AQA English Language Paper 2: Non-fiction
How to answer Q3 – analysing language
This is another language analysis question (like Paper 1 Question 2). It’s worth 12 marks, though, so you’ll need to analyse more methods for this one than you do for the one in Paper 1.
This guide is part of the English Language Paper 2 series:
Paper 2 Question 3 - analysing language
Contents of this guide
Overall structure and example for this question
Steps for tackling this question
Highlight relevant and meaningful evidence – planning step
Figure out the effect – planning step
Introduce the method and state its basic effect – writing step
Explain the effect in detail, including why the method has that effect – writing step
Example response
Overall structure and example for this question
There are several different ways you could structure your response to this question, but this guide will focus on the simplest way to produce a clear and relevant answer. Each paragraph should have the following structure:
A. Example and method from the appropriate part of the text, ideally with the basic effect stated
B. Explain the effect in detail and say why the method has that effect
You will need to do this roughly 3 times across the course of your answer.
Example paragraph
[A] The writer uses the verb “whipped” to describe the storm entering the camp, conveying the violence of the wind. [B] Whips were traditionally used as a tool of punishment, especially for criminals, which conveys something brutal and aggressive about the weather, as if the storm is trying to punish the people in the camp. “Whipped” also implies something about the speed of the storm – it happens swiftly and suddenly, like the lash of a whip; we hear its crack at what seems like the same moment the whip strikes in the same way that the storm strikes the camp suddenly and without warning.
Steps for tackling this question
1. Highlight relevant and meaningful evidence – planning step
The first thing you need to do is highlight all the examples in the stated part of the Source where language has been used to create an effect. Certain methods like metaphors and similes are particularly good to analyse, but don’t worry too much about the particular method. Knowing the terminology is the least important part; if you think the language is worth analysing but don’t know the terminology to use, just call it a ‘word’ or a ‘phrase’.
For example, in the source you might highlight these parts
“the storm whipped into the camp”
“ripping into the tents in a blinding fury of driving snow”
“engulfing the ice-clad slopes effortlessly”
2. Figure out the effect – planning step
For each of the methods you’ve identified, you need to figure what effect it has. This idea of an ‘effect’ is quite vague, and it’s often something that students struggle to understand. The thing to avoid here is writing about how the language makes the reader feel. Analysis like “makes it sound frightening for the reader” won’t get you above Level 1 in the mark scheme. Instead, you need to think about the effect in terms of meaning.
How does the method affect, even slightly, how we understand what the method is being used to describe? How does it help the reader to understand the precise meaning that the writer is trying to communicate?
Sometimes it helps to imagine what the meaning would be without the method. Consider the following examples:
With method
“I looked at the sea of faces.” (metaphor)
No method
“I looked at the crowd of faces.”
What is the effect on the meaning?
The ‘sea’ metaphor conveys vastness, endlessness (like a sea) and it implies that the people in the crowd are all the same, like water in a sea, which ‘crowd’ does not convey.
With method
The boat was “brutally submerged” beneath the ocean. (adverb)
No method
The boat was “submerged” beneath the ocean.
What is the effect on the meaning?
The adverb brutally means ‘savagely violent’ which makes the ocean itself seem aggressive; it is as if the ocean is attacking the boat, wishing it harm, rather than just nature taking its course. It’s a form of personification.
With method
“It was over. There was nothing he could do.” (short sentence)
No method
“It was over, and there was nothing he could do.”
What is the effect on the meaning?
The short sentence is more definitive. It was over. FULL STOP. End of story. No argument. It conveys the certainty of the statement more clearly than if it is part of a longer sentence.
With method
“You are in the very centre and heart of the fair.” (direct address)
No method
“I was in the very centre and heart of the fair.”
What is the effect on the meaning?
2nd person (direct address) changes the meaning of the text: it is now you (not the writer) who is there, at the heart of the fair, which encourages you to imagine it more vividly.
There are many different methods which you may wish to analyse, and they all have slightly different effects – far too many to list here (see the other ‘How to’ guides related to specific methods for more advice on this). But the important question to ask yourself of any method is: what effect does it have on the meaning of the text?
For example
From the evidence in the previous example box, you could identify the following methods and rough effects:
“the storm whipped into the camp” (verb) = the storm is violent like a whip, which is used to punish or harm people.
“ripping into the tents in a blinding fury of driving snow” (personification) = the storm has feelings; it is like a person; it seems as if it wants to do this – as if it is attacking the people in the tents out of anger or malice.
“engulfing the ice-clad slopes effortlessly” (adverb / personification) = the storm is extremely powerful; it does not have to try, even to engulf an entire mountain.
3. Introduce the method and state its basic effect – writing step
Now you are ready to write your response. You should lead with a method for this question, but you must put it in context by saying what the method is used to describe. For example, with the ‘sea of faces’ metaphor, you need to say that it is used to describe a crowd because it is the meaning of the crowd that the method changes. Similarly, in the example below it is the meaning of the storm that is changed by the method, so this needs to go on the opening statement. You could also say the basic effect the method has (e.g. to convey the vastness of the crowd), but don’t panic if you can’t work out how to do this – you can make up for it in the next step.
For example
The writer uses the verb ‘whipped’ to describe the storm entering the camp, conveying the violence of the wind.
4. Explain the effect in detail, including why the method has that effect – writing step
This is the key step in terms of getting into Level 3 (clear and relevant) or above. It is not enough to say what effect the method has; you also need to explain why it has that effect. This will allow you to analyse the method clearly.
The key here is to be specific.
You must refer to specific words, images or connotations in the method (see metaphor example below), or to the specific effect that the chosen method has (see short sentence and listing examples below).
For example, you cannot clearly analyse the metaphor “the sea of faces” without writing about the sea. The sea is vast and can seem endless (it covers far more of the earth than the land does), and it all seems to be made of the same stuff (water). You have to write about these aspects of the sea in your analysis to explain how the metaphor changes the meaning of the crowd.
Similarly, if you want to explain the effect of the short sentence “It was over” you have to explain that short sentences are definitive, certain – no other words are required.
Or, if you are analysing a list used to describe the things to do at a festival, it is not enough to say that the list conveys how busy the festival is; you also need to say why – because the words in a list come rapidly for the reader, like they are all happening in quick succession, just like the things at the festival.
In essence, you have to say why the language has the effect it has. This is the part that people often forget to do.
For example
Whips were traditionally used as a tool of punishment, especially for criminals, which conveys something brutal and aggressive about the weather, as if the storm is trying to punish the people in the camp. “Whipped” also implies something about the speed of the storm – it happens swiftly and suddenly, like the lash of a whip; we hear its crack at what seems like the same moment the whip strikes in the same way that the storm strikes the camp suddenly and without warning.
This creates the following full paragraph, which we saw at the start of this guide
The writer uses the verb “whipped” to describe the storm entering the camp, conveying the violence of the wind. Whips were traditionally used as a tool of punishment, especially for criminals, which conveys something brutal and aggressive about the weather, as if the storm is trying to punish the people in the camp. “Whipped” also implies something about the speed of the storm – it happens swiftly and suddenly, like the lash of a whip; we hear its crack at what seems like the same moment the whip strikes in the same way that the storm strikes the camp suddenly and without warning.