Paper 3 Question 1
Text A is an excerpt from the book Advice to a Young Man upon First going to Oxford: In ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew, by Edward Berens. This text was written in 1832, in that day of age, their use of english words were in a more formal tone than what it is today. Phrases like “are apt to be and words like “tiresome” were used throughout the 1800s and 1900s, until english became more experimental and less formal. The usage of these phrases and words decreased and replaced with words like ‘likely to be’ and ‘boring’.
Text C is an n-gram showing the evolution of formality in english using the same phrases ‘are abt to be’ and ‘are likely to be’, along with with ‘tend to be’ as well. ‘Likely to be’ and ‘abt to be’ were used about the same until the 1920s and ‘likely to be’ became more favored. However by 1960 ‘tend to be’ increased rapidly and had a spike in 2000. ‘Likely to be” also had a spike at the same time but wasn’t as much as ‘tend to be’. As for ‘abt to be’ it decreased in usage in the 1960s. This is an example of the S-model. Where one word increases and the other decreases as people switch which word or phrase they want to use.
In addition to the words itself, the organization of the words changes its formality. From text A, “... nothing can well as be less interesting to those,” might sound like, “they would find it less interesting than nothing…’ in modern english. Syntax is the word at play when it comes to re-arranging words.
For text B, it’s a chart that shows five commonly used adjectives for the words ‘taste’ and ‘judgement’ thought 1980 and 1993. Three of the words used for taste, ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘bitter’, are still used nowadays, however ‘personal’ and ‘first’ aren’t used in that way anymore. This was the use of semantics. The change from ‘personal’ and ‘first’ being used as adjectives for taste to being used for describing something private and sequence. This is an example of pragmatics, how the context of the words and phrases are used to affect their meaning. Personal is used as a word for ‘private’ and ‘first’ is used in regards of order or sequence. As for ‘judgement’ the only words that stand out as odd are ‘clinical’ and ‘dissenting’. ‘Clinical’ started to rise in popularity in the 1800s and still rising. As for dissenting, it’s not as used as final or professional and is on the path of decreasing in use.
Text C is an n-gram showing the evolution of formality in english using the same phrases ‘are abt to be’ and ‘are likely to be’, along with with ‘tend to be’ as well. ‘Likely to be’ and ‘abt to be’ were used about the same until the 1920s and ‘likely to be’ became more favored. However by 1960 ‘tend to be’ increased rapidly and had a spike in 2000. ‘Likely to be” also had a spike at the same time but wasn’t as much as ‘tend to be’. As for ‘abt to be’ it decreased in usage in the 1960s. This is an example of the S-model. Where one word increases and the other decreases as people switch which word or phrase they want to use.
In addition to the words itself, the organization of the words changes its formality. From text A, “... nothing can well as be less interesting to those,” might sound like, “they would find it less interesting than nothing…’ in modern english. Syntax is the word at play when it comes to re-arranging words.
For text B, it’s a chart that shows five commonly used adjectives for the words ‘taste’ and ‘judgement’ thought 1980 and 1993. Three of the words used for taste, ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘bitter’, are still used nowadays, however ‘personal’ and ‘first’ aren’t used in that way anymore. This was the use of semantics. The change from ‘personal’ and ‘first’ being used as adjectives for taste to being used for describing something private and sequence. This is an example of pragmatics, how the context of the words and phrases are used to affect their meaning. Personal is used as a word for ‘private’ and ‘first’ is used in regards of order or sequence. As for ‘judgement’ the only words that stand out as odd are ‘clinical’ and ‘dissenting’. ‘Clinical’ started to rise in popularity in the 1800s and still rising. As for dissenting, it’s not as used as final or professional and is on the path of decreasing in use.
Hey Zoie,
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that I had noticed about your blog was your drawn conclusions. To better explain what I mean I need to recall to your first paragraph where you explained the time period's unique formality in writing. You followed this up by writing "The usage of these phrases and words decreased and replaced with words like ‘likely to be’ and ‘boring’." This transition from saying there is a change to what specifically it is, and in turn skipping the middle ground of explaining why it's changed is where I found the issue. Next time, I suggest that you explain why this change happened between the two statements. This skipping around continued after explaining Text C where you drew reference to the S-Model but failed to explain what said S-Model was all about. Cambridge is looking not only for your understanding of theories and concepts as such, but to explain what they are to the grader as well. These examples showed a limited understanding of, but generally appropriate reference to, linguistic issues, concepts, methods and/or approaches. AO4 will be 2/5.
