AS: AQA English Language B

• Planned or Unplanned?

• Formal or Informal?

• Lexis and Content?

• Ideolect, Sociolect, Dialect

• Graphology

• GAP (Genre, Audience, Purpose)

• Pragmatics

• Grammar

- Does the text belong to the Spoken or Written mode?

Writing is:................................................Speech:

• Objective (Intended) .......................Interpersonal (relations between people)
• A monologue (single speaker).........A dialogue (between 2+ people)
• Durable...........................................Ephemeral (lasting a short time)
• Planned..........................................Spontaneous
• Highly Structured............................Loosely Structured
• Grammatically Complex..................Grammatically Simple
• Concerned with past and future.....Concerned with the Present
• Formal............................................Informal
• Decontextualised............................Contextualised

-  Speech-Writing Continuum

Speech------TextE------------------------------------------TextD----------TextC--Writing

Mode: the medium of communication e.g. speech or writing

Sub-mode: a subdivision of mode e.g. poetry, drama & conversation

Prototype: a 'best fit' example of a particular catagory e.g. text C is a prototypical piece of writing.

Genre: the catagory or type of a text e.g. comedy, tragedy and horror. Sonnet, short story, play, email, text message.

Actual Reader: Any reader who engages in the text.

Implied Reader: the kind of reader a text producer has in mind when writing.

Context: temporal and spatial situations in which a text is produced or recieved.

Context of Reception: situations in which a text might be read and how this might affect interpretation.

GAP:

• Genre (what)
• Audience (who)
• Purpose (why) - multi-purpose (more than one), dual purpose (two), primary (main reason for text) and secondary purpose (more subtle reason).

Individuals and Groups

• Idiolect - an individuals style of speaking or 'linguistic fingerprint'.
• Sociolect - a defined use of language as a result of membership of a social group.
• Discourse Community - a group with shared values and approaches to reading. The language is used in distinctive ways.

Formality and Register

• Register - a variety of language appropriate to a particular purpose and context. Informal/formal register connected to context and purpose. - a link to authority & power?
• Dependent on the field, the tenor, and the medium.
• Field - the general purpose of an act of communication
• Tenor - the relationship between the producer and reciever
• Medium - e.g. written or spoken. Same as mode.

Dialect

• Dialect - the language variety of a geographical region or social background, revealed by a variation in lexical & grammatical terms.
• Accent - the way words are pronounced according to geographical region.
• Standard English - Dialect of English that carries a degree of prestige. Formal and universal. Stereotyping people who don't use SE.

Specialist Registers

• A set of lexical terms and grammatical constructions particular to an institution or occupational group. Could exclude those who are not members of the same discourse community.

Colloquial Language and Slang

• Colloquialism - an established set of informal terms used in everyday language.
• Slang - colloquial language this is inventive and particular to individuals or groups.
• Jargon - Specialist terminology that may exclude others.

Lexis/Semantics

• What types of words does it use?
• What are the relationships between them?

• Lexis - the method that deals with the vocabulary system of a language.
• Semantics - the method that deals with meaning and how that is generated within texts.
• Textual Cohesion - the term used to describe how a text is logically structured to create a coherent sense of meaning.

• Abstract nouns - States, feelings and concepts that have no physical existance e.g. pain, happiness.
• Adjective - Add detail to nouns.
• Verb - Shows actions, evens or states of being, feeling or thinking.
• Adverb - Adds detail to verbs or other adverbs

Lexical cohesion

• Lexical choices can help create cohesion within a text. They could provide structure within the body of the text or across small stretches such as phrases and sentences.

Words that create cohesion:

• Addition - and, also, too, in addition, furthermore
• Consequence - so, therefore, thus, as a result, consequently
• Comparative - similarly, likewise, just as, as well, also, but, however, whereas, on the other hand, and yet, on the contrary
• Temporal - Later, next, now, soon, afterwards
• Enumeration - firstly, then, finally
• Summative - In conclusion, on the whole, with all things considered

Cohesion can be made also through referencing:

• Anaphoric Referencing - referencing back to an already stated lexical item
• Cataphoric Referencing - referencing forward to an as yet undisclosed lexical item.
• Substitution - the replacing of one set of lexical items for another
• Ellipsis - the mission out of a word or words in a sentence.

• Euphemism - a socially acceptable word or phrase used to avoid talking about something distasteful. e.g. "spend a penny" or "powder my nose" - going to the loo.
• Dysphemism - a harsh 'to-the-point' term sometimes used for a dark humorous effect.

• Antonyms - true opposites e.g man & woman, alive & dead, narrow & wide.
• Conceptual Metaphor - the way in which abstract terms are mapped on to physical entities through an underlying conceptual structure.

Grammar

• Morphology - formation of words from smaller units called morphemes.
• Syntax - how lexical items are sequenced into larger units of language.
• Main verb - The verb that details the main process in a verb phrase.
• Auxiliary verb - a verb that supports or helps another; shows tense or modality.
• Clause Patterns - patterns produced by writers using certain types of cause for impact and effect
• Simple Sentence - a sentence consisting of a single main clause.
• Compound Sentence - 2 or more main clases connected by coorinating conjunctions. e.g. and, but and or
• Complex Sentences - a main clause with 1 or more subordinate clauses
• Compound-Complex Sentences - 2 main clauses & at least 1 subordinate

• Intransitive Verb - A verb process such as 'yawn' or 'slept' that has no object.
• Transitive Verb - Monotransitive (verb that only requires one object), ditransitive (requires 2 objects to form a double-object construction)
• Declarative -Telling feature - subject + verb.
• Interrogative - Asking feature - Verb + Subject
• Imperative - Inviting, demanding - Verb + Compliment (gives information about a subject)

• Lexical Onomatopoeia - Actual lexical items that rely on a similarity between sound and meaning. e.g. crash & bang.
• Non-lexical Onomatopoeia - non-words that work in the same way as lexical onomatopoeia. e.g. vroom & grrr
• Alliteration - A sequence of words beginning with the same sound.
• Assonance - Repetition of a vowel sounds for effect
• Consonance - Repetition of consonant sounds for effect
• Phonological Manipulation - the ways in which text producers play with sounds and their effects. Could be used for humour e.g. What did the grape say when the elephant stepped on it? - Nothing, it just gave out a little wine.
• Homophones - word that sounds like the same as another word or words. e.g. whine and wine. Could be used in humour.

