Language and the self — AS & A Level English Language (9093) questions by topic
Language and the self questions present an article, such as a 2021 Guardian extract or a 2019 piece from an American public broadcaster's website, and ask you to discuss the most important issues it raises about how language shapes and reflects personal or social identity. Discuss again drives the entire task, so success depends on selecting and developing issues from the text rather than following any other command word, across a full 25-mark essay.
16 questions from 2023 to 2025 make up this page. Because responses are marked on staying tied to the specific focus rather than general language history, drafting an essay and checking it against instant marking shows whether the argument has kept to how language shapes identity, instead of drifting into unrelated background on the English language's evolution.
What examiners look for
- A recurring criticism is focusing on a single idea, such as speech discrimination, when the text offered many other ideas that could have been developed.
- Examiners note that some candidates gave irrelevant information on the evolution of the English language, such as historical invasions or standardisation, rather than addressing language's influence on identity.
- Reports flag basic responses that focused only on lexical items from the text's opening paragraph, leaving many other available ideas undeveloped.
- Strong answers, according to the reports, made a careful selection from the text to develop discussion with creative thought about how language shapes how individuals think about one another.
- Examiners praise responses that maintained an appropriate, elevated register with logically sequenced paragraphs and accurate technical terminology throughout.
May–June 2025, Paper 41
Section B: Language and the self. Read the following text, which is taken from a podcast called Ideas, broadcast by the Canadian broadcaster CBC Radio in 2021. Discuss what you…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2025, Paper 42
Read the following text, which is taken from an article on the BBC website, published in 2021. Discuss what you consider to be the most important issues raised in the text…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2025, Paper 43
Read the following text, which is an extract from an article in the American magazine The Atlantic, published in 2021. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2024, Paper 41
Read the following text, which is an extract from an article published on the Psychology Today website in 2021. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in the…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2024, Paper 42
Read the following text, which is an extract from an article published in 2019 on PBS.com, the website of an American public broadcaster. Discuss what you feel are the most…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2024, Paper 43
Read the following text, which is an article published in 2019 in a British newspaper. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in the text relating to the ways…
Answer this question and get it marked →October–November 2024, Paper 41
Section B: Language and the self. Read the following text, which is an extract from an article published in 2021 in the British newspaper The Guardian. Discuss what you feel are…
Answer this question and get it marked →October–November 2024, Paper 42
Section B: Language and the self. Read the following text, which is an extract from an article published on the website of Human Resources Online in 2022. Discuss what you feel…
Answer this question and get it marked →October–November 2024, Paper 43
Section B: Language and the self. Read the following text, which is an extract from an article published in 2021 in the British newspaper The Guardian. Discuss what you feel are…
Answer this question and get it marked →February–March 2023, Paper 42
Read the following two texts. Text A is the beginning of an article published on the Psychology Today website in 2020. Text B is an extract from an article published in 2020 on…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2023, Paper 41
Read the following text, which is an extract from an article published on the BBC website in 2021. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in the text relating…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2023, Paper 42
Read the following text, which is an extract from an interview with the author of How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do - And What It Says About You, a book published in…
Answer this question and get it marked →May–June 2023, Paper 43
Read the following text, which is an extract from an article from the Language Magazine website, published in 2019. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in…
Answer this question and get it marked →October–November 2023, Paper 41
Read the following text, which is an article from inews, a British news website. It was published in 2021. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in the text…
Answer this question and get it marked →October–November 2023, Paper 42
Read the following text, which is an article from inews, a British news website. It was published in 2021. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in the text…
Answer this question and get it marked →October–November 2023, Paper 43
Read the following text, which is an article from the Canadian newspaper, The Province. It was published in 2020. Discuss what you feel are the most important issues raised in the…
Answer this question and get it marked →