analytical essay metalanguage

Metalanguage in Linguistics

Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

"I know this is a silly question before I ask it, but can you Americans speak any other language besides​  English ?" (Kruger, Inglourious Basterds ).

Metalanguage is the language used to talk about language. Terminology and forms associated with this field are called metalinguistic . The term metalanguage was originally used by linguist Roman Jakobson and other Russian Formalists.

The language under study is called the object language and the language being used to make assertions about it is the metalanguage. In the quote above, the object language is English.

English as the Object and Metalanguage

A single language can function as both an object language and a metalanguage at the same time. This is the case when English speakers examine English. "English speakers, of course, do not study only foreign languages; they also study their own language. When they do, the object language and the metalanguage are one and the same. In practice, this works quite well. Given some grasp of basic English, one can understand a grammar text written in English," (Simpson 2008).

Language Shifts

There are times when speakers will begin a conversation in one language only to realize that another language would be much more appropriate. Often, when individuals realize that a language switch is necessary mid-conversation for the sake of collective understanding, they use metalanguage to orchestrate it. Elizabeth Traugott goes into this further using literature as a frame of reference.

"When languages other than English are represented mainly in English [in fiction], with sporadic shifts to the real language, little metalanguage is usually involved (one of the problems with Hemingway's use of Spanish is his overuse of metalanguage, particularly translation ). However, when situations arise within the action of the story that involve language-switch, metalanguage is typical. It is obviously necessary when both languages are being represented in English. Page cites a particularly clever use of metalanguage totally incorporated in the conversation:

'She speaks French?' 'Not a word.' 'She understands it?' 'No.' 'One may then speak plainly in her presence?' 'Doubtless.'

but only after lengthy preparation through mixed use of English and ' broken English ' to set the linguistic frame of reference," (Traugott 1981).

Metalinguistic Awareness

The following excerpt, from Patrick Hartwell's essay "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar," details the ability to dissect the processes and features of language objectively and from many perspectives known as metalinguistic awareness. "The notion of metalinguistic awareness seems crucial. The sentence below, created by Douglas R. Hofstadter ('Metamagical Themes,' Scientific American , 235, No. 1 [1981], 22-32), is offered to clarify that notion; you are invited to examine it for a moment or two before continuing.

• Their is four errors in this sentance. Can you find them?

Three errors announce themselves plainly enough, the misspellings of there and sentence and the use of is instead of are . (And, just to illustrate the perils of hyperliteracy, let it be noted that, through three years of drafts, I referred to the choice of is and are as a matter of ' subject-verb agreement .')

The fourth error resists detection until one assesses the truth value of the sentence itself—the fourth error is that there are not four errors, only three. Such a sentence (Hofstadter calls it a 'self-referencing sentence') asks you to look at it in two ways, simultaneously as statement and as linguistic artifact—in other words, to exercise metalinguistic awareness," (Patrick Hartwell, "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar." College English , Feb. 1985).

Foreign Language Learning

Metalinguistic awareness is an acquired skill. Michel Paradis argues that this skill is related to foreign language learning. "The fact that metalinguistic knowledge never becomes implicit linguistic competence does not mean that it is useless for the acquisition of a second/foreign language. Metalinguistic awareness obviously helps one learn a language; in fact, it is a prerequisite. But it may also help one acquire it, albeit only indirectly," (Paradis 2004).

Metaphors and Metalanguage

Metalanguage closely resembles a literary device that references one object in the abstract by equating it to another: the metaphor. Both these and metalanguage function in the abstract as tools for comparison. "We are so immersed in our own metalanguage," says Roger Lass, "that we may not notice (a) that it is much more metaphorical than we think, and (b) how important ... metaphors are as devices for framing our thinking," ( Historical Linguistics and Language Change , 1997).

Metalanguage and the Conduit Metaphor

The conduit metaphor is a class of metaphors used to talk about communication, much in the same way that metalanguage is a class of language used to talk about language.

"In his groundbreaking study ["The Conduit Metaphor," 1979] [Michael J.] Reddy examines the ways in which English speakers communicate about language, and identifies the conduit metaphor as central. In fact, he argues, using the conduit metaphor actually influences our thinking about communication. We can hardly avoid using these metaphors in talking about our communication with others; for example, I think I'm getting your point. I can't grasp what you're saying. Our metaphors indicate that we reify ideas and that these ideas move between people, sometimes getting twisted out of recognition, or taken out of context," (Fiksdal 2008).

The Metalinguistic Vocabulary of Natural Languages

In linguistic, a natural language is any language that has developed organically and has not been artificially constructed. John Lyons explains why these languages contain their own metalanguages. "[I]t is a commonplace of philosophical semantics that natural languages (in contrast with many non-natural, or artificial, languages) contain their own metalanguage : they may be used to describe, not only other languages (and language in general), but also themselves. The property by virtue of which a language may be used to refer to itself (in whole or in part) I will call reflexivity . ...

[I]f we are aiming for precision and clarity, English, like other natural languages, cannot be used for metalinguistic purposes without modification. As far as the metalinguistic vocabulary of natural languages is concerned, there are two kinds of modification open to us: regimentation and extension . We can take existing everyday words, such as 'language,' 'sentence,' 'word,' 'meaning,' or 'sense,' and subject them to strict control (i.e., regiment their use), defining them or re-defining them for our own purposes (just as physicists re-define 'force' or 'energy' for their specialized purposes). Alternatively, we can extend the everyday vocabulary by introducing into it technical terms which are not normally used in everyday conversations," (Lyons 1995).

• Fiksdal, Susan. "Metaphorically Speaking: Gender and Classroom Discourse."  Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems . Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
• Hartwell, Patrick. "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar." College English , vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 105-127., Feb. 1985.
• Inglourious Basterds. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Universal Pictures, 2009.
• Lyons, John. Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction . Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Paradis, Michel. A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism . John Benjamins Publishing, 2004.
• Simpson, R. L. Essentials of Symbolic Logic . 3rd ed., Broadview Press, 2008.
• Traugott, Elizabeth C. “The Voice of Varied Linguistic and Cultural Groups in Fiction: Some Criteria for the Use of Language Varieties in Writing.”  Writing: The Nature, Development, and Teaching of Written Communication , vol. 1, Routledge, 1981.
• What Is a Conduit Metaphor?
• Interlanguage Definition and Examples
• The Definition and Examples of Folk Linguistics
• An Introduction to Semantics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Definition and Examples of Corpora in Linguistics
• Prescriptivism
• What Is Dialect Prejudice?
• English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
• What Is Entailment in Semantics?
• Why Grammar Is a Timeless Subject to Study and Teach
• Linguistic Performance
• Appropriateness in Communication
• What Is Linguistic Functionalism?
• Definition and Examples of Grammaticality
• Generative Grammar: Definition and Examples

Concept and Form : The Cahiers pour l’Analyse and Contemporary French Thought

• TRANSLATIONS
• ABBREVIATIONS

You are here: Home / Concepts / Metalanguage

This project is funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research grant and is supported by the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) and Kingston University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences .

