OCR A Level English Language (H470)

Complete Specification — A/A* Revision Notes

Assessment Map

Component 01 — Exploring Language

• 2h30
• 80 marks
• 40%

Sections:

• A Language under the microscope
• B Writing about a topical language issue
• C Comparing and contrasting texts

Component 02 — Dimensions of Linguistic Variation

• 2h30
• 80 marks
• 40%

Sections:

• A Child language acquisition
• B Language in the media
• C Language change

Component 03 — Independent Language Research

• NEA
• 40 marks
• 20%

Sections:

• A independent investigation
• B academic poster

All components are synoptic.

CORE LANGUAGE LEVELS

OCR expects deep knowledge of:

• phonetics;
• phonology;
• prosodics;
• lexis;
• semantics;
• grammar;
• morphology;
• pragmatics;
• discourse.

Phonetics / Phonology

Terms:

• phoneme;
• consonant/vowel;
• accent;
• stress;
• intonation;
• rhythm;
• pitch;
• elision;
• assimilation;
• cluster reduction.

Use IPA where relevant.

Prosodics

Meaning carried by:

• pitch;
• volume;
• tempo;
• stress;
• rhythm;
• intonation.

Spoken features:

• pause;
• overlap;
• interruption;
• backchannel;
• filler;
• false start;
• repair.

Lexis and Semantics

Terms:

• semantic field;
• collocation;
• synonym;
• antonym;
• hyponym;
• polysemy;
• metaphor;
• euphemism;
• dysphemism;
• jargon;
• slang;
• neologism;
• archaism.

Grammar

Analyse:

• nouns;
• verbs;
• adjectives;
• adverbs;
• pronouns;
• determiners;
• modality;
• active/passive;
• tense;
• aspect;
• phrases;
• clauses;
• sentence types;
• coordination;
• subordination.

Morphology

• free/bound morphemes;
• inflection;
• derivation;
• affixation;
• compounding;
• conversion.

Pragmatics

• deixis;
• inference;
• implicature;
• presupposition;
• face;
• politeness;
• speech acts.

Discourse

• cohesion;
• coherence;
• adjacency pairs;
• turn-taking;
• topic management;
• discourse markers;
• anaphora/cataphora.

COMPONENT 01 — EXPLORING LANGUAGE

Section A — Language Under the Microscope

OCR expects detailed analysis of specific frameworks, often split into focused subquestions.

A* response:

1. identify precise feature;
2. quote;
3. classify accurately;
4. explain contextual function;
5. connect to wider pattern.

Do not write generic introductions.

Lexical Analysis

Useful:

• proper/common noun;
• abstract/concrete;
• evaluative adjective;
• dynamic/stative verb;
• semantic fields;
• figurative language;
• register.

Grammatical Analysis

Useful:

• declaratives;
• imperatives;
• interrogatives;
• exclamatives;
• modality;
• active/passive;
• noun-phrase modification;
• subordination;
• sentence complexity.

A*: analyse patterns, not isolated examples.

Section B — Writing About a Topical Language Issue

OCR requires students to engage with current debates and produce purposeful writing.

Possible issue families:

• language correctness;
• accent prejudice;
• gendered language;
• political correctness;
• technology and language;
• language change;
• regional accents;
• youth language.

Discursive Preparation

For each issue know:

• public misconception;
• linguistic research;
• competing viewpoint;
• real example;
• reasoned conclusion.

Writing Skills

Adapt:

• audience;
• genre;
• purpose;
• register.

Possible forms:

• article;
• blog;
• speech;
• opinion column.

A*: linguistic concepts should be translated into accessible prose rather than dumped as terminology.

Section C — Comparing and Contrasting Texts

Texts may differ in:

• mode;
• audience;
• purpose;
• genre;
• field;
• tenor;
• time/place;
• identity.

Compare throughout.

