This document provides guidance on revising for the language analysis section of the English exam. It discusses strategies such as practicing language analysis skills for 10-15 minutes 1-3 days a week rather than cramming. When analyzing language, students should identify the author's technique, contention, and use of persuasive language. They should vary how they describe the language use and not just provide summaries. The document also provides examples of analyzing rhetorical questions and challenges in language. It suggests words to use when praising or criticizing language and gives tips for improving analysis of visual elements and their relationship to the overall argument.

1. How To Revise for
Language Analysis: Unit
3&4 English Exam

2. 49

3. Three Sections
• Text Response
• Context
• Language Analysis

4. Language Analysis

6. Skills vs.
Knowledge

7. Language Analysis
• 10-15 minutes of practice every 1-3 days
will make more impact than ‘cramming’ in
SWOTVac.

8. Language Analysis
• Reading, thinking, planning
• Analysing the visual
• Identifying the issue and contention
• Identifying the best examples of persuasive
language
• Grouping examples
• Using specific verbs to describe an author’s
technique
• Varying the way a follow up sentence is started

9. Bring a dictionary
• We must, at the very least, be apprehensive
about this proposal.

10. Bring a dictionary
• The use of the word “apprehensive”
connotes for the reader the idea of...

11. Task & Background

12. Task & Background

13. Identify
• Which quote best identifies the contention
• What is one persuasive phrase/sentence
used

14. Birmingham Library Speech - Malala
Yousafzai

15. Which of these best
identifies the contention?
• Fellow Broomies
• Pens and books are the weapons that
defeat terrorism
• I truly believe that the only way to have
global peace...is to have reading, knowledge
and education

16. Which of these quotes
is the best example?
• A city without books... is like a graveyard
• We must not forget the 57 million children are out
of school
• We must speak up for peace and development in
Nigeria, Syria and Somalia
• We must speak up for the children of Pakistan,
India and Afghanistan who are suffering from
terrorism, poverty and child labour

17. What’s the link?
2010: “students who attempted to work laboriously
through every sentence found the task difficult.
Students needed to choose which parts of the material
they would use to explore the way in which language was
being used.”
2010: “Some responses were just simple summaries or
lists of the techniques used, with little development.
These pieces did not score well as they did not fulfil the
task.”
2011: In stronger responses, strategic selection, together
with well-developed précis skills, allowed students to
demonstrate their language analysis skills.

18. Headlines you’re
unlikely to see

19. Analysing language
• Joe Bloggs uses a rhetorical question when
they say “Are we all stupid”. Rhetorical
questions really only have one answer.

20. Analysing language
• Joe Bloggs challenges the audience with the
question:“Are we all stupid?” This challenge
confronts us with a black and white choice
- we can either accept that we are stupid,
or think that we are smart by agreeing with
Bloggs’ argument.

21. Praises, Celebrates,
Gushes, Champions,
Supports, Effuses,
Commends, Approves,
Accepts, Applauds,
Understands,
Advocates, Identifies
with, Esteems,
Credits ,Endorses
Labels, Dismisses,
Attacks, Insults, Slurs,
Denigrates,
Undermines, Criticize,
Critiques, Lambasts,
Denies, Demeans,
Blames, Accuses,
Judges, Rejects
Connects...with,
likens...to,
compares...to,
associates...with/to,
connotes...as being
like, relates...to,
attaches...to
Queries, Reflects,
Raises, Wonders,
Reasons, Philosophises,
Ponders, Supposes,
Speculates
Urges, Posits,
Contends, Argues,
Disputes, Challenges,
Opposes, Debates,
Contests, Demands
Forcefully, logically, caustically,
sarcastically, emphatically, darkly,
quickly, humourously, emotionally,
angrily, passionately, laughingly,
reassuringly, authoratively,
jokingly, seriously, matter-of-factly,
accusingly, effusively,
speculatively, challengingly,
insultingly, disgustedly,
righteously, absolutely, clearly,
rhetorically, carefully

22. Improving analysis

23. Improving analysis

24. Visual
• Our focus is captured by the visual when /
at...
• The portrayal of...as...focuses our attention
because...
• Draws the reader’s attention to the idea...
• Re-inforces the point that...
• Supports the contention / argument that...

25. Analysing visuals
We live in an age which has yet to work out
whether privacy still exists, or if it does,
what it is useful for. We can be physically
tracked by corporations and governments
through our mobile phones, while our
"meditations" and "very designs" can be
discovered by Google and others from our
emails and online search histories.
Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman,
helpfully, if unwittingly, encapsulated the
death of personal privacy this way: "If you
have something that you don't want anyone
to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in
the first place." I've heard that before, word
for word, from members of East Germany's
secret police, the Stasi.