Metalanguage La métalangage

In the inaugural essay of the Cahiers pour l’Analyse , Jacques Lacan took up the concept of metalanguage developed in twentieth century logic by Alfred Tarski and Bertrand Russell . Subsequent contributions to the journal, in pursuit of a formalised approach to the theory of discourse , would explore the merits of the concept of metalanguage, and assess its applicability to the field of psychoanalysis .

• Formalisation ,
• Stratification ,

Linguists describe as ‘metalanguage’ any form of language that refers to the properties and operations of language itself. Rather than denote an object or communicate a meaning , for example, metalinguistic discourse refers to the process through which language denotes or communicates; rather than communicate a meaning, it aims to explain how such communication proceeds, or helps to ensure that it is successful. Familiar metalinguistic expressions include phrases like ‘in other words’, ‘so to speak’, ‘I mean’, ‘do you know what I mean?’, etc. Roman Jakobson included the metalinguistic as one of five general functions of language, along with the referential, emotive, conative, phatic, and poetic. The metalinguistic function is concerned with the status of the ‘linguistic code’ itself, rather than the use of that code to refer to an object, issue a command, etc. 1

In modern logic , a metalanguage is typically contrasted with an ‘object language’. The distinction was developed by the Polish mathematician, logician, and philosopher Alfred Tarski in a 1933 article titled ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’. Tarski’s goal was to provide a way for logicians to think through those instances wherein language is being used to talk about language itself and standard models of external reference do not apply. By applying the distinction between object language and a hierarchy of metalanguages, Tarski believed that formalised logic could avoid paradoxes of self-reference and serve as a reliable framework for the physical sciences. The basic distinction between object- and meta-language is nevertheless readily expressed in natural languages. In the sentence, ‘In French, you say bonjour to say hello to someone’, English is the metalanguage and French is the ‘object language’. Or consider the following two sentences: ‘Paris is the capital of France’, and ‘“Paris” is the name of the capital of France’. In this example, the distinction between metalanguage and ‘object language’ is not between two different tongues, it is instead internal to the grammar itself: in this first sentence, there is no metalanguage/‘object-language’ distinction, whereas in the second, we are effectively using language to talk about language. In general, we use metalanguage in Tarski’s sense whenever we put scare quotes around something we say.

Tarski’s distinction would be of crucial importance to Bertrand Russell , who used it in his own effort to defend his hierarchical ‘theory of types’ (Cf. CpA 10.4 ) and in his introduction to Ludwig Wittgenstein ’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus . For Russell, Tarski’s theory provided a possible escape from Wittgenstein’s claim that syntax itself can only ever be ‘shown’ and never expressed in words. 2 Russell added a twist to the sense of ‘object language’ in his 1940 William James lectures (later published as An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth ) when he used the expression to refer to a kind of ‘primary language’ that served as a lower limit for language as such. For Russell, it was self-evident that an ascending hierarchy of languages had no upper limit. By contrast, the hierarchy could not extend indefinitely ‘downward, since, if it did, language could never get started.’ 3 Later on, Russell defined this ‘primary’ or ‘object language’ as ‘a language consisting wholly of “object-words”, where “object-words” are defined, logically, as words having meaning in isolation, and, psychologically, as words which have been learnt without its being necessary to have previously learnt any other words.’ 4

According to Dylan Evans, ‘ Lacan ’s first reference to metalanguage comes in 1956, when he echoes Jakobson’s view on the metalinguistic function of all language: “All language implies a metalanguage, it’s already a metalanguage of its own register”’. 5 By 1960, however, Lacan had come round to what would remain his subsequent view when he argued, referring to ‘the conception of the Other as the locus of the signifier’, that ‘no authoritative statement has any other guarantee here than its very enunciation, since it would be pointless for the statement to seek it in another signifier, which could in no way appear outside that locus. I formulate this by saying that there is no metalanguage that can be spoken, or, more aphoristically, that there is no Other of the Other. And when the Legislator (he who claims to lay down the Law) comes forward to make up for this, he does so as an impostor.’ 6 A few years later, in 1964, Lacan considered the question again, precisely in the light of Russell’s approach to logic. In the second session of his Seminar XII (9 December 1964), attended by many of the normaliens who were later to contribute to the Cahiers , Lacan directly referenced Russell’s An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth :

You will see there that by questioning things from the angle of this pure logic, Bertrand Russell conceives of language as a superimposition, a scaffolding, an indeterminate number of metalanguages. Each propositional level is subordinated to the control or to the correction of a higher-order proposition, where it is put in question as a first proposition […]. I think that this work, like any other by Bertrand Russell, is exemplary, in the fact that taking to its final term what I would call the very possibility of a metalanguage, he shows its absurdity precisely in the following: that the fundamental affirmation from which we begin here, and without which there would not be, in effect, any problem about the relationships between language and thought, between language and the subject, is the fact that there is no metalanguage. Every approach including structural linguistics is secondary, at a loss, compared to the first and pure use of language. Every logical development, whatever it may be, presumes at the origin the language from which it is detached […]. Mr. Bertrand Russell, to compose his language, made up of the scaffolding, of the Babel-like edifice of metalanguages, one on top of the other, thought that there must be a foundation; so he invented object-language. There must be a level, unfortunately nobody is able to grasp it, where language is in itself pure object. I defy you to put forward a single conjunction of signifiers which could have that function (2nd session, 9 December 1964, 13).

Lacan’s criticism of Russell posed a problem for the thinkers of the Cahiers pour l’Analyse , who were in search of principles for a general theory of discourse. Jacques-Alain Miller approaches the problem of metalanguage most directly in his key essay ‘Action de la structure’ ( CpA 9.6 ), and he takes up the issue in other essays also written during the Cahiers period, but not published until the 1970s. Questions related to the possibility of metalanguage and its viability as a concept arguably inform many of the debates about formalisation and the relation between science and ideology in the Cahiers .

