Students study how to categorise, create, develop and investigate language from the past to the present day. A mix of coursework and exams help develop students' skills as producers and interpreters of language. This specification develops students':

interest in english

ability to express themselves in speech and writing

understanding of linguistic concepts and methods

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it encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning and gives them a strong grounding in the academic principles related to working with data. This specification provides students with a natural progression from gcse study of english language. We recommend that candidates have the skills and knowledge associated with a gcse english course or equivalent. As examinations as award 1706 this is an extract of the full specification, which you can download from this page.

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The aim of this coursework unit is to develop candidates' ability to explore and analyse language data through a variety of methods. It should enable candidates to build upon the key concepts and ideas gained during the course of their studies, as well as to demonstrate expertise in areas of individual interest. The coursework folder will comprise two individual pieces of writing: a language investigation a media text. Candidates should choose their own areas for study in consultation with their teacher s. The parameters for the topic area and data collection should be accessible and manageable within the time and word constraints.

Candidates may choose to pursue an area of study that has arisen from topics covered during their as/a level course: for example, studies of gender and representation studies of the power of media texts investigations of the language of new communication technologies the language of children at play historical changes in english over time. However, candidates are not obliged to restrict themselves to those areas that have been formally taught, as the basis of the investigation is the value of student led enquiry supported by open learning. Therefore, any area seen by supervising teachers as yielding interesting questions about language in use may be chosen. Centres are advised to always consult their coursework advisers if they are unsure about any topic. In preparation for this unit candidates need to study how to: establish an appropriate context for language investigation use a variety of data collection methods transcribe spoken data where appropriate make sense of data using relevant linguistic methods and techniques evaluate and draw conclusions on the findings of the investigation present findings in an appropriate and accessible manner reference reading materials correctly. Teachers should advise candidates that their study should contain the following sections, clearly labelled and indexed: discussion of the reasons for choosing the focus of the study a hypothesis or research question where appropriate aim or aims.

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An account of the methodology chosen for data selection problems if any encountered during the collection process. This web page is intended for students who are following gce advanced level as and a2 syllabuses in english language. This resource may be of general interest to language students, but in places i may refer explicitly to requirements of the syllabuses or mode of examination.

what is the language investigation?

the language investigation is a compulsory element of some advanced and advanced supplementary level courses. Candidates may have a choice whether to do this in a final exam paper or as a folder of coursework.

The language investigation is an effective method of linking theoretical understanding to language sources or data. For this reason, you may be expected to carry out several formal investigations and other short investigations as part of the advanced or advanced supplementary level course. The work that you eventually submit to the examiners will be your best completed work, and you should receive appropriate support from your teachers, as far as the exam regulations permit, in preparing it. The exam syllabus should contain guidelines about the investigation and instructions about the task, along with examples of suitable areas for investigation, followed by criteria for assessment, with mark ranges. Although your exam board may not explicitly state this, you should work, as far as possible, with regard to academic conventions of presentation, using references and quoting authorities. Your work may be hand written, but you are strongly encouraged to word process if this is possible. Ideally, your work should be in a times roman font, 12 point, justified or left aligned, with double line spacing.

As you should now know, any text may be studied in terms among other things of phonology, lexis, grammar, semantics, pragmatics and discourse aqa syllabus. Your theoretical method will usually fall under one only of these or other broad headings. To show this, your investigation should have a title that includes both elements, the theoretical method usually coming first, e.g. Operation of the metaphor in political speech writing or lexical change in girls' comics 1970 to 1998.

Titles should be simply indicative of content don't go for snappy, cryptic or clever titles unless you have good reason to think your teachers and other assessors will approve of this. While your teacher should introduce you to essential areas of theoretical knowledge, you should work independently, using your course textbooks and other authorities to gain a more thorough understanding of language theory in doing this work. For example, comparing a text in the king james bible early 17th century with the equivalent passage in the revised standard version mid 20th century is an appropriate and much used exercise in showing language change. Though even here, other variables emerge as the translators bring in ideas from their own time, culture or religious understanding. By contrast, comparing reports on the same event in a tabloid and in a broadsheet newspaper is of little value to a student of language. Why?

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Third, we lack essential information pragmatics and context did each writer work to a word count? how far did each writer's work get sub edited? how much time did each have? was the report done on the spot or worked up from an agency report? and so on. But more to the point, what area of language study were we investigating anyway? popular notions of 147 quality 148 in the broadsheet, insofar as they make sense at all, are value judgements about the truth or balance or thoroughness or whatever of the reporting that is the informative content of the report which is not your subject at all whereas it may be the subject of an investigation in media studies or sociology.

to find, in such texts, significant differences in objective language use e.g. Statistical analysis of clause structures is likely to be too taxing for even the most gifted of students. The notion of 147 quality 148 as in 147 the quality press 148 is strictly meaningless as a description of measurable language features. Rather than think of a task and then try to justify it, you should work the other way round.

Changes in the lexicon in a given time period or usage which shows attitudes to gender . I can then devise an investigation that uses appropriate data to give objective evidence that may in turn allow some broad interpretation and conclusion e.g. Frequency of usage of gender neutral pronouns may reflect greater awareness that the pronoun should be inclusive, or, weakly, that the writer is aware that a masculine form for both sexes or either may give offence. Although conclusions may include some subjective or relative comment, this should be plausible that is, inferred from objective data. For example, you should not attempt to measure the frequency in a text of 147 hard 148 or 147 long 148 words as these descriptions have no objective value. You may, on the other hand, analyse a text against a given language corpus to find, say, the incidence of occurrence of words among the 1,0 or 3,0 or whatever most commonly written or spoken lexemes according to a given corpus.

For more help on this subject, see professor david crystal's cambridge encyclopedia of the english language. This is not yet compulsory for all uk exam boards, but you will have to use computer software at university and in your job. It may be helpful to write an abstract outline or synopsis of your investigation as your first paragraph. Conventionally this is marked off from what follows by smaller type size and/or indentation. If you quote an authority ideally you will you should use superscript numbers 147 ctrl 148 + shift 147 + 148 to show this, and give the full reference 1 at the end: 1. To show texts studied directly, and those academic works, probably used to inform your explication of the texts studied.