What is the language and power topic, and how do you argue critically about how power is created and enacted through language?
Language and power (a Component 1 Section B language issues topic): instrumental and influential power, power in occupation and institutions, the concepts (synthetic personalisation, face and politeness, power asymmetry), and how power is constructed and enacted through language, argued critically with examples (AO2, with AO1 and AO3).
How to argue the Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700) language and power topic for the Component 1 Section B language issues essay: instrumental and influential power, power in occupation and institutions, key concepts (synthetic personalisation, face, power asymmetry), and how power is constructed through language, argued critically with concepts and examples (AO2, with AO1 and AO3).
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
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What this dot point is asking
Language and power is one of the four language issues topics for the Component 1 Section B essay. It asks you to argue critically about how power is created, exercised and maintained through language: the difference between instrumental and influential power, power in occupations and institutions, and the linguistic mechanisms (control of discourse, face-work, persuasion) that enact it. This dot point covers the concepts so you can write an evidenced, critical essay rather than narrating examples of bossy language.
The answer
This topic succeeds when you argue critically about how power works in language (AO2), deploying concepts grounded in real examples (AO1 and AO3). The unifying idea is that power is not just held but enacted: it is constructed and maintained through language choices, in the directives of an institution, the discourse control of a powerful speaker, and the relationship a persuasive text builds with its audience. Your task is to read those mechanisms and argue how they create and sustain power.
Instrumental and influential power
The foundational distinction is between two kinds of power. Instrumental power is authority held by virtue of role or position, enforced directly: the law, the rules of an institution, the directives of a manager or teacher. It works through imperatives, modal obligation (must, shall), formal register and the control of discourse. Influential power is the power to persuade and influence without formal authority: advertising, political rhetoric, journalism. It works through rapport, presupposition, emotive lexis, and the construction of a relationship with the audience.
How power is enacted in discourse
In spoken and institutional contexts, power is enacted through the control of discourse. The powerful participant typically initiates and shifts topics, allocates and takes turns, can interrupt without sanction, asks the questions and issues the directives, and can impose face-threatening acts with little mitigation while others hedge. Read these discourse and pragmatic features (drawing on turn-taking and politeness theory) as the means by which power is performed in an interaction, not just as conversational habits.
Power through grammar and pragmatics
Specific language choices carry power. Imperatives and modal obligation enact instrumental authority; the passive can depersonalise and background responsibility; presupposition smuggles in assumptions the reader is led to accept; emotive and evaluative lexis steers attitude; politeness strategies manage the face-work that power asymmetry creates. Argue from these features to the power they construct, naming the mechanism each time.
Examples in context
The essay is on a set question, so the moves below are illustrative.
A model influential-power paragraph. "The advertisement exercises influential power through synthetic personalisation: the direct address ('your perfect morning starts here') and inclusive, presupposing phrasing construct a personal relationship with an anonymous mass audience, making a commercial message feel like friendly advice. There is no command, yet the reader is positioned to accept the assumed shared value (that the product improves their day), so the power operates by building rapport and presupposition rather than by instruction." This names the concept and analyses the mechanism.
A model instrumental-power paragraph. "In the institutional notice, instrumental power is enacted grammatically: the text is built from imperatives and modal obligation ('must', 'are required to'), and the formal, impersonal register and absence of any first-person voice leave no room for negotiation. The discourse offers the reader no turn and no choice, which enacts the authority of the institution directly rather than through persuasion." This argues from grammar to power.
Try this
Q1. What is the difference between instrumental and influential power? [2 marks]
- Cue. Instrumental power is authority held by role and enforced directly (directives, rules); influential power is the power to persuade and influence without formal authority (advertising, politics).
Q2. What is synthetic personalisation? [2 marks]
- Cue. Fairclough's term for constructing a fake personal relationship between a text and a mass audience, through direct address, inclusive pronouns, friendly register and assumed shared values.
Q3. Discuss how those in positions of authority use language to exercise and maintain power. [18 marks]
- What the marker wants. A critical argument (AO2) deploying the power concepts (instrumental and influential power, discourse control, face, synthetic personalisation) grounded in examples (AO1, AO3), weighing the mechanisms and reaching a conclusion.
