Paper 1 Question 2 Skills: Language Analysis

Understanding the Question

Question 2 on Paper 1 asks you to analyse how the writer uses language to achieve effects and influence the reader. You will focus on a specific extract from the text.

Key Elements to Analyse

1. Word Choice (Diction)

• Look for powerful, emotive, or descriptive words.
• Consider the connotations of words and how they contribute to the mood or atmosphere.
• Example: "The eerie silence" (eerie suggests an unsettling or spooky atmosphere).

2. Imagery

• Identify any similes, metaphors, or personification.
• Explain how these images help the reader visualize scenes or emotions.
• Example: "The trees whispered secrets to the night" (personification creates a mysterious, enchanting scene).

3. Sentence Structure

• Analyse the use of short, punchy sentences versus long, complex ones.
• Consider how sentence length impacts the pace and tension.
• Example: "She ran. She stumbled. She fell." (short sentences create a sense of urgency and panic).

4. Figurative Language

• Look for metaphors, similes, and hyperbole.
• Explain how these devices create vivid imagery or emphasize certain feelings or ideas.
• Example: "His smile was a beacon of hope" (metaphor emphasizes the positivity and brightness of his smile).

5. Tone and Mood

• Identify the tone of the passage (e.g., angry, joyful, melancholic).
• Discuss how the language choices contribute to the overall mood.
• Example: "The oppressive heat weighed down on them" (word choices like "oppressive" contribute to a heavy, stifling mood).

6. Sound Devices

• Notice any alliteration, assonance, or onomatopoeia.
• Analyse how these sounds contribute to the effect or atmosphere.
• Example: "The buzzing bees" (onomatopoeia creates a sense of the natural, lively environment).

Steps for Analysis

1. Identify: Locate specific examples of language features.
2. Explain: Describe what the feature is and how it is used.
3. Effect: Discuss the effect on the reader and how it contributes to the writer's purpose.

Example Analysis

Text: "The storm unleashed its fury, battering the helpless town with relentless rain and howling winds."

• Word Choice: "Unleashed its fury" – suggests violence and anger, creating a dramatic and intense image of the storm.
• Imagery: "Battering the helpless town" – personification, emphasizing the town's vulnerability.
• Sound Devices: "Howling winds" – onomatopoeia, adding to the auditory imagery and enhancing the sense of chaos.

Understanding Structure:

Structural analysis examines how a writer organizes and sequences the events, ideas, and information in a text. It involves looking at the order of events, shifts in focus, perspectives, and the overall progression of the narrative.

A useful acronym to guide you is BEST SECONDZ:

• Beginnings
• Endings
• Sentence lengths (relative to the surrounding text)
• Time (e.g. chronological, flashback)
• Shifts in focus (e.g. changes in weather, time, place, person, theme)
• Echoes from earlier in the text (repetition)
• Contrast
• Order of events/ideas (do they follow on from one another?)
• Narrative perspective (e.g. first, second, third person)
• Discourse markers & dialogue (connectives e.g. After)
• Zooming into description (be sure not to start analysing language!)