Language & Effect

Language & Effect

**Q2 is worth 8 marks and assesses AO2.** It asks how a writer's **language** choices work on the reader, and it is the question where the most marks are left on the table for a single reason. Candidates stop at **spotting**. "The writer uses a simile" is a true sentence that earns almost nothing, because the mark is not for noticing the technique. It is for explaining what the technique does. Three things are being tested: **word choice**, **imagery** and **sentence forms**. And the effect, every time.

The extract

Read this short passage carefully. Every question that follows works on it. *The market had swallowed the morning whole. Sana pushed between the stalls, the air thick with frying oil and the sweet rot of overripe fruit. A butcher's knife flashed down, quick as a heartbeat. Somewhere a radio wailed a song no one was listening to. Above it all, the sun hammered the tin roofs, and the whole street shimmered and swam like something about to boil over. Sana kept walking. She did not look back.*

The language toolkit

Five terms cover almost everything Q2 asks about. Learn what each one **does**, not just what it is called:

Find the loaded verb

Here is one line from the extract. Tap the VERB that makes the heat feel violent rather than merely hot.

• Above it all, the sun
• hammered
• the tin roofs, and the whole street
• shimmered
• and
• swam
• like something about to boil over.

Why that verb?

The writer chose "hammered" rather than, say, "shone". What is the EFFECT of that choice?

• It gives the heat a physical violence, so the sun feels like something being done to the street rather than weather it happens to have
• It tells the reader that the sun is out and it is a hot day
• It is a simile comparing the sun to a hammer
• It is onomatopoeia, because the word sounds like the noise a hammer makes

Find the smell

Here is another line. Tap the phrase that appeals to the reader's sense of SMELL.

• Sana pushed between the stalls,
• the air thick with frying oil and the sweet rot of overripe fruit
• .
• A butcher's knife flashed down
• ,
• quick as a heartbeat
• .

Complete the analysis

The phrase "the sweet rot of overripe fruit" appeals to the reader's sense of _____. Pairing "sweet" with "_____" is what makes it uncomfortable, because the two words pull against each other, so the market feels _____ rather than simply busy. The technique has a name: _____.

Simile or metaphor?

Pick the TWO phrases from the extract that are SIMILES.

• "quick as a heartbeat"
• "like something about to boil over"
• "the market had swallowed the morning"
• "the sun hammered the tin roofs"

Spotting, or analysing?

Here is the same quotation, "the sun hammered the tin roofs", written up two ways. Both are accurate. One of them is worth roughly a mark and the other is worth a band:

Which one scores?

Four students write about "the sun hammered the tin roofs". Which sentence would score highest on Q2?

• The verb "hammered" gives the sun a physical violence, so the heat feels like something being done to the street rather than weather it happens to have
• The writer uses the verb "hammered", which is an example of a powerful verb
• The writer uses a metaphor here, and also uses imagery, similes and short sentences elsewhere in the extract
• "Hammered" makes the reader think of a hammer, which is a tool used for driving nails into wood

The ending

The extract ends: "Sana kept walking. She did not look back." What is the effect of those two short sentences, after everything that came before them?

• Their blunt, clipped form cuts through the noise of the market and creates a sense of finality and quiet determination
• They show the writer had run out of things to describe
• They are a simile, comparing Sana to someone walking away
• They slow the pace down so the ending feels relaxed and sleepy

The shape of a Q2 point

Every point you write has the same three parts, and the third is the one people run out of time for: **1. Quote** a word or short phrase. Short: three or four words is usually enough, and a long quotation eats the time you needed for the analysis. **2. Name** the technique precisely. Verb choice, imagery, simile, metaphor, sentence form. Naming it wrongly costs you twice, because the analysis that follows is then built on it. **3. Say what it does**, and start that clause with **so that** or **which makes**. If you cannot finish the sentence, you have spotted a technique rather than analysed one. Two or three points built like that will out-score a page of technique-spotting.

Write the point

Q2 practice. In about 50 words, write ONE analytical point about the writer's use of language anywhere in this extract. Follow the shape:

• quote a word or short phrase
• name the technique precisely (verb choice, imagery, simile, metaphor, sentence form)
• explain its EFFECT on the reader, starting that part with "so that" or "which makes"

Language decoded

Q2 is worth _____ marks and asks about _____: word choice, imagery and sentence forms. Naming a technique earns almost nothing on its own, so every point has to finish with the _____ on the reader. And name techniques precisely: a simile compares using "like" or "as", while a _____ says that one thing simply is another.