How to analyse language for GCSE English Language
GCSE English Language requires you to be able to analyse how writers use language in fiction and non-fiction texts to achieve various effects and intentions. In other words, you are examining the writer’s tools and how they use them to create works of fiction and non-fiction.
This post focuses on how writers use the tool of language to create meaning and impact the reader. To read about how writers use structure, you can read GCSE English Language Structure.
Writers create worlds
Writers create fictional worlds through the craft of language. An idea pops into their mind, and they recreate this image or story with the written word, which allows us readers to visualise and experience the character’s journey.
Analysing language
When you are analysing language you are examining the writer’s writing style, how he or she puts words together to explain or describe something. For example, the writer might use powerful words that help the reader feel the emotions of a character which might make you feel sadness or joy. The writer might use descriptive language to describe a setting or event, so we can imagine what it is like to be there.
Another thing you must do when analysing the text is to explain the writer’s intention and the effect on the reader. To do this, you should think about how you interact with the text. You should ask yourself the following questions which apply to both fiction and non-fiction texts:
What is the purpose of this piece of writing?
What was the writer trying to convey through the piece of writing?
What does it make you feel, think, believe?
How does it make you think, feel, believe about the character(s) and the events in the story?
Does the description and access to the character’s thoughts and feelings make you feel as if you are in the mind of the character?
Are you taken on a journey with the character?
What is language?
Language is the type of words, phrases and figurative devices, such as metaphors and similes a writer uses to describe and create images, ideas, actions and so on.
One way to approach analysing language is to break down language into three layers:words, phrases, and literary devices.
Words
Words impart meaning in a sentence. These lexical words or word classes are nouns,verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and interjections, which form the basic parts of speech in grammar. Writers make deliberate word choices to create effects.
Words such as nouns, adjectives and adverbs provide most of the content (meaning in texts) and these types of words have a literal meaning and an implied meaning.
For example, the word red has its literal meaning, which is its colour, but it can be also used to imply or suggest danger or passion.
The implied meaning of a word that goes beyond its literal meaning is called a connotation. It is important to zoom in on powerful words that grab your attention and then analyse the implied meaning of the word.
Phrases
A phrase is a group of words that is not a complete sentence.
Literary devices
These are just some of the language devices you might come across in a text.
Alliteration
Anaphora
Assonance
Metaphor
Onomatopoeia
Pathetic Fallacy
Personification
Sibilance
Simile
Repetition of words
How writers use language
Writers also use a combination of words, phrases and literary devices to describe the five senses: sight, touch, taste, smell and hear to give the reader a more immersive experience.
Writers also use language to construct an image or idea by using similar or related words, which is called a semantic field.
For example, if a writer’s intention is to create a world full of mystery, suspense and darkness, then the word choices would reflect the mood and atmosphere the writer seeks to create. Words such as ‘dull,’ ‘grey,’ ‘dismal,’ and ‘bleak’ create a semantic field of misery or unhappiness. The cumulative effect of these adjectives, then, would be something solemn and depressing.
Read this extract from A Christmas Carol as an example:
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s book, went home to bed. He lived in a chamber which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up yard, where it has so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its very stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
How would you describe the semantic field in this extract? What impression does it create about Scrooge and his life?
The first step to answer this question is to zoom in on the words that describe Scrooge and his life, and then think about the connotations of the word choices.
We could say that Dickens creates a negative impression of Scrooge and his life. He uses adjectives such as ‘melancholy,’ ‘gloomy,’ ‘dreary’, which are all synonyms (similar words) to describe a negative mood or atmosphere. These adjectives help to build up an image of Scrooge’s world, which could be described as sad and depressing.
As readers, we learn that the description of his home and environment symbolise his character. That is, they mirror his dull and melancholy personality.
Figurative language, such as metaphors and similes are also used by writers to create powerful images, so the reader understands what the writer is trying to convey more clearly. Images translate messages more effectively than plain words. For example, the simile:
He was as solitary as an oyster.
What image has Dickens created in your mind about Scrooge by using this simile?
Would have it been more effective if Dickens had just written: Scrooge was a solitary man?
If we break down the word choices: solitary and oyster and what they mean and what they suggest, we gain a deeper interpretation of his character.
solitary = lonely
oyster = a hard shell, but there is a precious pearl buried inside that is hidden to the world.
Once you have identified words, phrases and figurative language, you need to explain how the use of language achieves the writer’s intention and how this impacts the reader in terms of the effects.
You will need to ensure your points are clearly structured and explained in detail with evidence. Point, Evidence, Explain, Develop (PEED) is an effective structure to use if you find it difficult to organise your ideas.