In the Cahiers pour l’Analyse

In the first text of the first issue, ‘La Science et la vérité’ ( CpA 1.1 ), Lacan condenses and restates the critique of metalanguage in Seminar XII in the context of his ideas about the nature of truth . For Lacan, truth is not something spoken ‘of’ in a derivative or ‘meta-’ way; rather, it functions as the ‘ cause ’ of speech. In speech, regardless of intention or conscious will, it is truth itself that speaks; truth cannot be ‘spoken of’ in a metalanguage, but is rather ‘spoken’ through the symptoms that punctuate speech. Lacan is emphatic in his judgment: ‘there is no such thing as metalanguage (an assertion made so as to situate all of logical positivism), no language able to say the truth about truth, since truth is grounded in the fact that truth speaks, and that it has no other means by which to become grounded’ ( CpA 1.1:18 ). Lacan then attributes the ‘traps of metalanguage, as sham and logic’ to ‘a lack of truth about truth’, that is, a ‘primal repression’ of this truth itself that allows for the ascending hierarchy of illusory metalanguages ( CpA 1.1:19 ).

Jacques-Alain Miller refers to Lacan’s criticism of the concept of metalanguage in his ‘La Suture: Éléments d’un logique du signifiant’ ( CpA 1.3:46n ). Miller’s suggestion that Frege generates the sequence of whole numbers out of a ‘primal repression’ of lack that attributes to the concept of ‘non-identical to itself’ the mark of zero recalls Lacan’s critique of metalanguage in ‘La Science et la vérité’; both Lacan and Miller identify a covering over of an originary lack that allows for the possibility, and proliferation, of ‘science’ itself as a discourse. However, Miller’s commitment to the project of a general theory of discourse (as evidenced in ‘Action de la structure’ ( CpA 9.6 ) oblige him to reject the sceptical implications of Lacan’s position and to find some means to defend a contemporary doctrine of science .

The term ‘metalanguage’ will resurface in François Regnault ’s ‘Dialectique d’épistémologies’ ( CpA 9.4 ) wherein the problematic of science ’s relation to epistemology is expressed in such terms. ‘Were it to be objected that […] we prejudge the nature of epistemology by defining it as discourse on science’, Regnault writes, ‘we would repeat that, if the model is well made and considers the cases of science’s existence as well as non-existence , its unity as well as multiplicity , we will have effectively neutralised the danger of presupposition: if science disappears, as being and as one, there certainly remains this subordination to this Unding of the discourse that says it, but at the same time the relation is reduced to the minimum, i.e. to indetermination. […] This is to limit the presuppositions to nothing, except to the relation of a metalanguage to a language, whence the following sole postulate: every statement on science (or the sciences) belongs to what we will call epistemology, a domain defined by these statements’ ( CpA 9.4:52 ).

In his comments in ‘Action de la structure’ ( CpA 9.6 ) on the possibility of a doctrine of science , Jacques-Alain Miller attempts to provide a consistent theory of discourse that can both account for the possibility of closure in scientific theories while still attributing some form of lack to science. Miller proposes an anonymous ‘doctrine of science’ that can take account of the foreclosive character of science, as well as the sutures of ideological discourse. In the 1968 Appendix to the piece, Miller turns to the work of J.G. Fichte for an account of the fundamental properties of such a doctrine or Wissenschaftslehre . The key to the doctrine of science, Miller contends, is the notion of ‘auto-reflexivity’, which ‘by prohibiting the division of its own enunciation, makes the metalanguage indistinguishable in its field from the object language’ ( CpA 9.6:104 ). 7 Miller concludes that a doctrine of science is impossible, but that the attempt to grasp this impossibility is necessary both to desire and discourse .

The final issue of the Cahiers , on ‘Formalisation’, contains several texts that, although they do not address metalanguage directly, remain engaged with its problematic. Jean Ladrière ’s assessment of the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem ( CpA 10.6 ) argues that each instance of establishing a ‘metatheorem’ which describes another theorem involves an element of intuition that at once spurs formalisation and resists being incorporated into the formalised result. Alain Badiou ’s ‘Marque et manque’ ( CpA 10.8 ) argues for an image of logic as stratified rather than sutured . Badiou effectively treats the relation of increasing higher-order stratification (something akin to metalanguage) as unproblematic in its relation to ‘the absolutely primary raw material of the logical process [… ,] the stock of graphic marks [… ,] that we will call: alphabet’ ( CpA 10.8:151-2 ) (something akin to ‘object language’). Finally, in the last article of the journal, Jacques Bouveresse enumerates Wittgenstein ’s critique of efforts to ground mathematics in logical form, a critique which takes the form of a critique of the logic of the ‘meta-’ as such. For Wittgenstein, there is nothing essentially hierarchical, in the sense of ascendancy, in the establishment of new theorems based on old ones. ‘Metamathematics’ is not a higher-order ‘theory’ of mathematics by virtue of being ‘meta-’; it remains nonetheless a demonstration, like mathematics itself ( CpA 10.9:195 ). As Wittgenstein says, referring to a game and its rules, ‘I can also invent a game in which I play with the rules themselves […, and] in that case I have yet another game and not a metagame ’. 8

A postscript to the Cahiers debates over metalanguage can be found in Jacques-Alain Miller ’s ‘U ou “Il n’y a pas de méta-langage”’, written in 1967, but only published in 1975/76 in the journal Ornicar? . 9 Developing Lacan’s critique of Russell further, as well as his own claims in ‘Suture’, Miller indicates how ‘metalanguage’ and ‘object language’ share the same characteristic that neither can be spoken or made present in itself. Just as one can never reach an ‘absolute’ metalanguage that would be the upper-limit, the lower limit ‘object language’ in Russell’s sense can also never be ‘reached’. Miller adopts the concept of ‘U-language’ from the logician Haskell B. Curry to describe the ineliminable ‘language being used’ in each instance as the absolute baseline, lower limit of language, subtending even Russell’s lowest ‘primary’ or ‘object language’, but also providing the domain in which any metalanguistic stratification takes place. ‘If U-language can be spoken, it is because it speaks of itself. It is itself metalanguage and object-language.’ 10 Miller describes this ‘U-language’ as ‘ultimate’ and ‘unique’ language. It is without exterior and cannot be transcended; it cannot be learned or spoken in the way an ordinary language can, precisely because ‘it speaks all by itself’. Miller contends the ‘Freudian rule’ is nothing other than introducing the subject to this dimension. In its status as a kind of absolute that can neither be totalized, appropriated nor spoken (by a conscious subject), the ‘U-language’ of this essay resembles the self-speaking truth described by Lacan in ‘La Science et la vérité’ ( CpA 1.1:18 ; E , 867).