Good structure: comparative point → Text B evidence → Text C evidence → explanation of contextual cause → significance

Spoken/Written Continuum

Avoid:

“Speech is informal.”

Instead: analyse degree of:

• planning;
• spontaneity;
• interaction;
• permanence;
• visual design.

Language and Identity

OCR expects social/individual varieties across:

• geographical;
• social;
• historical contexts.

Accent and Dialect

Accent: pronunciation.

Dialect: lexis + grammar, often pronunciation too.

Labov

Shows systematic relationship between linguistic variation, social identity and style.

Trudgill

Norwich: class/gender/style correlated with variants.

A*: treat findings as evidence from a particular place/time, not universal laws.

Accommodation — Giles

Convergence: reduce linguistic distance.

Divergence: emphasise distinction.

Communities of Practice

Shared social practices shape linguistic norms.

Useful for:

• workplace;
• friendship;
• hobby groups.

Gender and Identity

Lakoff

Associated women's speech with:

• hedging;
• politeness;
• intensifiers;
• tags.

Criticism: deficit assumptions and weak empirical base.

Zimmerman and West

Dominance: interruptions linked with conversational power in their data.

Tannen

Difference approach.

Cameron

Challenges exaggerated sex-difference myths.

A*: gender is contextually performed and interacts with class, age, sexuality and role.

COMPONENT 02 — DIMENSIONS OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION

Section A — Child Language Acquisition

OCR includes spoken child language acquisition.

Pre-Verbal

• crying;
• cooing;
• babbling;
• gesture;
• joint attention.

Holophrastic

One word carries broader proposition.

Two-Word

Semantic relations emerge.

Telegraphic

Content-heavy utterances, increasing grammatical structure.

Stages are approximate, not fixed.

Phonological Development

Processes:

• substitution;
• deletion;
• assimilation;
• reduplication;
• cluster reduction.

Analyse exact pattern.

Lexical/Semantic Development

Overextension

Word used for category broader than adult target.

Underextension

Word restricted too narrowly.

Semantic development

Driven by:

• interaction;
• categorisation;
• exposure;
• cognition.

Grammatical Development

Overgeneralisation

Examples:

• goed
• mouses

Evidence for productive rule formation.

Questions and Negation

Structures become more adult-like through:

• auxiliary use;
• inversion;
• internal negation.

Theories

Skinner

Behaviourism: imitation/reinforcement.

Chomsky

Nativism: innate capacity for grammar.

Bruner

Interactionism: caregiver scaffolding and LASS.

Piaget

Cognitive development supports language.

Vygotsky

Social interaction and guided learning.

A*: the data should drive theory use.

Child-Directed Speech

Features:

• higher pitch;
• repetition;
• recasts;
• expansion;
• questions;
• simplified but grammatical clauses.

Functions:

• attention;
• turn-taking;
• scaffolding;
• lexical mapping.

Cross-cultural variation challenges claims of universality.

Section B — Language in the Media

This OCR-specific section requires analysis of how media language constructs social meanings.

Media forms:

• news;
• advertising;
• social media;
• television;
• radio;
• online publishing.

Representation

Analyse how language represents:

• groups;
• identities;
• events;
• institutions.

Use:

• naming;
• agency;
• modality;
• quotation;
• lexical fields;
• metaphor;
• pronouns;
• presupposition.

News Language

Headline features:

• ellipsis;
• noun phrases;
• wordplay;
• compressed syntax.

Quotation

Direct quotation can:

• authenticate;
• distance;
• dramatise.

Selection of who gets quoted is ideological.

Transitivity

Material: action.

Mental: perception/thought.

Relational: state/identity.

Agency choices can distribute blame or responsibility.

Media Power and Ideology

Fairclough

Discourse can reproduce social power.

Useful:

• asymmetrical representation;
• institutional language;
• ideological framing.

Audience

Modern audiences can:

• comment;
• remix;
• share;
• challenge.

