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EnglandEnglish LanguageQuick questions
Component 2: Language Change Over Time
Quick questions on English in the twenty-first century: digital and contemporary language - Eduqas A-Level English Language
6short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the language of digital communication?Show answer
Digital and online language is the heart of this question. Its features include abbreviation and initialism (lol, brb), the use of emoji and other graphics to carry tone and gesture, non-standard spelling, punctuation and capitalisation used for effect, ellipsis and informality, and new genres (the tweet, the comment thread, the group chat). The key insight is that these are rule-governed innovations, not errors: digital communication blends the written medium with spoken-like features, and its conventions are systematic.
What is a model digital-language paragraph?Show answer
"Far from corrupting English, digital communication adapts writing to a new medium through rule-governed innovation. Abbreviations such as 'brb' and the use of emoji are not failures of literacy but efficient solutions to the demands of fast, informal, interactive text: emoji supply the prosody and facial expression that writing lacks, positioning a message on the spoken end of the mode continuum. Analysing these as systematic, mode-blending innovations, rather than as errors, applies the descriptivist concepts the question rewards."
What is a model global-English paragraph?Show answer
"The claim that English is now plural rather than singular is supported by the proliferation of World Englishes: Indian English, Singaporean English and others have their own stable features and norms, functioning as standards in their own contexts. Yet a global lingua franca standard also operates in international communication, so the most defensible position is that English is pluricentric, both a global medium and a family of local varieties, rather than either one monolithic standard or pure fragmentation." This argues the pluricentric position.
What is q1?Show answer
Why is digital language better analysed as innovation than as decline? [2 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
What does it mean to call English a pluricentric language? [2 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Discuss the ways in which digital communication is changing the English language. [18 marks]
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