Select bibliography

• Curry, Haskell B. Foundations of Mathematical Logic . New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.
• Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis . London: Routledge, 1996.
• Lacan, Jacques. Seminar XII: Crucial Problems for Psychoanalysis (1964-1965), trans. Cormac Gallagher, unpublished manuscript.
• Miller, Jacques-Alain. Un début dans la vie. Paris: Gallimard, 2002.
• Russell, Bertrand. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1950]. London: Routledge, 1995.
• Tarski, Alfred. ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’. In Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics , ed. John Corcoran. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics , ed. G.H. von Wright et al., trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Cambridge: MIT Press 1978.

1. Roman Jakobson, ‘Linguistics and Poetics’, in his Selected Writings vol. III (The Hague: Mouton, 1981), 25. ↵

2. Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth , 62. ↵

3. Ibid., 63. ↵

4. Ibid, 65. ↵

5. Lacan, Seminar III: The Psychoses , 226, in Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis , 110. ↵

6. Lacan, ‘Subversion of the Subject’, E , 813. Evans continues: ‘What Lacan appears to mean by this remark is that, since every attempt to fix the meaning of language must be done in language, there can be no escape from language, no “outside”. This is reminiscent of Heidegger’s views on the impossibility of exiting “the house of language.” This also appears similar to the structuralist theme of il n’y a rien hors du texte (“there is nothing outside the text”), but it is not the same; Lacan does not deny that there is a beyond of language (this beyond is the real), but he does argue that this beyond is not of a kind that could finally anchor meaning. There is, in other words, no transcendental signified, no way that language could “tell the truth about truth” [“Science et vérité”, CpA 1.1:18 ; and in E , 867]’ (Evans, op. cit., 110). ↵

7. The French reads: ‘son auto-réflexivité qui, d’interdire à son énonciation de se diviser, fait en son champ le méta-langage indiscernable du langage-objet’. ↵

8. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics , 319. ↵

9. Jacques-Alain Miller, Un Début dans la vie , 126-134. ↵

10. Ibid., 131. ↵

xhtml | css

• Architecture and Design
• Asian and Pacific Studies
• Business and Economics
• Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Computer Sciences
• Cultural Studies
• Engineering
• General Interest
• Geosciences
• Industrial Chemistry
• Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Library and Information Science, Book Studies
• Life Sciences
• Linguistics and Semiotics
• Literary Studies
• Materials Sciences
• Mathematics
• Social Sciences
• Sports and Recreation
• Theology and Religion
• Publish your article
• The role of authors
• Promoting your article
• Abstracting & indexing
• Publishing Ethics
• Why publish with De Gruyter
• How to publish with De Gruyter
• Our book series
• Our subject areas
• Your digital product at De Gruyter
• Contribute to our reference works
• Product information
• Tools & resources
• Product Information
• Promotional Materials
• Orders and Inquiries
• FAQ for Library Suppliers and Book Sellers
• Repository Policy
• Free access policy
• Open Access agreements
• Database portals
• For Authors
• Customer service
• People + Culture
• Journal Management
• How to join us
• Working at De Gruyter
• Mission & Vision
• De Gruyter Foundation
• De Gruyter Ebound
• Our Responsibility
• Partner publishers

Your purchase has been completed. Your documents are now available to view.

Metalanguage

Social and ideological perspectives.

• Edited by: Adam Jaworski , Nikolas Coupland and Dariusz Galasinski
• X / Twitter

Please login or register with De Gruyter to order this product.

• Language: English
• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Copyright year: 2004
• Audience: Advanced Students and Researchers in Sociolinguistics, Linguistics in General, Communication Research, Anthropology, Social Psychology, Critical and Social Theory; Academic Libraries; Institutes.
• Front matter: 7
• Main content: 324
• Keywords: Metalanguage
• Published: October 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9783110907377
• Published: August 25, 2004
• ISBN: 9783110178777

Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, metalanguage.

Metalanguage refers to language that helps writers explain relationships between ideas or words that explain how texts are presented. Use metalanguage to help your readers understand your organization and reasoning. Clarify logical relationships, temporal relationships, and spatial relationships by using metalanguage.

Phrases like “for example,” “as a result,” and “therefore” are examples of metalanguage. Like an impatient TV watcher clicking through hundreds of channels, readers tend to be impatient, always ready to put their work aside.

As a result, throughout a document, you must ensure that readers will understand how different ideas relate to one another. You don’t want your readers to ask

• “So what?”
• “Who cares?”
• “Jeez, just what is this text about?”
• “What’s going on in the world today?” i.e., tangential thoughts.

Successful writers attempt to be sensitive to their readers’ likely responses to their documents. Just as writers commonly summarize their message in their introductions, highlighting its significance, writers frequently repeat their main ideas throughout a document, reminding readers of what’s been discussed, what will follow, and how new information relates to old information. Your essay shouldn’t be a spinning top, wandering from one topic to another–not if you want readers (or a good grade), anyway. Of course, peppering your language with metadiscourse–such as “thus,” “therefore,” “consequently,” and so on–will not provide logic. By itself, metalanguage cannot provide missing logic; it merely provides the glue to help readers better understand how ideas cohere.

Brevity - Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence - How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity - Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style - The DNA of Powerful Writing

Recommended

Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community

Structured Revision – How to Revise Your Work

Professional Writing – How to Write for the Professional World

Credibility & Authority – How to Be Credible & Authoritative in Speech & Writing

Citation Guide – Learn How to Cite Sources in Academic and Professional Writing

Page Design – How to Design Messages for Maximum Impact

Suggested edits.

• Please select the purpose of your message. * - Corrections, Typos, or Edits Technical Support/Problems using the site Advertising with Writing Commons Copyright Issues I am contacting you about something else
• Your full name
• Your email address *
• Page URL needing edits *
• Name This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Other Topics:

Citation - Definition - Introduction to Citation in Academic & Professional Writing

• Joseph M. Moxley

Explore the different ways to cite sources in academic and professional writing, including in-text (Parenthetical), numerical, and note citations.

Collaboration - What is the Role of Collaboration in Academic & Professional Writing?

Collaboration refers to the act of working with others or AI to solve problems, coauthor texts, and develop products and services. Collaboration is a highly prized workplace competency in academic...

Genre may reference a type of writing, art, or musical composition; socially-agreed upon expectations about how writers and speakers should respond to particular rhetorical situations; the cultural values; the epistemological assumptions...