Digital media blurs producer/consumer distinction.

Advertising

Analyse:

• synthetic personalisation;
• imperatives;
• second person;
• presupposition;
• positive evaluative lexis;
• lifestyle identity.

Do not assume every imperative is aggressive; context matters.

Section C — Language Change

OCR expects historical variation and attitudes toward change.

Causes

• contact;
• migration;
• technology;
• prestige;
• identity;
• social change;
• media;
• standardisation.

Lexical Processes

• borrowing;
• compounding;
• blending;
• clipping;
• acronym;
• initialism;
• conversion;
• derivation.

Semantic Change

• broadening;
• narrowing;
• pejoration;
• amelioration;
• metaphor.

Grammar

Possible changes:

• pronouns;
• auxiliary verbs;
• modal frequency;
• progressive;
• negation.

Phonology

Sound change, accent diffusion and loss can be considered where evidence permits.

Standardisation

Influences:

• printing;
• education;
• dictionaries;
• grammars;
• administration.

Do not present standard English as linguistically superior; it is socially prestigious and institutionally codified.

Attitudes to Change

Prescriptivism

Attempts to impose correct norms.

Descriptivism

Studies actual usage.

Aitchison

Language-change anxieties often rely on myths:

• damp spoon;
• crumbling castle;
• infectious disease.

A*: Do not merely quote metaphor labels. Explain the underlying ideology.

COMPONENT 03 — INDEPENDENT LANGUAGE RESEARCH

Independent Investigation

OCR gives broad freedom.

Potential areas:

• spoken interaction;
• regional language;
• digital language;
• media representation;
• identity;
• occupation;
• language change;
• child language where ethical/appropriate.

Research Question

Specific and linguistic.

Weak:

“How does social media affect language?”

Strong:

“How does the use of intensifiers and stance markers differ between verified and non-verified beauty influencers on TikTok captions?”

Methodology

Discuss:

• corpus size;
• sampling;
• variables;
• transcription;
• ethics;
• anonymity;
• coding;
• comparability.

Primary vs Secondary Data

Primary: collected yourself.

Secondary: existing corpus/texts.

Quantitative

Counts/frequency.

Qualitative

close linguistic analysis.

Best investigations often combine both.

Data Analysis

Use:

• tables;
• frequency counts;
• proportions;
• representative extracts.

Avoid:

• raw counts from corpora of different size without normalising.

Possible: [ \text{normalised frequency}=\frac{\text{feature count}}{\text{total words}}\times1000 ]

Conclusions

A strong conclusion:

• answers the research question;
• identifies patterns;
• acknowledges exceptions;
• avoids causal overclaim;
• reflects on dataset limitations.

Academic Poster

Purpose: communicate research concisely and visually.

Include:

• title/research question;
• rationale;
• methodology;
• key findings;
• chart/table;
• concise analysis;
• conclusion.

Avoid:

• wall of prose;
• unexplained charts;
• decorative visuals with no analytical function.

OCR A* TEXT ANALYSIS

Use MPC:

Method

What exact linguistic choice?

Pattern

How does it recur/contrast?

Context

Why is that pattern meaningful given producer, audience, purpose, mode and identity?

A*: move from micro feature to macro representation.

OCR EXAM LANGUAGE

Analyse

Technical close reading.

Compare

Direct connections throughout.

Evaluate

Test a language claim using research/data.

Topical Writing

Use linguistics accurately but write for the specified public audience.

COMMON LOST MARKS

• vague “word choice” instead of terminology;
• listing features with no pattern;
• mode assumptions;
• topical issue answer becomes academic essay instead of crafted public writing;
• Child Language theory dump;
• child speech treated as defective;
• Media section describes content rather than language;
• “bias” used with no linguistic evidence;
• language change equated with decline;
• prescriptivism presented as academically correct;
• investigation question too broad;
• corpus size ignored;
• poster duplicates full investigation instead of synthesising it.