Non-Fiction Language Lab
The 15-mark language question on a non-fiction text. Find the technique, quote it, explain what it does to the reader, and say why the writer wanted that.
Use it, the way the marks are given
Free interactive practice at using the material, which is what the marks are for.
Start revising freeWhat you'll cover
Fifteen marks for language
In Component 2 Section A you read two unseen non-fiction texts. Question 3 is worth 15 marks and asks one thing: how does the writer use LANGUAGE in a given part of Text 1? It is not a hunt for technical terms. The marks are for showing what the words do to the reader, and why a writer with a purpose would want that. This module works on one original extract all the way through.
What to look for
Non-fiction leans on a different toolkit from a novel. These are the ones that come up again and again:
The extract
Here is the opening of a piece of travel writing about swimming in the sea before work. Read it, then tap the SIMILE.
- Every morning at six, the sea is
- the colour of an unwashed window
- . I stand on the shingle in
- a dressing gown that has seen better decades
- , and I ask myself the same question:
- why?
- Nobody is watching. Nobody is impressed. The water is four degrees and
- it hates me
What does it do?
The sea is "the colour of an unwashed window". What is the effect of choosing that comparison?
- It makes the sea sound grubby and ordinary, refusing to romanticise it
- It makes the sea sound beautiful and inviting
- It shows that the writer knows how to use a simile
- It tells the reader exactly what the weather was that day
The bit fiction does not need
This is where non-fiction analysis differs from analysing a novel. A non-fiction writer has a purpose: to persuade, to inform, to entertain, to argue, or several at once. So finish every point with the purpose link. Not "the simile makes the sea sound grubby" but "the simile makes the sea sound grubby, so the reader trusts a writer who is not selling them a postcard". The effect earns the mark; the purpose link is what pushes the answer up a band.
Match each technique to what it does to the reader
- Direct address: "You should try it"
- Rhetorical question: "why?"
- Personification: "it hates me"
- Short sentences: "Nobody is watching. Nobody is impressed."
- Turns the reader into someone being invited, almost dared
- Makes the reader supply the answer, so the doubt becomes theirs
- Turns the cold into an opponent with a grudge, which is funnier than "very cold"
- Lands the point flatly, with no room to argue
Two at once
The extract says: "I stand on the shingle in a dressing gown that has seen better decades." Select the TWO things the writer is doing here.
- Using self-mocking humour, at their own expense
- Twisting a familiar phrase, since we expect "better days"
- Using a statistic to prove a point
- Using emotive language to make the reader angry
The turn at the end
The extract finishes like this. Tap the moment where the writer speaks straight to YOU.
- And yet, thirty seconds after I go under,
- something switches on behind my ribs
- , and for the rest of the day the world is
- slightly, stubbornly brighter
- .
- You should try it.
- You will hate me at first.
Same quotation, two answers
Both of these students spotted the same thing. Only one of them is being paid for it.
Build the paragraph
Put the parts of a strong Question 3 paragraph into the order that scores best.
- Name what the writer is doing, in your own words
- Give a short quotation as the evidence
- Explain the effect that has on the reader
- Link that effect to the writer's purpose
- Zoom in on one word in the quotation and squeeze it further
Which one scores?
Which sentence is doing the analysis Question 3 rewards?
- The adverbs "slightly, stubbornly" hold back the claim, so the reader believes the small change rather than suspecting a sales pitch
- The writer uses adverbs in this sentence, which is effective
- The writer says that the world seems brighter for the rest of the day after the swim
- This part of the text made me feel quite cold and I did not enjoy it
The frame
A reliable shape for every point: the writer uses _____, shown in a short _____, which makes the reader _____, because the purpose of the piece is to _____. Then narrow it down to a single _____.
Write one paragraph
Write one analysis paragraph about the final two sentences of the extract: "You should try it. You will hate me at first." Analyse how the writer uses language there.
- Name what the writer is doing, without leaning on a list of terms
- Quote briefly, no more than a few words
- Explain the effect on the reader, not just what the words mean
- Link that effect to the writer's purpose in the piece
- Finish by zooming in on one word and explaining that word alone