic Expert: Uses formal register, empirical observations, descriptive terminology, and objective modality.
• The Cultural Guardian / Traditionalist: Uses elevated, formal lexis, authoritative declarations, and evaluative adjectives ("uncouth", "barbaric", "pure") to present themselves as a defender of high standards.
• The Humorous Everyman / Relatable Layperson: Uses self-deprecating humor, colloquialisms, idioms, and hyperbole ("My brain exploded when I saw that spelling") to make their complaints seem lighthearted and universally relatable.
3. Evaluative Lexis and Semantic Fields
Pay close attention to lexical choices that carry heavy connotations:
• Negative evaluative modifiers: "sloppy", "lazy", "ignorant", "mutilated".
• Positive evaluative modifiers: "vibrant", "expressive", "dynamic", "innovative".
• Rhetorical devices: Hyperbole, sarcasm, irony, tripling (rule of three), and contrasting sentence structures (antithesis).
Quick Review Box:
• AO1 Target: Identify specific word classes, sentence forms, pronouns, and rhetorical patterns.
• AO3 Target: Connect these linguistic choices to genre, audience, purpose, and ideological discourses.
Mastering Question 3: Comparative Analysis (40 Marks)
Question 3 presents you with two non-fiction texts (e.g., broadsheet columns, online blog posts, tabloid editorials, or magazine features) that offer contrasting or differing viewpoints on a language topic.
The Assessment Breakdown for Question 3
• AO1 (10 marks): Systematic application of linguistic methods and accurate terminology (lexis, grammar, register, discourse structure).
• AO3 (15 marks): Exploration of contextual factors, genre, audience, purpose, and the construction of language attitudes.
• AO4 (15 marks): Comparison and connection between the two texts (identifying similarities and differences in how ideas are framed).
CRITICAL EXAM WARNING (No AO2 in Question 3):
There are zero marks for AO2 in Question 3. Do NOT bolt on academic theorists, linguists' names (like Labov, Trudgill, or Cameron), or academic case studies in Q3. Question 3 is strictly an analysis of how the two provided texts use language to present their views.
Step-by-Step Approach for Question 3
Step 1: Unpack Context and Stance (Reading Phase - 15 mins)
Before writing, quickly establish the GAP (Genre, Audience, Purpose) for both texts:
• What are their publication formats (e.g., broadsheet column vs. popular online blog)?
• What is each writer's core stance (prescriptivist, descriptivist, mixed, satirical)?
• What central metaphors or discourses are they exploiting?
Step 2: Plan Around Comparative Discourse Points (Writing Phase - 45 mins)
Organise your essay thematically rather than writing a block on Text A and then a block on Text B. Compare them side-by-side on 3 to 4 points of discourse:
• Theme 1: How both texts construct their authority and persona (self-representation).
• Theme 2: How both texts position and engage their target audience (pronouns, synthetic personalisation, tone).
• Theme 3: How both texts use metaphor and evaluative lexis to frame the specific language issue (e.g., decay vs. evolution).
• Theme 4: How the genres and registers shape the persuasive effectiveness of each text.
Step 3: Write Analytical, Comparative Paragraphs
Use connecting phrases to weave the texts together continuously throughout every paragraph (e.g., "While Text A adopts a formal, prescriptivist tone through elevated lexis... Text B subverts this by employing colloquial idioms to construct a descriptivist defence of...").
Key Takeaway: Ensure equal weighting between Text A and Text B. Spending 80% of your time on Text A and rushing Text B will severely penalise your AO4 comparative marks.
---Looking Ahead: Connecting to Question 4 (30 Marks)
Once you finish analysing the texts in Question 3, you move directly to Question 4: the Directed Writing task.
What is Question 4 Asking You to Do?
• You are asked to write an engaging piece of media text (usually an opinion article, column, or blog) for a specified non-specialist audience (e.g., readers of a national newspaper or magazine).
• Your article must engage with the language debate raised in Texts A and B.
• AO2 (20 marks): Here is where your academic linguistic knowledge, theories, and concepts belong! You must demonstrate clear understanding of linguistic research and ideas about diversity/change.
• AO5 (10 marks): You must showcase exceptional writing skill, sustaining an authentic journalistic voice, catchy title, opening hook, and well-structured argument suited to a non-specialist reader.
Remember the Golden Rule of Section B:
• In Question 3: Analyse the given texts' language; leave out academic theorists.
• In Question 4: Bring in your linguistic knowledge (AO2) and communicate it accessibly in your own creative voice (AO5).
Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Section B
1. Feature-Spotting Without Discourse Links:
Never just write: "The writer uses an abstract noun and a rhetorical question." Always link the linguistic feature to the attitude being created: "The writer uses the abstract noun 'corruption' to invoke a prescriptivist discourse of moral decay, positioning non-standard dialect as a social hazard."
2. Treating Subjective Opinion Pieces as Objective Fact:
Remember that the texts in Section B are rarely neutral or objective. They are often provocative, polemical, biased, or tongue-in-cheek. Treat them as rhetorical constructions, not undisputed scientific truth.
3. Losing the Non-Specialist Tone in Question 4:
Do not write Question 4 as a dry, academic university essay. A broadsheet or magazine reader wants an entertaining, witty, and persuasive piece that explains complex linguistic ideas in clear, relatable terms.
4. Neglecting Text B in Question 3:
Aim for a balanced 50/50 split in your comparative analysis. A detailed analysis of Text A followed by a brief paragraph on Text B will prevent you from reaching the top mark bands for AO4.
Section Summary & Revision Checklist
Before moving on, make sure you can confidently check off these core skills:
• I can clearly distinguish between prescriptivist and descriptivist attitudes toward language.
• I can identify and analyse Jean Aitchison's public discourse metaphors (Damp Spoon, Crumbling Castle, Infectious Disease) as well as discourses of invasion and evolution.
• I know how to analyse audience positioning, synthetic personalisation, and the construction of authority using accurate AO1 linguistic terminology.
• I understand that AO2 (theories and linguists) is NOT assessed in Question 3, but is worth 20 marks in Question 4.
• I know how to structure a balanced, comparative essay (AO4) that evaluates the effectiveness of two opinion pieces side-by-side.