English Language OCR - 'Language Under The Microscope' Structure

According to research of the OCR specification and what I've been taught, this is some advice on how to structure your answer for Q1 on Paper One: 'Language Under The Microscope'. 

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  • Created by: AGALL
  • Created on: 21-05-17 12:12

GRAMPS Analysis

  • GRAMPS: Genre, Register, Audience, Mode, Purpose, and Subject matter. 
  • The most important ones are Genre, Audience and Purpose.
  • e.g. 1st person pronouns are used because this creates a closer relationship with the audience which is because of the purpose to persuade.

OR low register because it has an audience of children.

  • This text uses..... (AO1: linguistic feature) such as.....[quotes] which helps/does.... This is created because of the genre/audience/purpose of…

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Introduction

In terms of an intro, do a brief round up:

  • What is this text?
  • Who wrote it (if provided)?
  • What's the genre?
  • Who's the audience?

Why? How do you know? 

  • What's the purpose?
  • How is the language going to be affected by the context?
  • Have you noticed any theories that can be applied? (Don't go mad with this in your intro, it can take up too much time and, in this section, AO1 and AO3 are more important) 
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Style and Tentative Language

Get yourself a default style.

Have it in your head like: 'This text is a [a] with the genre of [b] which is evident through the use of [c] and [d]. Due to the genre of the text, the purpose is most likely [e], however there is arguably the pragmatic purpose to [f]. A primary audience may be [g] and there's perhaps a secondary audience of [h].'

I underlined parts of that answer that demonstrate the tentative language

remember that this is your interpretation of the text so there's nothing certain or definite but at the same time, don't appear to doubt your own answer. So, don't say:

'This text is could be a [a] with possible the genre of [b] which is perhaps evident through the use of [c] and [d].' Because you know it's an [a] (you're given that info by the exam) and you know that if it's an [a] that the genre is [b] cus you've been studying this for two years, and even if you chose a random genre, as long as you can securely argue [c] and [d], it's right!

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Possible Sections

You're given two linguistic areas to explore for this section. It's on the specification, so make sure you write about it and make it obvious that you're writing about it.

You could start your paragraphs:

'In regards to semantics...', 'Considering grammar,...', ect.

According to the current OCR Specification, the possible areas could be:

Lexis and semantics: the vocabulary of English, including social and historical variation

Grammar, including morphology: the structural patterns and shapes of English at sentence, clause, phrase and word level

Pragmatics: the contextual aspects of language use

Discourse: extended stretches of communication occurring in different genres, modes and contexts 

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Comments

janelle_21

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Thank you so much! 

I've been looking for something like this for the longest time!

This going to help me bunch with what I include in my intro and main body.

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