Grammar refers to the rules that inform how people and discourse communities use language (e.g., written or spoken English, body language, or visual language) to communicate. Learn about the rhetorical...

Information Literacy - Discerning Quality Information from Noise

Information Literacy refers to the competencies associated with locating, evaluating, using, and archiving information. In order to thrive, much less survive in a global information economy — an economy where information functions as a...

Mindset refers to a person or community’s way of feeling, thinking, and acting about a topic. The mindsets you hold, consciously or subconsciously, shape how you feel, think, and act–and...

Rhetoric: Exploring Its Definition and Impact on Modern Communication

Learn about rhetoric and rhetorical practices (e.g., rhetorical analysis, rhetorical reasoning,  rhetorical situation, and rhetorical stance) so that you can strategically manage how you compose and subsequently produce a text...

Style, most simply, refers to how you say something as opposed to what you say. The style of your writing matters because audiences are unlikely to read your work or...

The Writing Process - Research on Composing

The writing process refers to everything you do in order to complete a writing project. Over the last six decades, researchers have studied and theorized about how writers go about...

Writing Studies

Writing studies refers to an interdisciplinary community of scholars and researchers who study writing. Writing studies also refers to an academic, interdisciplinary discipline – a subject of study. Students in...

Featured Articles

VCE Study Tips

English Language

Private Tutoring

Only one more step to getting your FREE text response mini-guide!

Simply fill in the form below, and the download will start straight away

English & EAL

Quick Tips to Ace Language Analysis

July 1, 2015

Want insider tips? Sign up here!

Go ahead and tilt your mobile the right way (portrait). the kool kids don't use landscape....

Whether Language Analysis (or Analysing Argument) is your favourite section of the English course or you just wish you could read an article without analysing the effect of a generalisation, here are some quick and simply tips to ensure you can maximise your marks in Section C! For a detailed guide on Language Analysis including how to prepare for your SAC and exam, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .

Improve your metalanguage

What is Metalanguage?

Words that describe language!

For example:

• The words  infer
• The words  insinuate
• The words  suggest

Create a word bank full of different words you can interchange throughout your analysis to eliminate any repetition!

If you’d like to see a list of sentence starters to help you broaden your vocabulary for Analysing Argument, check out this blog .

Do not reiterate what the writer is saying

Remember you are analysing the language the writer uses, not arguing the contention of the writer!

Therefore avoid words such as: states, highlights, uses, utilises, shows etc.

What not to do:  The writer states that creating a community garden will make people “healthier and happier”

What to do:  The words “healthier and happier” suggest that creating a community garden will improve the lifestyles of citizens.

Analyse the language not the technique

By now we are probably aware that puns are “often humorous” and “gain the reader’s attention”. However instead of using these generalised textbook effects, analyse the words WITHIN the pun and see how these words may affect readers.

What not to do:  The pun “A new cycle” in the headline is humorous and therefore captures the attention of the reader.

What to do:  The pun “A new cycle” draws a direct link between cycling and advancement in society urging readers to view cycling in a positive light.

Always ask yourself: why?

Why is the writer using particular language? Why may the reader react with concern?

Make sure the answers to these questions are in your analysis!

What not to do:  Consequently readers may feel concerned.

What to do:  Readers may feel concerned due to the increase in fast food consumption.

If you'd like to see exactly how to achieve this within your essays, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook for a step-by-step explanation of how to clearly and effectively answer 'why' and nail Analysing Argument!

Don’t forget the visual

As silly as it may sound, it is quite easy to forget to analyse the visual when you’re under pressure. The visual can either complement the article or oppose the views of the writer.

Mention what the visual:

• And how readers may react to the visual ‍

Keep your introduction and conclusions as brief as possible

Most of your marks will come from your analysis so there is no need to spend copious amounts of time perfecting your introductions and conclusions. Keep them short and concise!

Pick and choose what to analyse

It is simply impossible to analyse every single technique the writer uses in their article. Therefore pick the words/phrases that you find most persuasive. You will not be marked down for what you do not analyse!

Get our FREE VCE English Text Response mini-guide

Now quite sure how to nail your text response essays? Then download our free mini-guide, where we break down the art of writing the perfect text-response essay into three comprehensive steps. Click below to get your own copy today!

Access a FREE sample of our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis study guide

• Learn LSG's unique SIMPLICITY and SPECIFICITY strategy which has helped hundreds of students achieve A+
• Includes annotated sample A+ essays (including responses to past VCAA exams)
• Learn how to analyse single articles and visuals , and comparative analysis (analysing 2 or 3 articles/visuals together)
• Different types of essay structures broken down so you understand what to do and what not to do with confidence

Let’s briefly discuss the background of the article before we dive into the analysis…

• So, the background information tells us that “Biodiversity is the term used to describe life on Earth — the variety of living things, the places they inhibit and the interactions between them.”
• The article at hand is a transcript of a speech given by Professor Chris Lee at the International Biodiversity Conference 2010.
• The purpose of this conference is to review the progress made towards achieving the target and to look beyond 2010.

Now, let’s analyse the opening of the speech. Take a second to read through Lee’s speech opener...

Firstly, we can analyse the way in which Lee addresses his audience. Rather than using a phrase like "Hi everyone" or a similar greeting, he actually refers to his audience as his "fellow delegates" which allows him to speak in a particularly candid and honest manner. He wants to be transparent about the reality of the situation with his peers, rather than trying to impress an audience or something similar.

Overall, this anecdote appeals to the emotions of the audience and plays on an apparent devotion/commitment presumably made to the environment by the delegates of a Biodiversity conference. Lee uniquely seeks to persuade his audience by using the information he knows about them – their past commitments.

More specifically, we can dive into the pejorative mood of the adjectives he uses to describe the second scene, which is one of destruction, especially compare to the images he presents first. The "lush jungle" with a variety of "interesting flora and fauna" on the banks of a "clear river" appears particularly idyllic in juxtaposition with the images of the "scorched earth", "gooey mudslide", "sepia tinge" and "barren sticks hopelessly groping for life."

In the last sentence, the repetition of the word "gone" reminds Lee's "fellow delegates" of what will be lost if action on biodiversity is not taken.

Now, we know that in any given Language Analysis article, there are so many things to analyse, which I’ve demonstrated with all of the things we managed to focus on in that single paragraph.

Often, students will be able to identify lots of techniques and as such, lots of elements to analyse, but they struggle to choose between these techniques when it comes to writing their responses.

