Time and space flashcards

Topic 2: Time and space

What does Time and space ask you to analyse?

How the context of production and the context of reception shape meaning. The period, culture and place a text was written in are not the same as those it is read in now, and both matter.

Context of production versus context of reception

Production: who made the text, when, where, for whom, why, and through which institution. Reception: who is reading it now, where, and with what beliefs and stake.

What analytical point does a shift in reception give you?

The change between how original readers and readers today understand a text is itself the point. For example, an editorial its first readers found authoritative may now read as paternalistic.

What is representation?

How a text presents people, groups, places or events through its choices. Every text offers a version of the world, from a position, to an audience.

What is an agentless passive and what can it do?

A passive verb with no "by..." phrase, so the actor is hidden ("Jobs were lost"). It can remove responsibility from whoever acted.

What is nominalisation and what can it do?

Turning an action into a noun ("the cuts"). Like the agentless passive, it can hide who acted.

Preferred reading versus oppositional reading

Preferred reading: the meaning the producer intends the audience to accept. Oppositional reading: a reading that rejects that intended meaning.

What is othering?

Presenting a group as different from, and less than, an assumed "normal" reader. A stereotype is a fixed, simplified image of a group repeated until it seems natural.

What is the HL essay in Language and Literature?

Independent coursework of 1,200–1,500 words on one literary work or one non-literary text or body of work studied in class, built on a line of inquiry. 20% of the HL grade; SL students do not write it. (HL only)

Topic versus line of inquiry in the HL essay

A topic names an area. A line of inquiry is the one focused, arguable question the essay answers; the thesis is your answer to it, stated in the introduction and proved in the body. (HL only)

How much may a teacher help with the HL essay?

Regular formative feedback, but no editing or correcting. Near the end, the teacher may give written advice on one complete draft; the next version submitted must be the final one. (HL only)