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English Language flashcards

50 cards covering every topic of the 7702 syllabus (For first teaching 2015). Study one topic or mix them all, turn each card, and mark yourself honestly.

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Topic 1: Language, the individual and society

How is AQA A-level English Language 7702 assessed?: Paper 1 Language, the Individual and Society (2 h 30, 100 marks, 40%), Paper 2 Language Diversity and Change (2 h 30, 100 marks, 40%) and the NEA Language in Action (100 marks, 20%).
What does Paper 1 Section A (Textual variations and representations) require?: Three questions on two linked texts: analysis of Text A (25 marks), analysis of Text B (25 marks) and a comparison of the two (20 marks).
What are the five assessment objectives in 7702?: AO1 apply methods of linguistic analysis with terminology and coherent expression; AO2 understanding of concepts and issues in language use; AO3 how context and language features construct meaning; AO4 connections across texts; AO5 expertise and creativity in using English.
What is representation in language study?: How language constructs a version of people, groups or events, which can reinforce or challenge attitudes. Look at naming, modifiers, and whether agency is shown or hidden.
What is transitivity, and why analyse it?: Who is presented as the agent doing an action and who as the one affected. It shows whether a text gives a group power and responsibility or presents them as passive.
How can a text position its reader without stating a view?: Through presupposition (building a claim into the sentence), inclusive pronouns that enrol the reader, selection and omission of voices, and naming choices such as "protester" against "activist".
How should the Paper 1 comparison question be organised?: By point of comparison across both texts, not one text then the other, and comparing language choices rather than content.
What are the language levels used for analysis in 7702?: Phonetics, phonology and prosodics; graphology; lexis and semantics; grammar (including morphology); pragmatics; and discourse.
What is the three-step pattern for every analytical point?: Name the feature with correct terminology, quote it, and explain its effect in relation to audience, purpose and context. A feature named without an effect earns little.
What does modality signal in a text?: The writer's degree of certainty or obligation. High modality (must, will) asserts authority; low modality (might, perhaps) hedges or softens.
What is deixis?: Words whose meaning depends on the context of utterance, such as this, here, now and you. It ties language to a shared situation and can create closeness or immediacy.
What is pragmatics?: The study of implied meaning in context: what a speaker intends beyond the literal words, including presupposition, implicature and politeness.
What is mode, and why is it a spectrum?: Whether a text is spoken or written. Many forms mix features: a text message is written in medium but often speech-like, so mode is analysed as a continuum.
How does a scripted news bulletin differ from a live phone-in?: The bulletin is written to be spoken: planned, dense, complete sentences, no repair. The phone-in is spontaneous: fillers, false starts, overlaps and self-repair, with structure negotiated live.
What does Paper 1 Section B (Children's language development) require?: One 30-mark discursive essay from a choice of two, evaluating a view of children's language development and drawing on the data provided and on theories and research.
What are the main stages of children's spoken language development?: Babbling, holophrastic (one-word), two-word, telegraphic, then post-telegraphic.
What does the behaviourist view of acquisition claim?: Skinner: children learn language through imitation and reinforcement (praise or correction) from carers.
What does the nativist view of acquisition claim?: Chomsky: children have an innate language acquisition device that lets them work out grammatical rules from limited input.
What do cognitive and interactionist views of acquisition claim?: Cognitive (Piaget): language follows conceptual understanding. Interactionist (Bruner): child-directed speech and social interaction scaffold acquisition.
What is a virtuous error, and what does it show?: A logical but non-standard form such as "goed" or "sheeps". The child cannot have imitated it, so it is evidence of rule formation, supporting nativist accounts against pure imitation.
What is child-directed speech?: The simplified way carers often talk to young children: higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, repetition, short sentences and questions. Interactionists see it as support for learning.