I’d highly recommend that you download a free sample of my eBook, How To Write A Killer Language Analysis which talks about techniques you can use to pick what to write about in your essays. We won’t have enough time to talk about those techniques today, so we’ve written them down for you in the eBook.

Now that we’ve looked at how Lee has started his speech, let’s skip forward to a later section of the article. Take a second to read through the section.

One of the first things that may jump out at you is this repetition of inclusive language; "we are", "we have". However, this is way too obvious! For an upper level response, we want to steer clear of the cliche techniques and analyse ones that have more value and show off our own perspective of the article.

Utilising the statements, "everyone in the lecture theatre knows this" and "clearly, it is our lack of unity", Lee includes the audience and holds all of the delegates accountable through declaring the reasons for failure as simple matters of fact.

Here, Lee trivializes the actions of the organisation in creating "glossy brochures" with "wonderful words" as marketing tools to create the impression that meaningful action is being taken. Lee exposes such actions as deceitful and calls for "real action", seeking to persuade his audience into putting their effort into actual gains in the biodiversity fight.

Want to know more? I'd highly recommend checking out LSG's FREE Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis for more great tips, resources and advice.

And that’s it! I hope this has been helpful in showing how to analyse a speech as a Language Analysis prompt.

Be sure to check out the free sample of my eBook below for more!

Updated 19/01/2021

Ah, language analysis. It’s that time of year again, which sees us trade our novels and films for newspapers and blog articles, and our knowledge of characters and themes for the never-ending list of persuasive language devices which we will soon begin to scour our texts in search of.

Once again we must put ourselves in the mind of an author, only this time it’s a little different. No longer are we searching for hidden meanings within the text, instead we search for techniques and appeals to emotions which our daring author uses to persuade us to stand in solidarity with their view. My, how times change. Just when we think we’re getting the hang of something, VCE English throws us a curveball. Typical VCAA.

There's a lot that goes into a strong Analysing Argument response and it can be difficult to know where to start, so here's a specific breakdown of an A+ essay to help you elevate the quality of your own writing! Just before we get started, if you'd like to find out more about Language Analysis, head here for a comprehensive overview of this area of study.

Alright, let's get into it!

The following post refers to two articles, ‘ Australia’s offshore detention regime is a brutal and obscene piece of self-delusion ,’ by Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson, and ‘ Stand in solidarity with people seeking asylum this holiday season, ’ by Kon Karapanagiotidis.

Step 1: Planning Your Essay

Now, before you get too deep into this step - and I know how eager you must be to dive into that juicy analysis – you first need to decide on a structure. In this particular case of Language Analysis, we are comparing two articles, meaning we have a couple of different structures to choose from. That is, we now need to decide whether we will be separating the analysis of each article into its own individual paragraph, or rather, integrating the analysis and drawing on similar ideas from each of the texts to compare them within one paragraph. Tough decisions, eh?

While most examiners prefer integrated paragraphs, as it shows a higher level of understanding of the texts, sometimes the articles make implementing this structure a little difficult. For example, maybe one article focuses more on emotional appeals, while the other uses factual evidence such as statistics to persuade the reader. What do we do then? If none of the arguments are similar, but we still want to use that amazing integration technique, what can we do?

Well first of all, remember that we are comparing two articles. Comparisons don’t always have to be about similar things, in fact, the true spirit of comparison should take into account the articles’ differences too. So what does this mean for us? We can still integrate our paragraphs, however, we will be focusing on how two contrasting techniques seek to achieve the same result of persuading the audience.

Next, now that we’ve got structure out of the way, we can work on the actual analysis part of planning. That is, scouring through the articles for those various language devices the author has used to turn this article from an exposition to a persuasive text, and then deciding on how we shall be using this in our essay.

I absolutely cannot stress this enough, but: PLAN YOUR ESSAYS! Yes, I happened to be one of those students who never planned anything and preferred to jump straight into the introduction, hoping all my thoughts would fall into place along the way. Allow me to let you in on a little secret: that was a notoriously bad idea. My essays always turned out as garbled, barely legible messes and I always managed to talk myself into circles. Trust me, planning is crucial to an A+ essay.

It is also crucial that you know what exactly should be going into the planning process. There are two main aspects of planning that you need to focus on for a Language Analysis essay: analysis and implementation . I know that might not make much sense right now, but allow me to explain:

This includes reading through your articles and picking out all the pieces that seem like persuasive techniques. For example, you might find a paragraph using inclusive language such as "our problem” to convince the reader that this is an issue that they need to be directly concerned about, or perhaps you may find a sentence describing the “excess of funds” being poured into the initiative that demonstrates to the audience how big of a problem it is. This step typically includes underlining areas of interest in the articles, making arrows between similar arguments which you think should be linked and doodling in the margins of the paper with all your immediate thoughts so you don’t forget them later. This part is the lengthiest and it may take you some time to fully understand all of the article.

Next, comes implementation.

Implementation

This is the part where we make ourselves an actual essay plan, in which we decide how to implement all the new information we’ve collected. That is, deciding which arguments or language devices we will analyse in paragraph 1, paragraph 2 and so on. This part is largely up to you and the way in which you prefer to link various ideas.

Below is an example of how you might choose to plan your introduction and body paragraph. It may seem a bit wordy, but this is the recommended thought process you should consider when mapping out your essay, as explained in the following sections of this blog post. You may want to skip ahead and read those first so you know what we’re talking about when you see CCTAP (explained in Step 2: Introduction ) or TEEL (explained in Step 3: Body Paragraphs ), but otherwise it’s pretty straight forward. With enough practice you may even be able to remember some of these elements in your head, rather than writing it out in detail during each SAC or exam (it might be a little time consuming).

Sample Introduction Plan

Note: Sentences in quotation marks ('') represent where the information has been implemented in the actual introduction.

Article 1 (by Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson) :

Context : Detention of Asylum Seekers is currently a popular topic of discussion, 'issue regarding the treatment and management of asylum seekers'.

Contention : Methods must be revaluated, 'better solution must be sought'.

Tone : Accusatory, 'accusatory tone'.

Audience : Regular readers, 'regular readers of the popular news publication site'.

Purpose : Incite critical conversation, 'persuade readers to be similarly critical of the initiative'.

Article 2 (by Kon Karapanagiotidis) :

Context: Detention of Asylum Seekers is currently a popular topic of discussion, 'issue regarding the treatment and management of asylum seekers'.

Contention: Detention of Asylum Seekers is wrong, 'detention as a whole is inhumane'.

