Language change: how to use all three texts together

Paper 3, Question 1 is worth 25 marks, and it gives you three texts to handle at once. In the paper worked through in the video, Text A is a prose extract from 1793, your main focus. Text B is a corpus table of collocates, and Text C is an ngram graph showing how often two spellings appear in print over time. You write one essay that uses all three.

Where the marks come from

Three assessment objectives are in play. AO2 (5 marks) rewards the quality of your writing: formal register, precise vocabulary and well-organised paragraphs. AO4 (5 marks) rewards your use of theories and concepts from your wider study, but only when they are anchored to textual evidence. AO5 (15 marks) rewards data handling: selecting, analysing and synthesising material from all three texts.

AO5 is 60% of the question. It is not one section of your essay. It is the essay.

What examiners reward

The examiner report points to six things in stronger answers:

1. Integrated use of all three texts. A, B and C are three lenses on the same change, so use them together from the start.
2. Linguistic frameworks as the structure. Working through graphology, orthography, lexis, and grammar and syntax gives your answer a clear spine.
3. Theory tied directly to evidence. A theorist’s name earns marks only when it is attached to a specific feature in a specific text.
4. Precise terminology. Terms such as amelioration, broadening, compounding and medial s do real analytical work.
5. Semantic analysis of the Text B collocates, compared with how the same words are used in Text A.
6. An accurate reading of Text C, used as evidence rather than mentioned in passing.

What loses marks

Treating the texts separately. Saving Text C for a short final paragraph shows you are listing, not synthesising.

Translating instead of analysing. Rewriting Text A in modern English cannot be credited. Identify the feature and explain what it shows about how English has changed.

Misreading the long s. It looks like an f, but it is a printing convention, not a sound change. Linking it to the Great Vowel Shift is a mistake examiners have flagged.

Untethered theory. Naming a theory without linking it to a feature in the text scores nothing.

Informal register. Discourse markers such as “next up” undermine an analytical essay.

Repeating points. No extra marks are available for restating something you have already said.

A five-step strategy

1. Read all three texts before you write. As you annotate Text A, note where B or C can extend or support a point.
2. Organise by linguistic framework: graphology, orthography, lexis, then grammar and syntax.
3. Bring in B and C throughout, at the moment a feature in Text A connects to them.
4. Introduce a theorist only when you have a specific piece of evidence to attach them to.
5. Keep a formal academic register from start to finish.

Using Text B: the corpus table

A collocate is a word that appears most often next to the target word in a large body of texts. In the video’s example, Text B lists collocates of “figure” and “pattern” from the late twentieth century. “Figure” now sits beside words like “central”, “key” and “leading”, so it usually means a person of importance. “Pattern” sits beside “similar”, “general” and “basic”, so it now names an abstract arrangement. Yet in the 1793 court transcript in Text A, both words describe the design on a piece of fabric.

A weak answer simply lists the collocates. A strong one does three things: it names the semantic change (narrowing for “figure”, broadening for “pattern”), quotes the collocates as evidence, and anchors that evidence in a specific moment in Text A.

Using Text C: the ngram graph

Read the graph carefully. The vertical axis shows relative frequency, a percentage of all words printed, not raw counts, which allows for the fact that far more books were printed in 2000 than in 1800. In the video’s example, the older long-s spelling of a street name peaks around 1800 and then declines as the modern spelling rises. The crossover point is your evidence of orthographic standardisation, and a text written in 1793 sits right at the edge of it, which is why old and new conventions appear side by side.

Again, describing the trend earns little. Read it precisely, name the change, then explain the pattern with a theory.

Applying theory properly

Chen’s S-curve fits a graph like Text C: change starts slowly, spreads rapidly, then levels off once the new form dominates. Crystal’s image of language change as a tide, with old and new forms coexisting before the old one recedes, fits a text where both appear together. Aitchison’s damp spoon and crumbling castle metaphors are useful only when tied to a specific feature and what it shows about attitudes to change. The rule is always the same: evidence first, theory to explain it.

A quick checklist

Before you finish, ask yourself: Have I used all three texts, and integrated B and C throughout? Have I organised by framework? Have I quoted Text A for every point and explained, not just named, each feature? Have I tied at least one theory to evidence? Have I read the graph precisely and linked the collocates to Text A? Have I kept a formal register and avoided translating?