A Level English Language: Language and Analysis — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Language and Analysis revision notes

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Section A

1. Define idiolect, sociolect and dialect. [3]

2. Explain the difference between accent and dialect. [2]

Section B

3. Explain four features of spontaneous spoken language, giving an example of each. [8]

4. Explain the concepts of instrumental power and influential power, giving an example of a text type that uses each. [4]

5. Explain three linguistic strategies used to assert power in a workplace conversation between a manager and an employee. [6]

6. Explain how language use in text messaging and social media differs from traditional writing, giving three features. [6]

7. Explain what is meant by a deficit, dominance and difference approach to language and gender, and give one criticism of each. [6]

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Section C

8. A political speech includes the line: “Errors were made, and we must all do better.”

(a) Name the grammatical feature in “errors were made” and explain what it conceals. [2]

(b) Explain the effect of the pronoun “we” in this context. [2]

9. A university’s formal graduation announcement suddenly includes the line: “This is going to be epic, trust us!”

(a) Using field, tenor and mode, explain what this register mismatch might be trying to achieve. [3]

(b) Explain why marking spoken features such as fillers and false starts as “errors” is a misreading. [3]

10. A student transforms a formal letter of complaint into a script for a radio advert.

(a) State two things, other than the wording itself, that must be adjusted in this transformation. [2]

(b) Give an example of how a commentary should justify a choice of low modality, rather than merely describe it. [2]

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Answers

1. Idiolect — an individual’s own distinctive way of using language [1]. Sociolect — the language variety used by a particular social group, defined by class, occupation or age [1]. Dialect — the variety associated with a geographical region, including its own lexis and grammar as well as pronunciation [1].

2. Accent refers only to pronunciation [1]; dialect includes vocabulary and grammatical structures as well, so a speaker can use standard dialect with a regional accent [1].

3. Any four, 2 marks each: fillers — non-lexical sounds such as “erm” that hold the turn while the speaker plans [1] [1]; false starts and self-repair — “I went to the— we went to the shop”, showing real-time construction [1] [1]; discourse markers — “you know”, “right”, signalling a shift or checking understanding [1] [1]; elision and contraction — “gonna”, “d’you”, reflecting rapid connected speech [1] [1]; non-fluency features such as pauses and repetition [1] [1]; adjacency pairs — question followed by answer, greeting by greeting [1] [1].

4. Instrumental power is power held through an institution or role and enforced by explicit authority, e.g. legal documents, police cautions or school rules [1] [1]. Influential power is power exercised through persuasion rather than authority, e.g. advertising, political speeches or journalism [1] [1].

5. Any three, 2 marks each: controlling the topic and the agenda — the manager decides what is discussed and when it changes, so the employee can only respond [1] [1]; interruption and holding the floor — taking longer turns and interrupting without being interrupted in return [1] [1]; use of imperatives and modal verbs of obligation — “you’ll need to”, “I want this by Friday” [1] [1]; asking questions that require an account, which places the employee in the position of justifying themselves [1] [1]; forms of address — first name to the employee, title from them [1] [1].

6. Any three, 2 marks each: abbreviation and initialism — “brb”, “idk” — driven by speed and originally by character limits [1] [1]; non-standard orthography and emoji used to carry the paralinguistic information that speech would convey through tone and facial expression [1] [1]; omission of punctuation and capitalisation, and the fact that a full stop can now read as curt rather than neutral — meaning has shifted with the medium [1] [1]; hybridity — the text is written but has the turn-taking, immediacy and informality of speech, so it sits between mode categories [1] [1].

7. Deficit (Lakoff) — women’s language is treated as lacking authority compared with men’s, using hedges and tag questions [1]; criticism: it treats male language as the norm and rests on introspection rather than data [1]. Dominance (Zimmerman and West) — differences arise because men exercise power over women in conversation, for example through interruption [1]; criticism: based on small samples in specific settings, and it cannot explain same-sex conversations [1]. Difference (Tannen) — men and women are socialised into different conversational subcultures with different goals, report talk versus rapport talk [1]; criticism: it ignores the power inequalities that produce those differences and risks essentialising gender [1].

8. (a) The passive voice [1] — it conceals the agent, omitting who made the errors [1].

(b) The inclusive pronoun “we” spreads responsibility across the whole audience or organisation rather than the specific people responsible, softening the admission [2].

9. (a) The informal, casual tenor and mode clash with the formal field of a graduation announcement [1]; this mismatch is deliberate, likely intended to build intimacy, excitement or closeness with a younger audience [2].

(b) Fillers and false starts are normal, functional features of real-time spoken production — buying planning time, holding the floor, or signalling a topic change — not mistakes to be corrected [3].

10. (a) Any two: form — from a written letter to a spoken script; audience — from a specific complaint recipient to a general listening public; purpose — from complaining and requesting redress to entertaining or persuading [2].

(b) A strong commentary names the choice, ties it to audience and purpose, and explains the effect — e.g. “I used low modality throughout because the audience is being persuaded rather than instructed, and hedging avoids the resistance direct commands provoke” — rather than simply noting “I used low modality” [2].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Treating accent and dialect as synonyms.
• Giving features of speech without an example.
• Confusing instrumental with influential power.
• Describing gender theories without a criticism when one is required.
• Naming a spoken-language feature as an “error” instead of explaining what it achieves.
• Describing a language choice in a commentary instead of justifying it against audience and purpose.