AQA A-Level English Language 7702: Paper 1 — 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: Paper 1 revision notes

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Section A

1. Name the language levels you should use as a framework when analysing any text. [3]

2. Explain what is meant by representation in language analysis. [2]

Section B

3. A newspaper headline reads: “Migrant surge overwhelms coastal towns.”

(a) Analyse the representation created, referring to at least three language features. [6] (b) Rewrite the headline to create a sympathetic representation, and explain the changes you made. [4]

4. Explain how the following contribute to the representation of a group: modification, transitivity, semantic field. [6]

5. Explain three features of the language of advertising and the effect of each. [6]

6. Explain the concept of audience positioning and how a text can position its reader without stating a view explicitly. [5]

7. Explain how mode affects a text, comparing a scripted news bulletin with a live radio phone-in. [4]

Section C

8. Give the five stages of child language acquisition, in order. [5]

9. Explain how “virtuous errors” (e.g. “goed”, “sheeps”) are used as evidence for Chomsky’s nativist theory of language acquisition, and explain how this challenges a purely behaviourist account. [5]

10. Distinguish between idiolect and sociolect, giving an example of each. [4]

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Answers

1. Lexis and semantics; grammar and syntax; phonology, graphology, pragmatics and discourse structure [1] [1] [1].

2. Representation is how a text portrays a person, group, place or idea through its language choices [1]; every text presents a version of reality shaped by selection and wording, rather than a neutral reflection of it [1].

3. (a) The metaphor “surge” draws on a semantic field of water and natural disaster, presenting people as an uncontrollable force rather than individuals [1] [1]. “Overwhelms” is a transitive verb placing migrants in the agent position and the towns as affected patients, so responsibility and threat are assigned to the migrants [1] [1]. The noun “migrant” is used as a modifier rather than a full noun phrase, so people are reduced to a category with no individuating detail — no ages, names or circumstances [1]. Omission of a determiner and any number makes the group seem indefinite and limitless [1]. (b) For example: “Coastal towns welcome families arriving by sea.” [1] “Families” restores human individuality and relationship in place of a category label [1]; “welcome” reverses the transitivity, making the towns the willing agent rather than the victim [1]; “arriving by sea” is neutral and descriptive, removing the disaster metaphor [1].

4. Modification — the adjectives and nouns placed before a head noun (“young offenders”, “hardworking families”) attach evaluative qualities to a group before it is even named [1] [1]. Transitivity — whether a group is the agent doing the action or the patient it is done to determines whether they appear active and responsible or passive and vulnerable [1] [1]. Semantic field — the cluster of related lexis running through a text frames how the group is understood; a field of warfare presents a debate as conflict, a field of illness presents it as something to be treated [1] [1].

5. Any three, 2 marks each: imperatives — “Discover”, “Taste the difference” — create a direct instruction that assumes compliance [1] [1]; second person address — “you” individualises a mass-market message, so the reader feels personally addressed [1] [1]; presupposition — “when you upgrade” assumes the decision is already made, so the reader is not invited to question it [1] [1]; phonological patterning — alliteration and rhythm make a slogan memorable and easily recalled at the point of purchase [1] [1]; comparative adjectives with no stated comparator — “cleaner”, “stronger” — which imply superiority without a testable claim [1] [1].

6. Audience positioning is the way a text constructs a particular role and set of assumptions for its reader [1]. It can do so without stating a view by using presupposition, which builds a claim into the structure of a sentence so accepting the sentence means accepting the claim [1]; by inclusive pronouns such as “we” and “our”, which enrol the reader in a shared position [1]; by selection and omission — deciding which voices are quoted and which are not [1]; and by naming choices, since “protester” and “activist” position the reader differently towards the same person [1].

7. A scripted news bulletin is written to be spoken: it is planned, edited and dense with information, uses complete sentences and standard grammar, and has no interaction or repair [1] [1]. A live phone-in is spontaneous speech: it contains fillers, false starts, overlaps, interruption and self-repair, and its structure is negotiated between participants in real time rather than fixed in advance [1] [1].

8. Babbling [1], holophrastic (one-word) [1], two-word [1], telegraphic [1], post-telegraphic [1].

9. A virtuous error is a grammatically logical mistake a child could not have heard an adult produce, e.g. “goed” for went, or “sheeps” for sheep [1] [1] — the child has over-applied a regular grammatical rule to an irregular word [1]. Nativists use this as evidence for an innate language acquisition device, since the child cannot simply be imitating adult speech they have never heard [1]; this directly challenges Skinner’s behaviourist account, which explains acquisition through imitation and reinforcement alone, and cannot explain an error no adult ever modelled [1].

10. Idiolect is an individual’s own distinctive, personal way of using language [1] — e.g. a person’s characteristic catchphrases or habitual turns of phrase [1]. Sociolect is the variety of language shared by a particular social group [1] — e.g. the shared vocabulary and grammar of a regional or occupational community [1].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Identifying features without linking them to representation.
• Ignoring transitivity, which is where most representation marks sit.
• Describing advertising language generically rather than analysing effect.
• Treating mode as simply “spoken or written” rather than a continuum.