• The implications of the text

• Cooperative Principle - work of Paul Grice - suggests that all communication is essentially a cooperative act. Maxims:

1. Quantity: use an appropriate amount of detail

2. Quality: speak the truth and do not knowingly mislead.

3. Relevance: keep what is being discussed relevant to the topic.

4. Manner: avoid vagueness and ambiguity.

• Deixis - lexical items that point towards a person, place or time in immediate context. personal deixis (I, me, you), spatial deixis (here, there, left, right), temporal deixis (now, then, today, tomorrow).

• Typography: font type, size, colour, emboldening, italicising,underlining and any other modifications to font types. 
• Cultural Model: An organisational structure based on shared and agreed criteria by groups of people within a society.
• Shape of the text - reader uses knowledge to help identify the purpose and meaning of a text.
• Images - Iconic or symbolic. Add a meaning?
• Iconic Signs - Direct picture of the thing it represents. Provides a basic reference for the reader. Tend to be simple and straightforward.
• Symbolic Signs - Draw on association or connotation. Usually defined by cultural convention, based on existing cultural models. Provide meaning because society has placed certain values or qualities on them.
• Photographs and artwork - Provide associative meaning and work in the same way as logos to produce meanings for a reader.
• Space - amount of detailing. Cluttered?
• Empty Spaces - as meaningful as filled ones. An attention-seeking device.

• Discourse Structure - the way in which texts are put together

1. List/instructions: Recipes, instructions, guides. Use Imperatives.

2. Problem-solution: Product advertisements. Identifies a problem.

3. Analysis: Academic articles, newspaper editorials. Explores, evaluates.

4. Narrative: Novels, witness, accounts. Series of events. Could be chronological or non-chronological.

• How does the text present information in order to create an identity for particular individuals or institutions, and the ideologies that are within.

• Narrative Categories: 6 key categories developed by Labov which appear in a narrative - generally in a set order.

1. Abstract (A) - Indication that a narrative is about to start & speaker wants listeners attention.

2. Orientation (O) - the 'who', 'where', 'what' and 'why' of the narrative. Sets the scene and provides & provides further contextual information for the listener.

3. Complicating Action (CA) - main body providing a range of narrative detail.

4. Resolution (R) - the final event, the 'rounding off'.

5. Evaluation (E) - additions to the basic story, highlights attitudes or command the listener's attention at important moments. May occur at any point.

6. Coda (C) - A sign that the narrative is complete.

AOCAREC.

• External Evaluations - an evaluative comment outside the narrative sequence.
• Internal Evaluations - an evaluative comment occurring at the same time as events in the narrative sequence.
• Intensifying Evaluations - adding detail or vividness.
• Explicative Evaluations - explaining reasons for narrative events.

• Conversational Analysis - the analysis of the structure and features of conversation. Can look at multi-speaker discourse.
• Adjacency pair - two utterances by different speakers which have a natural and logical link, and complete an idea together; a simple structure of two turns.
• Exchange Structure - a series of turns between speakers.
• Turn-taking - the sharing of speaking roles, usually cooperatively.
• Initiation-response-feedback (IRF) - triadic structure in speech that allows the first speaker to feed back on the response of a second speaker.

• Transition relevance point - a point at which it is natural for another speaker to take turn.
• Topic Management - the control of the conversation in terms of speaking and topic.
• Powerful participants - those who hold some degree of status in a conversation and could control direction & potential of speakers to contribute.

• Back-channelling - non-verbal utterences to show attention or agreement. e.g. Mmm, yeah, ok.
• Discourse Marker - Signal a shift in conversation & topic areas. Can also announce a counter-argument. e.g. Ok, right then, so, but
• Fillers - Non-verbal sounds that act as pauses in speech. May signal speaker uncertainty. Either natural or to give a speaker thinking time. e.g. Er, um.
• Hedging - Used to avoid directness or to minimise a potentially face-threatening act. Commonly undertaken using a range of epistemic modal forms. e.g. kind of, sort of, maybe, perhaps, possibly, will, could, might.
• False Starts/repairs - Speaker begins & stops. Returns to correct a stated phrase or sentence e.g.
• Skip Connectors - Return to a previous topic of conversation - type of discourse marker. e.g. anyway, coming back to what you were saying.
• Fixed Expressions - Conventional or routine expression. e.g. as a matter of fact, basically, at the end of the day.
• Vague Expressions - Similar to hedging, deliberately non-committal. e.g. anything, something, thing.

• Ellipsis - omission of words (missing out) for economical purposes. E.g. "Tonight, 8pm" (I'll meet you....at....).
• Tag Questions - Auxiliary verb. a negating particle and a pronoun. Speaker support, uncertainty or request for clarification. e.g. Didn't you? Wasn't it? Haven't I?
• Deixis - Pointing words in a perceptual, temporal or spatial dimension. e.g. I, you, me, they. Now, yesterday, today. Here, there, this, that, these, those.
• Non-fluency features - Non-verbal occurrences. e.g. pauses, hesitations & repetitions that occur in spontaneous speech.