What I would like to touch on next is AO2. The content is mostly relevant; ideas are developed in a limited manner. This is clear in your limited selection of buzzwords, theories, and explanations behind the linguistic changes you did point out. Your expression is clear but may not flow easily, with frequent errors which generally do not impede communication. An example error in your paper was your misquotation of Text C when you wrote "‘Likely to be’ and ‘abt to be’ were used..." This misspelling of "abt to be" could mislead readers of earlier language that has the higher possibility of including odd wordage like "abt". For AO2 I believe 2/5 is the appropriate marking.
As for AO5 I think this was your best section of criteria. Through clear and appropriate selection of language data from at least two sources. This is shown in your variance of information from both Text A and B as well as Text C. However as I have said before, a limited analysis of language data with some attempt to synthesis data from sources of language data. AO5 6/15.
Overall, I believe that you would have largely benefitted from longer and more thorough planning with a brush up on language change theories. This would bring your paper up to a solid level 3 or higher.
10/25
Dear Zoie,
ReplyDeleteFor the AO2 part of grading you scored 3 marks. The reason that I gave you that score is because you had a clear expression and you kinda tried but you had occasional errors. Examples of that are spelling, adding in words, and not using the correct quotation marks. For instance when you spell the word judgment, you spell the word “judgement”. Another spelling error that you made was spelling word ‘apt’ like “abt” when it is in the text. Another error that you made was using different quotation marks when quoting the text, this is from your paper; ‘Likely to be”, and “are apt to be and words like… In those two examples you used two different quotation marks for the first one, then you didn't even end on the second phrase that you were trying to quote.
For the AO4 I give you two marks. The reason that I give you two marks is because you had a very limited understanding and a general approach to the prompts. You attempted to make references to linguistic choices or methods but failed. For instance you used one word that was on the checklist, Scalia posted the night before the blog was due, the word was ‘syntax’. But that was the only buzz word that you used. Out of all the theories you could use you only used one of them, in my opinion there were a lot more. That could've been used in this prompt and you really just didn't expand enough when connecting your thoughts.
In section AO5 I gave you 4 marks because you had a limited appropriate understanding when talking and explaining the texts. The reason why it's not a basic understanding of the text is because you did understand the theory that you used, you at least try to work it into your point. However, you did have a limited analysis when talking about the data and the resources that you gave. The reason I say that is because You talked about all three texts but you did it leak them together. Paragraph one is about text A, paragraph two is about taxt C, and the last one is about text B. You did attempt to cite evidence you just didn't link it together.
In the end you end up 9 marks. Keep working!!!
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI think that you have done very well on this blog. The first thing I noticed was the use of ‘apt to be’ multiple times. I think that you did not need to use this example so many times and could have used many other words to get the same point across. You had done a good job of using all of the texts that you were given but I think that you could have used theories and used them to back up your writing. I did not see too many buzzwords but you did use a lot of examples in the text but I think that they could have varied a little more. For AO2 I would give you 2 marks. For AO4 I would also give you 2 marks. Lastly, for AO5 I would give you 6 marks. Overall that's 10 marks. Great job!
AO2: The expression was clear but may not flow easily, with frequent errors which generally do not impede communication. For example, “an example of the S-model.”. The content was mostly relevant, however the ideas were developed in a limited manner. I gave you three marks.
ReplyDeleteAO4: Limited understanding of, but generally appropriate reference to, linguistic issues, concepts, methods and approaches. For example “This is an example of pragmatics” and “the organization of the words changes its formality.”.
AO5: There was limited and generally appropriate selection of language data. Dor example “n-gram showing the evolution of formality in english” and “Phrases like “are apt to be and words like “tiresome” were used”. As well as limited analysis of language data. It often felt as though your analysis was more of a summary of the texts provided to you, rather than going further indepth and linking the details. Because of this there was only some attempt to evidence from sources of language data.