Tone: Conviction, 'tone of conviction'.

Audience: Those in favour of Asylum Seekers, 'supporters of his resource centre'.

Purpose: Allow Asylum Seekers into the country, '[barring them from entering the country]…should be ceased immediately'.

Sample Body Paragraph Plan

Topic: Inhumanity of detention

Evidence : Article 1’s Emotive Language

          Example : 'harsh', 'brutal regime', 'needlessly cruel' to invoke discomfort.

Evidence : Article 1’s Expert Opinions

          Example : Amnesty International, UN, etc. 'repeatedly criticised'.

Evidence : Article 1’s Humanisation of Asylum Seekers

          Example : Depicts as individuals who’ve been 'arbitrarily punished'.

Evidence : Article 2’s Invitation to Empathise

          Example : Writes he 'cannot imagine the horrors', inviting readers to try too.

Evidence : Article 2’s Emotive Language

          Example : 'pain', 'suffering', 'deprivation of hope' to invoke sympathy.

Evidence : Article 2’s Placing of Blame

          Example : Blames Australian Government for the 'suffering inflicted'.

Link: Restate topic sentence in relation to entire essay

Step 2: Introduction

Now that you’ve got all the planning out of the way, next comes beginning the essay and writing up your introduction. Having a top notch introduction not only sets the standard for the rest of your language analysis, but it gives you a chance to set yourself apart from the crowd. Your teacher or examiner will be reading heaps of these kinds of essays within a short period of time and no doubt it’ll begin to bore them. Thus, having a punchy introduction is bound to catch their attention.

In addition to having a solid beginning, there are a few other things you need to include in your intro, namely, CCTAP. What does CCTAP stand for and why is it so important, you may ask? Well, the nifty little acronym stands for C ontext, C ontention, T one, A udience and P urpose, which are the five key pieces of information you need to include about both of your articles within your introduction. In addition to all the various language devices we collected during planning, you will need to scan through the articles to find this information in order to give the reader of your essay the brief gist of your articles without ever having read them.  

For an example on how you would accomplish this all in one paragraph, here’s my introduction:

In recent years, the issue regarding the treatment and management of asylum seekers has become a topic of interest for many Australian citizens, with the debate focusing centrally on the ethics of their indefinite detention, and the reliability of this initiative as a working solution. Many articles intending to weigh-in on the debate depict the Australian Government’s favoured solution in various tones, with two pieces, written by news source, The Guardian, by authors Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson, and activist Kon Karapanagiotidis, respectively, asserting that the initiative is the wrong approach to a growing problem. In their piece, 'Australia’s offshore detention regime is a brutal and obscene piece of self destruction', the former of the authors speaks with an accusatory tone to their audience of regular readers of the popular news publication site and debates the practicality of the 'arbitra[y]' detention of these asylum seekers, as well as calls into question the humanity of the act and assesses whether it is an effective use of Australia’s wealth, intending to persuade readers to be similarly critical of the initiative. Likewise, the author of the open letter, 'Stand in solidarity with people seeking asylum this holiday season', writes to supporters of his resource centre in a tone of conviction, asserting that asylum seekers deserve the safety of asylum within Australia, that detaining or barring them from entering the country is inhumane and the root of much suffering, and that overall, it is morally wrong, and thus should be ceased immediately. Both articles contend that Australia’s current solution to the growing issue is incorrect, with Doherty and Davidson specifically believing that there is a better solution that must be sought, and Karapanagiotidis believing that detention as a whole is inhumane and should not be further employed by the government. ‍

‍ Step 3: Body Paragraphs ‍

And now we reach the meat of your essay - the body paragraphs. A typical essay should have at least three of these, no less, although some people might feel the need to write four or five. While this may seem like a good idea to earn those extra marks, you should never feel pressured to do so if you already have three good paragraphs planned out. You have limited time to write your essay and getting as many words on the page as possible won’t always improve your score, especially if you traded quality for quantity. What your teachers and examiners are really looking for is a comprehensive understanding of the texts and the way in which you organise your ideas into paragraphs. So sure, writing an extra paragraph may be useful if you have the time and technique, but never feel pressured to expend the effort on one if it costs you time to the point where you’re turning in an unfinished essay. You can achieve an A+ essay with only three paragraphs, so don’t stress.

Now, onto writing the actual paragraphs. There are various little acronyms to help you through this process, such as TEEL, PEEL or MEAT. Some of these you may have already heard of before and you might even have a preference as to which one you will use. But regardless of what you choose, it is important that you add all the correct elements, as leaving any of them out may cost you vital marks. Make sure you include a T opic sentence, E vidence, E xample and L ink (TEEL). Once you have the structure down pat, there’s one other thing you need to consider during a Language Analysis essay: don’t forget to analyse the picture.

Seriously, it’s pretty crucial. A requirement of this kind of essay is to analyse imagery, whether it be the newspaper’s header, a cartoon or an actual photograph. This step may involve analysing the image for what it is, or linking the imagery with an already existing argument within the article. Whatever you deduce it to mean, just make sure you slip it into one of the paragraphs in your essay. [Note: an analysis of imagery is not included in following paragraph].

Here is an example of an integrated paragraph ( learn more about integrated vs. bridge vs. block structures here ):

While both articles make very different arguments on the same topic, in one particular case they give voice to the same issue, namely, the inhumanity of detaining refugees, in which both articles become advocates for the abolition of offshore detention. Authors for The Guardian write that it is 'needlessly cruel', 'harsh', and a 'brutal regime', using emotive language to give weight to their argument and invoke a sense of discomfort within their readers, particularly towards the government’s chosen solution. They call on the opinions of a number of other sources who have 'repeatedly criticised', the operation, such as the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among other similar experts on the matter. The authors depict Asylum Seekers as individuals who are 'arbitrarily punished offshore', and who 'have been accused of no crime', and are therefore, by the judgement of the authors, being treated immorally. In agreement, Karapanagiotidis writes of the abuse endured by asylum seekers in detention, including their separation from loved ones, their arbitrary incarceration, and stating that he, himself, 'cannot begin to imagine the personal toll detention has had on [them]', implying further damage has been done and inviting his audience to similarly place themselves into the figurative shoes of an asylum seeker. The author writes that the offshore detention of asylum seekers causes 'pain', and 'suffering', as well as the 'depriv[ation] of [their] hope', using emotive language to invoke sympathy and understanding within his readers. Karapanagiotidis hands the blame for such 'suffering inflicted', on the Australian government, a similar tactic which The Guardian employed throughout their piece. Overall, both articles use a range of language devices and expert sources to agree that the act of detention is inhumane, and the root of much suffering. ‍ ‍

If you'd like to see more sample A+ body paragraphs and essays, all with annotations to see exactly what makes them high-scoring, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook for an in-depth guide to nailing your Language Analysis.