Topic 2: Language diversity and change

What does Paper 2 Section A require?: One 30-mark evaluative essay from a choice of two: one on language diversity and one on language change.
Sociolect or dialect: what is the test?: A sociolect varies by social group (occupation, gender, ethnicity). A dialect varies by geography (regional, national, international).
What timeframe does 7702 set for language change?: 1600 to the present day, so a change essay needs at least one historical comparison point, not only present-day examples.
What are Aitchison's three metaphors for attitudes to change?: The damp spoon, the crumbling castle and the infectious disease: three prescriptivist images of change as decline, which Aitchison herself rejects.
What is the S-curve model of language change?: A new form spreads slowly at first, then rapidly, then slowly again as it reaches the last holdouts.
Functional theory or random fluctuation: what is the difference?: Functional theory says change meets new communicative needs (technology, social contexts). Random fluctuation says some changes have no single identifiable cause.
What is the difference between accent and dialect?: Accent is pronunciation only. Dialect covers grammar and vocabulary as well.
What is semantic change? Name four kinds.: A shift in a word's meaning over time: broadening (more general), narrowing (more specific), amelioration (more positive) and pejoration (more negative).
Name common word-formation processes in language change.: Borrowing, compounding, blending, affixation, conversion (a new word class), clipping, and acronyms or initialisms.
What is standardisation in the history of English?: The process by which one variety became the accepted norm in spelling, grammar and vocabulary, helped by printing, dictionaries and grammars.
How can language data such as corpora or frequency tables be used?: As evidence: describe the trend in usage over time or across groups, then link it to a plausible social or functional explanation.
What does Paper 2 Section B Question 3 require?: Analysis of two texts about a language issue (40 marks): how each writer uses language to present ideas, attitudes and opinions about language.
What is a language discourse?: A way of talking and writing about language that carries attitudes and values, for example presenting change as decline or a dialect as inferior.
Prescriptivism or descriptivism: what is the difference?: Prescriptivism sets rules for correct usage and treats deviation as error. Descriptivism records how language is actually used and treats variation and change as natural.
What is a named debate worth having ready for Paper 2?: Two or three, such as prescriptivist against descriptivist attitudes to change, or whether a dialect or sociolect is unfairly stigmatised, to bring into any essay.
What does Paper 2 Question 4 (directed writing) require?: An opinion piece on a language issue for a specified audience, purpose and form (30 marks), assessed as writing as well as for its ideas about language.
How should the directed writing differ from an essay?: It must follow the conventions of its form (such as an article) and engage a non-specialist reader, while conveying linguistic ideas accurately.
What is the commonest timing error in Paper 2 Section B?: Spending too long on the 40-mark analysis and rushing the 30-mark directed writing.

Topic 3: Language in action

What is the 7702 language investigation?: A student-led enquiry of 2,000 words (excluding data and quotations) into an aspect of language, using spoken, written or multimodal data.
What sections must a language investigation contain?: Introduction (reasons and aims), methodology (an evaluative account of data collection and approach), analysis, conclusion linked to the aim, references, and appendices with clean data.
What makes a good investigation focus?: A narrow, specific question, such as the language of three adverts for one product rather than "advertising language", so every later stage has a clear boundary.
What is the observer's paradox?: Observing or recording people changes how they speak, so natural data is hard to collect. Methodology should say how the investigation tried to reduce this.
What does the 7702 original writing task require?: One piece of 750 words in The Power of Persuasion, The Power of Storytelling or The Power of Information, plus a 750-word commentary.
What is a style model, and how is it used?: A published text of the same type that you study and analyse in detail. The submission includes an annotated style model, and its analysis feeds the commentary.
What should the original-writing commentary evaluate?: The style model, the writing process, and how effectively the final piece's language choices meet its audience and purpose.
What is prosody?: The features of speech beyond individual sounds: intonation, stress, pitch, pace, volume and pause. They signal emphasis, attitude and turn-taking.
What is morphology?: The study of word structure: how morphemes (roots, prefixes, suffixes) combine, for example un-friend-ly. It explains both word formation and inflections such as -ed.
What is cohesion in discourse?: The links that hold a text together, such as pronoun reference, repetition, connectives and lexical chains, so it reads as one connected whole.
What is an adjacency pair?: Two linked turns in conversation where the first expects the second, such as question and answer or greeting and greeting.

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Written for AQA A-level English Language (7702), syllabus 7702 (For first teaching 2015).

Cards by Marlbridge Academic Team; 4 restate definitions from the 7702 revision notes. This deck has not yet been reviewed as a whole by a subject teacher. Report an error.

All 7702 notes, practice and topics