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Paper 2 — Language Diversity and Change — is a 2 hour 30 minute written exam worth 100 marks (40%) of the A-level. It has two sections: Section A — Diversity and Change (30 marks) and Section B — Language Discourses (70 marks). Notice the structural mirror with Paper 1: this time the second section carries the heavier 70-mark load. Section A is a single evaluative essay; Section B couples a 40-mark analysis of two language-debate texts with a 30-mark directed writing task. This paper is where the full range of Assessment Objectives comes into play — including AO4 (connections across texts) in the Section B analysis and AO5 (creativity in your own writing) in the directed writing. This lesson works through each task with model paragraphs and examiner-style commentary.
Section A is one evaluative essay worth 30 marks, chosen from a choice of two. You write either an essay on language diversity (30 marks) or an essay on language change (30 marks) — you answer one, not both. There is no data extract to analyse here; this is a discursive, knowledge-led essay in which you marshal theory, research and examples to evaluate an idea.
Example question stems:
"'Language change has improved English.' Evaluate this idea." (the change option)
"Evaluate the idea that the way people speak is shaped more by social group than by region." (the diversity option)
The essay rewards AO2 above all — critical understanding of concepts and issues — supported by AO1 terminology and the evaluative dimension of AO3 (how contextual factors shape meaning). The command word is evaluate: you must build and weigh competing positions and reach a supported judgement, not simply describe what you know.
Step 1 — Convert the statement into a question with two sides. "Language change has improved English" implies a debate (improvement vs. decline vs. neither). Your introduction should reframe the claim and signal the line you will argue.
Step 2 — Plan around arguments, not topics. Each paragraph should advance one evaluative point, supported by a named theory or study, then tested against a counter-position. Three or four well-developed arguments beat six thin ones.
Step 3 — Reach a judgement. The top band requires a genuine evaluative stance — typically a nuanced one that recognises the limits of the original claim.
Standardisation — the codifying of a standard form, advanced in English by Caxton's printing press (1476), Johnson's dictionary (1755) and Lowth's grammar (1762). Older varieties show pre-standardisation variation.
Lexical and semantic change — neologisms (new coinages such as "selfie", "blog"); archaisms (words falling from use); borrowing (French loanwords after the Norman Conquest; later borrowings from many languages); and semantic shifts: amelioration ("nice" once meant "foolish"), pejoration ("villain" once meant "farm worker"), broadening and narrowing ("meat" once meant any food).
Grammatical change — loss of inflectional endings (Old English was heavily inflected; Modern English leans on word order), regularisation of verbs, and changes in negation and question formation.
Phonological change — the Great Vowel Shift (c. 1400–1700), and sound changes fossilised in spelling (the silent /k/ in "knight").
Theories and attitudes to change — Aitchison (1991) rebuts three popular metaphors for "decline": the damp spoon (change as laziness), the crumbling castle (a once-perfect language decaying) and the infectious disease (bad usage spreading); she argues all three are misleading. Prescriptivism vs. descriptivism frames the wider debate. Halliday's functional view treats change as language adapting to users' needs; Chen's S-curve model describes how a change spreads — slow to start, then rapid, then levelling off as it becomes established.
The same evaluative discipline applies to the change material: hold each idea with a counter so your essay stages a debate rather than reciting facts.
| Concept / theorist | Claim | Evaluation / counter |
|---|---|---|
| Prescriptivism (Lowth, 1762) | There is a correct English that should be preserved | Often based on Latin-derived "rules" ill-suited to English; conflates change with decline |
| Descriptivism (Crystal) | Language naturally evolves; no variety is inherently superior | Powerful as analysis, but offers little guidance where social judgements about usage have real consequences |
| Aitchison (1991) | The "decline" metaphors (damp spoon, crumbling castle, infectious disease) are misleading | A persuasive rebuttal of prescriptivism, though it does not by itself prove change is "good" |
| Substratum / functional theories | Change is driven by contact, need and efficiency | Explains how change happens better than whether it "improves" the language |
| S-curve model | Changes spread slowly, then rapidly, then plateau | A useful descriptive pattern, not a causal explanation of why a change takes hold |
Regional and social variation — Trudgill (1974) on Norwich and covert prestige (non-standard forms carrying solidarity value); Labov (1966) on the New York department-store study and social stratification of variants.
Language and gender — Lakoff (1975) deficit model (hedges, tag questions, "empty" adjectives); Tannen (1990) difference model (status vs. support, independence vs. intimacy); O'Barr and Atkins (1980) reframing "women's language" as "powerless language" tied to status not sex; Cameron (2007) debunking the "Mars and Venus" myth.
Accommodation — Giles accommodation theory: speakers converge towards or diverge from one another to manage social distance.
World Englishes — Kachru (1985) three circles (Inner, Outer, Expanding); debates about English as a lingua franca and linguistic imperialism. Use Crystal on the global spread and vitality of English.