A note on the topic
This guide is AI-written and not individually human-reviewed. The set topics, the choice of essay questions and the mark scheme are set by Eduqas; confirm them against the current A700 specification and sample materials, and read widely on language and power (Fairclough, politeness theory, institutional discourse) to build the conceptual range the essay rewards.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of WJEC Eduqas exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Eduqas A700 Component 1 2020, Section B18 marksLanguage and Power: discuss how those in positions of authority use language to exercise and maintain power. [language issues essay; out of 40]Show worked answer →
Component 1 Section B is the language issues essay, marked out of 40 for AO2 (critical understanding) with AO1 and AO3. This question is on the language and power topic.
A strong answer deploys the power concepts critically: the distinction between instrumental power (held by virtue of role, enforced through directives and rules) and influential power (persuasion, advertising, politics), and the means by which power operates in language, face-threatening acts and politeness, control of discourse (turn-taking, topic, interruption), modality and imperatives, and Fairclough's synthetic personalisation. Each concept is applied to examples.
The discipline is to argue, not list: show how authority is enacted and maintained through specific language choices, weigh different mechanisms, and ground the argument in examples (institutional talk, advertising, political rhetoric). Reward conceptual range applied to evidence; penalise a list of power terms with no argument.
Eduqas A700 Component 1 2022, Section B18 marksLanguage and Power: 'Advertising exercises power not by command but by creating a relationship with the reader.' Discuss. [language issues essay; out of 40]Show worked answer →
This Section B essay focuses on influential power in advertising. It rewards AO2 (critical understanding), with AO1 and AO3 on examples.
A strong answer engages Fairclough's synthetic personalisation, the construction of a fake interpersonal relationship with a mass audience through direct address, inclusive pronouns and a friendly register, and contrasts influential power (persuasion, relationship-building) with instrumental power (command). It analyses how advertising builds rapport, assumes shared values, and positions the reader, using modality, pronouns and presupposition.
For the argument, evaluate the claim that advertising's power is relational rather than coercive, with examples, and reach a position. Reward critical application of the influential-power concepts; weaker answers describe adverts without analysing the relationship they construct or naming the mechanism.
Related dot points
- Pragmatics: implied meaning, Grice's maxims and implicature, speech acts, politeness and face, deixis and shared knowledge, and the move from a pragmatic feature to its effect on meaning (AO1, AO2 and AO3 across the Eduqas A700 components).
How to analyse meaning beyond the literal for Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700): implicature and Grice's maxims, speech acts, politeness and face, deixis and shared knowledge, and the move from a pragmatic feature to its effect, central to the spoken transcript analysis in Component 1 and to the language and power and situation topics.
- Grammar (morphology and syntax): word formation and inflection, word classes, phrases and clauses, sentence types and functions, mood and voice, and the move from a grammatical feature to its effect on meaning (AO1 and AO3 across the Eduqas A700 components).
How to analyse a text or spoken transcript at the level of grammar for Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700): morphology and word formation, word classes, phrases and clauses, sentence types and functions, mood and voice, and the move from a grammatical feature to its effect on meaning, central to AO1 and AO3 across all four components.
- Discourse: whole-text structure and organisation, cohesion (referencing, conjunction, lexical cohesion), and the structure of spoken interaction (turn-taking, adjacency pairs, openings and closings, repair), and the move from a discourse feature to its effect (AO1 and AO3 across the Eduqas A700 components).
How to analyse a text or spoken transcript at the level of discourse for Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700): whole-text structure, cohesion (referencing, conjunction, lexical cohesion), and the structure of conversation (turn-taking, adjacency pairs, openings, closings, repair), and the move from a discourse feature to its effect, central to AO1 and AO3 in the Component 1 spoken analysis.
- The spoken language question (Component 1 Section A): analysing at least two transcriptions of real spoken language across the linguistic frameworks, reading transcript notation, and moving from feature to effect to construct an argument about the talk (AO1 and AO3).
How to answer the Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700) Component 1 Section A spoken language question: analysing at least two transcripts of real talk across the frameworks, reading the transcript's notation, and moving from feature to effect to build an argument about the interaction, the core AO1 and AO3 task of the paper.
- Language and situation (a Component 1 Section B language issues topic): register and how context shapes language, the field, tenor and mode of discourse, the spoken-written continuum, formality and audience, and how situational factors construct meaning, argued critically with concepts and examples (AO2, with AO1 and AO3).
How to argue the Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700) language and situation topic for the Component 1 Section B language issues essay: register, field, tenor and mode, the spoken-written continuum, formality and audience, and how context shapes language, argued critically with concepts and examples (AO2, with AO1 and AO3).
Sources & how we know this
- Eduqas A-Level English Language (A700) specification — Eduqas (2015)
- Eduqas A-Level English Language sample assessment materials — Eduqas (2017)