A-level English Language offers opportunities for students to develop their subject expertise by engaging creatively and critically with a wide range of texts and discourses. Students will create texts and reflect critically on their processes of production while analysing the texts produced by others. The specification explores the study of the English Language both as a medium of communication and as a topic in its own right, with an emphasis on the ability of students to pursue lines of enquiry, debate different views, and work independently to research aspects of language in use. This specification draws academic insights from a range of fields within the study of English language/linguistics, including sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Therefore, language is seen as a creative tool for expression and social connection, as well as for individual cognition. The study of language as a symbolic system used to assert power in society is also fundamental to the scope of this specification.