Because Section A is led by AO2, the marks live in evaluation. For each theory you deploy, you should be able to state the claim, the evidence, and — crucially — at least one limitation or counter-position. The table below models this for the most examined diversity figures; build the equivalent for the change concepts too.
| Theorist | Claim | Evaluation / counter |
|---|---|---|
| Lakoff (1975) | Women use "deficient", powerless features (hedges, tag questions, "empty" adjectives) | Based on intuition not systematic data; O'Barr & Atkins show the features track power, not sex |
| Tannen (1990) | Men and women have different conversational styles (status vs. support) | Risks essentialism and over-generalisation; Cameron argues the "difference" is largely a cultural myth |
| O'Barr & Atkins (1980) | "Women's language" is really "powerless language", tied to status | Courtroom-specific; may not generalise to all contexts, but powerfully reframes Lakoff |
| Cameron (2007) | Gender differences in language are exaggerated ("the myth of Mars and Venus") | A corrective rather than a denial of all difference; useful as an evaluative lens on Lakoff/Tannen |
| Trudgill (1974) | Working-class/male speakers show covert prestige for non-standard forms | Norwich-specific and dated; norms of prestige shift, so apply with care |
| Labov (1966) | Variation is socially stratified (the New York /r/ study) | Methodologically influential, but a single city at one time; replication matters |
The evaluative move in the essay is to set these against one another: Lakoff's deficit model is best assessed through O'Barr & Atkins and Cameron, so that your paragraph stages a debate rather than reciting a list. That staged debate, resolved into a judgement, is what the top band rewards.
Take the diversity prompt "Evaluate the idea that men and women use language differently." A top-band plan might run:
Every paragraph names a theory, applies it, and evaluates it; the conclusion delivers a judgement that interrogates the question itself. That is the shape of a 30-mark evaluative essay at the top of the band.
Top-band paragraph (change option):
The claim that change has "improved" English presupposes a yardstick of improvement that is far from neutral. Prescriptivist commentators tend to equate improvement with stability, treating any innovation as decay — the stance Aitchison (1991) caricatures as the "crumbling castle", the belief that English was once perfect and is now deteriorating. Yet the historical record undercuts this nostalgia: the levelling of Old English inflectional endings did not impoverish the language but shifted its grammatical work onto a more rigid, and arguably more learnable, word order. A descriptivist reading therefore reframes "improvement" as adaptation — change as the language efficiently reorganising itself to meet communicative need. The most defensible position is not that change improves or degrades English, but that "improvement" is the wrong frame altogether: it smuggles in an evaluative standard that linguistics, as a descriptive discipline, has no basis to endorse.
Examiner-style commentary: This reaches the Top-band for AO2 because it does not merely report Aitchison — it interrogates the premise of the question itself, exposing the prescriptivist assumption buried in "improved". Terminology is accurate (AO1: "inflectional endings", "word order") and the evaluation is genuinely critical, not a for/against list. A Mid-band answer would correctly summarise prescriptivism and descriptivism but then assert "so language has improved" without questioning what "improved" means.
Section A is worth 30 marks. Allow roughly 40 minutes: a few minutes choosing between the two options and planning a clear evaluative line, around 30 minutes writing three or four argued paragraphs plus a judgement, and a short review. Do not over-invest here at the expense of the 70-mark Section B.
Section B gives you two texts about a language topic — for example, two opinion pieces arguing about regional accents, or about whether "standard" English should be privileged. It has two linked tasks:
| Question | Task | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| Q(a) | Analyse how the two texts present ideas, attitudes and opinions about language | 40 |
| Q(b) | Directed writing on the same language topic | 30 |
The 40-mark analysis asks how the two discourse texts construct their viewpoints — it draws on AO1, AO3 and crucially AO4 (connections across the two texts). The 30-mark directed writing asks you to produce your own crafted text on the topic (for example an opinion article, a blog post, a letter or the text of a talk) — this is where AO5 (creativity and expertise in your own writing) is assessed, alongside the language knowledge you bring to bear.
These texts are about language — they take positions in a language debate — so you are analysing how attitudes and opinions are constructed, not just describing what is said. Read for:
Because AO4 is in play, compare the two texts in an integrated way — make a point about how attitudes are built and address both texts within the same paragraph.
A reading routine for the two discourse texts. As you read, do three things at once. First, locate each writer on the prescriptivist–descriptivist spectrum — this is usually the master variable that organises everything else. Second, mark the construction techniques (metaphor, modality, lexical loading, rhetorical questions, anecdote) rather than the content claims, since the question is about how attitudes are built. Third, note points of contact between the texts — a shared metaphor used oppositely, the same anxiety framed differently — because these contact points are where your AO4 comparison will be richest. Five minutes of this targeted reading produces a ready-made plan of three or four comparative points.
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