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Language AS

Language A2

Lang-Lit A2

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Historical Texts

The main things to remember are:

Ensure you cover as many frameworks as are relevant

Include some grammatical analysis (preferably relating to sentences, clauses and/or verbs)

Do not forget to analyse how the text achieves its purposes/expresses feelings etc - whatever the question asks for.

Include points about language change together with standard analytical points:

     Archaicisms

     Shifts in frequency

     Semantic shifts (be specific if possible - narrowing or broadening?  amelioration or pejoration?

     Orthographic changes, clustering into patterns if at all possible (eg ie/y or u/v/w instability, extra “e”s, double final consonants etc)

Common Errors:

Talking too generally about language change without focus on the text (especially dealing with issues from before the text, like Caxton’s printing press or the Great Vowel Shift)

Picking out a few points to do with change and not dealing with the more standard textual analysis (how does the text achieve its purposes, who is its audience, what techniques does it use etc)

Guided Analysis of a single text (for practice - useful at the start of revision)
Go to this text and print it out (it’s Shakespeare’s dedication from Venus and Adonis, which we have looked at in class.  Then follow my powerpoint on planning and writing the analysis.