English Language

Course summary

A Level English Language is a wide-ranging course that touches upon Psychology, Sociology, Linguistics and Creative Writing. In the first year the focus is on the variety of styles of English. • We’ll read a range of texts (and by “text” we mean anything from a crisp packet to a Shakespeare sonnet) looking at how writers use different words, meanings, grammatical structures, sound patterns, and formats to achieve their effects. • By doing this, you’ll become a much better reader through being able to identify precisely, with the appropriate linguistic terminology, how a text is working and whether it is suited to its intended audience, purpose, subject and genre. • You’ll also become a better writer, too, because we read texts as style models whose features can be imitated and developed in your own writing: - You’ll be writing analytically, exploring the texts studied and applying linguistic terminology. - You’ll have the opportunity to adopt the role of a journalist by writing articles about language use. - As part of A Level Language, you’ll also write creatively. Recent students have enjoyed writing short stories, magazine articles, reviews (music, film, theatre), radio documentaries, advice/information leaflets, travel features, dramatic monologues and comedy sketches. • We’ll identify the factors that contribute to the variety and diversity of language, such as accent and dialect, social status, gender, occupation and technology. • We’ll read research studies and examine data to see what they can tell us about the variety and diversity of language. Do different groups in society have different conversational styles or strategies? Are different groups in society represented differently in language?