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EnglandEnglish Language & LiteratureQuick questions
Component 01: Exploring non-fiction and spoken texts
Quick questions on Analysing non-fiction language: rhetoric, voice and persuasion - OCR A-Level English Language and Literature
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 rhetoric?Show answer
Classical rhetoric still names the persuasive appeals precisely. Ethos (credibility) is built through register, credentials, and a reasonable or authoritative persona. Pathos (emotion) is built through emotive lexis, vivid imagery and direct address. Logos (reason) is built through evidence, statistics and logical structure.
What is grammatical positioning?Show answer
Grammar positions the reader. Mood (imperatives that direct, interrogatives that engage, declaratives that assert) sets the writer-reader relationship. Modality (high-certainty modals that assert, hedges that qualify) builds confidence or caution. Person (the inclusive "we", the buttonholing "you") includes or addresses the reader.
What are a constructed ethos?Show answer
"The columnist builds authority not by claiming it but by register: the controlled, evidence-citing prose and the impersonal third person perform a detachment that reads as objectivity, so the reader trusts the voice as disinterested even as it argues a position. Because the genre is the comment piece, where naked advocacy would seem partisan, the restrained register does the persuasive work that emotion would in a speech." Ethos read as constructed, against genre.
What is q1?Show answer
What is the cardinal rule for analysing non-fiction? [2 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
How is ethos constructed in non-fiction? [2 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Compare how two non-fiction texts construct a persuasive voice, exploring contexts. [32 marks]
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