Analyse Language in the Non Fiction (Paper 2, Question 3)

This resource includes:

1. Sample question
2. Sample text
3. 8 Steps: Just tell me what to do
4. Annotated text, to show students how to think about language
5. Model answer using all the analysis, 450 words
6. Model answer reworked to be student length, 250 words
7. Explanation of the mark scheme, applied to the model

This is the beginning of the sample analysis:
Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views

*Five minutes’ walking brings you to the fair itself; a scene calculated to awaken very different feelings. The *

• Direct address places us directly at the scene
• Dickens foreshadows the text by signposting us towards different feelings to bring it to life
• He writes in the present tense to make the experience more immediate and real

entrance is occupied on either side by the vendors of gingerbread and toys: the stalls are gaily lighted up,

• Adjective ‘gaily’ to describe the lighting actually describes the mood and atmosphere

the most attractive goods profusely disposed, and un-bonneted young ladies induce you to purchase half a

• Long clauses keep us at the scene, as though giving us time to look at the listed sights
• Perhaps male readers of the time are enticed by the provocative detail that the ladies are both “young” and “unbonneted”, the adjectives suggesting they are therefore attractive.
• The assonance of “o” emphasises how “profuse” the pleasures are, and in forming the letter “o” the mouth is forced into an expression of wonder (19th century readers would be used to reading to their families out loud).
• The juxtaposition of the “young ladies” with “the most attractive goods” encourages the male reader to see the women as commodities to be enjoyed. It is a sexist allusion to women as objects.

*pound of the real spice nuts, of which the majority of the regular fair-goers carry a pound or two as a present *