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The language levels toolkit (linguistic methods)
Quick questions on Lexis and semantics: analysing word choice and meaning - OCR A-Level English Language
8short 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 lexical toolkit?Show answer
A handful of tools cover most lexical analysis, and naming them precisely is the AO1 foundation.
What is move from feature to effect?Show answer
The single habit that separates bands is the move from feature to effect. Identifying a feature ("there is a semantic field of conflict") earns AO1; explaining what it does to meaning earns AO3. Each point should name the choice, quote the word or words, and read the effect for the audience, purpose and context.
What is tie lexis to context (AO3)?Show answer
AO3 is about the construction of meaning through contextual factors. A lexical choice means something because of the text's audience, purpose, mode and genre. The same word, "cheap", is positive in an advert (a bargain) and negative in a review (shoddy). Always read the lexical feature against the context the text inhabits, rather than as if words carried fixed values.
What is a model lexis paragraph?Show answer
"The article builds a semantic field of disease around the policy, with 'symptom', 'spreading' and 'cure' clustering across the opening, which frames a political problem as something pathological and contagious. Because the piece is a persuasive opinion column, the field does evaluative work: it positions the policy as a threat to be contained, and the medical lexis lends the writer's stance an air of diagnosis rather than opinion." This names the feature (semantic field), quotes, and reads the effect against audience and purpose.
What is a weak paragraph upgraded?Show answer
A feature-spotting answer might write "The writer uses lots of adjectives and a semantic field of money." Upgraded, it becomes analytical: the dense run of evaluative adjectives ("reckless", "staggering", "ruinous") loads the financial semantic field with judgement, so a reader is steered to read the spending as not merely large but irresponsible.
What is q1?Show answer
What is the difference between connotation and denotation? [2 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Why does naming a semantic field with no comment on effect score poorly? [2 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Analyse how a text uses lexical and semantic choices to convey attitude towards its subject. [10 marks]