pupoture

One of the areas that we've been looking at in AS classes recently is that of sociolect. I've also been mugging up on the writing and research for this area because of a project I'm working on for something else, so it's been useful to go back to some of the studies that have been carried out into the links between language, the social groups we belong to through choice (communities of practice and discourse communities around work, play and special interests) and those we belong to due to accidents of birth (social class and gender). One of the things that's particularly interesting to look at is the overlap between what we might call social groups and the other areas on Paper 2 of the AS and A level - gender, regional dialect, occupation - and it's clear to me that you can't really talk about one of these without thinking about the others (and indeed, areas like age, ethnicity & sexuality). I've set my AS classes the following task recently and we...

As part of the Original Writing section of the NEA, students will be required to produce a commentary on their piece. This blog post will provide some guidance on completing the commentary for the NEA and useful tips. What is the commentary?  The commentary is designed to enable you to explain the decisions you have made in writing your piece and the language levels that you have employed and replicated following your exploration of a style model.  Word Count The commentary is just as important as the Original Writing piece in that it is also 750 words and the same number of marks (25).  Assessment Objectives  This piece will test your ability to employ all of the assessment objectives equally. Below is a screenshot from the criteria on the top band features:  What does this mean?  A01:   You need to use a range of language levels. Note the key words ‘integrated’ and ‘connected.’ Regardless of the language levels used, aim to cover a range rather than ...