Step 4: Conclusion

You’ll be glad to know that this is the final part of your essay, hooray! And some might argue it is in fact the easiest, because now all you need to do is summarise all of those body paragraphs into a concise little one. Simple right?

Conclusions typically don’t even have to be all that long, I mean, you’re only restating what you’ve already written down, so there’s no new thinking involved. Under no circumstances should you be using your conclusion to add in any new information, so just make sure you give a brief description of your previous arguments and you should be good to go!

And one more thing: never start your conclusions with 'In conclusion'. Seriously, that may have worked in Year 8, but we’re writing for a whole different standard these days and starting your conclusions off like that just isn’t going to cut it. Be sure to check out 5 Tips for a Mic-Drop Worthy Essay Conclusion if conclusions are something you struggle with.

Here’s mine:

The two articles, in their discussion of Australia’s offshore detention initiative, bring light to several key points. Authors for The Guardian use various appeals, emotive phrases and evidence of reported monetary statistics to sway the reader to share their opinion, as well as arguments regarding the lack of reliability the initiative provides in its ability to deter boats, the sheer cost of the program, and the morality of the issue. Similarly, Karapanagiotidis, the author of the open letter, uses a humanising image, appeals to the values of the readers, and employs phrases with pre-existing connotations known to the audience, to assert main contentions: that asylum seekers deserve asylum, that barring them from settling in the country is the root of much suffering, and that their indefinite detention is not only inhumane, but morally wrong.  

Good luck with your own essays!

Writing an Analysing Argument (or Language Analysis) essay can be difficult, and sometimes selecting language that won’t sound repetitive is the tricky part. If you’re looking for ways to overcome that hurdle and make your writing sound more formal, then this is the blog for you. 

In these tables are simple sentence starters you can use to formalise and clarify your ideas in a non-repetitive way. This blog takes into account the most important elements of a Language Analysis, such as analysing visuals and connecting a technique back to the author’s intention (that is, what they want the audience to think/feel/do). 

Within these tables, I’ve included a sentence example for each phrase. The examples are in response to a fictional article by Samantha Pearson, What’s wrong with using online lingo in everyday life?. The article is about Gen Z's use of online lingo and argues that the concern surrounding its potential implications is unfounded. If you’d like to see the entire original article and an A+ essay written in response (along with a number of other sample articles and high-scoring essays), you’ll find all of this and more in How To Write A Killer Language Analysis .

If you’d like to see a detailed guide on Language Analysis, including what you're expected to cover, how to prepare for your SAC and Exam and more, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .

Written expression is often overlooked in our essays. Often, if we are made aware of clunky or awkward expression, we are also not quite sure how to go about improving it. Although sophisticated and pertinent ideas serve as the foundation of a successful essay, how we construct our sentences and express these ideas may be what distinguishes a good essay from a great essay.

These differences can be rather subtle, but the small things can and do matter.

1) USE YOUR VOCAL CHORDS  

(to read out loud, not sing… unless you really want to)

Take your essay and read it out loud. Let your own conscience guide you in terms of whether a particular sentence flows well, is complete and makes sense. Keep your eye out for these small errors in particular: Grammar: Does your sentence actually make sense? Let’s have a look at an example: Although Funder suggests that the act of telling one’s story, especially one of victimisation, can catalyse the internal confrontation and healing required to move on.

(This is not grammatically correct! This is because this example only contains a subordinate clause and is lacking a main clause.)

But wait… what is this ‘subordinate clause’ and ‘main clause’?

A clause includes a subject and a verb .

Melissa ate an apple.After Wendy ate an apple.

What is the difference between the two clauses above?

‘Melissa ate an apple’ makes grammatical sense on its own. This is what we call a main clause (or an independent clause). On the other hand, ‘ After Wendy ate an apple’ is an incomplete sentence as it does not make sense. What happened after Wendy ate her apple? This is the information that is missing from the latter clause, making this a subordinate clause (or a dependent clause).

So now let’s try again…

Although Funder suggests that the act of telling one’s story, especially one of victimisation, can catalyse the internal confrontation and healing required to move on, ultimately, these individuals can never be truly free from the past that has irrevocably defined them.  

(Hooray! This is a complete sentence now.)

Spelling : Are the title of the text, the author or director’s name, characters’ names, publisher’s name, etc. all spelt correctly (and capitalised, underlined, and italicised appropriately)?

Did you use the correct there, their and they’re? How about it’s and its? (and so on).

Sentence length: Did that sentence just go on for 5 lines on a page and you are out of breath now? You can most probably split that overloaded sentence into two or more sentences that make much more sense. Check whether you have a clear subject in your sentence. If you have three different ideas in one sentence, give each idea its own opportunity (ie. sentence) to shine. The opposite also applies: if it is for a very short sentence, did that sentence pack enough content or analysis?

One spelling error or half-finished sentence in an essay will not severely affect your mark, but they can easily add up if they occur often enough. Consequently, this will distract the reader from engaging with your ideas fully and thus disrupt the flow of your essay.

By being aware of these aspects, you are now able to easily fix them and boost your writing.

2) BE SUBTLE

Try not to be casual or overt in your writing as it can be quite jarring to read and unfortunately give readers a potentially negative impression of your piece.

Try not to use phrases such as:

- In my opinion… (You do not need it as your entire essay should be your implicit opinion!)

- This quote shows that… (Embed the quote and link to its implication instead)

- This technique is designed to… (Identify the technique and be specific, especially in Language Analysis)

- I think that…, I believe… (Avoid using first person in a formal essay. Use of first person in creative writing is fine though if required)

They are redundant and do not add much to your ideas and analysis. Try omitting them and see whether that helps your sentence flow better and seem more formal.

3) LINK ‘EM UP

Sentences that seem disjointed or a clear connection can make it difficult for your teacher or the assessor to join the dots between an idea and an implication or consequence. Use linking words as they are fantastic for explicitly showing the reader how your ideas are related and thus allow your writing to proceed smoothly.

Therefore, hence, thus, thereby, consequently, subsequently, in addition, additionally, furthermore, moreover, on the other hand, on the contrary, however, henceforth, and so on… The list is endless!

4) ADD OOMPH (through vocabulary)

In general, having a wide vocabulary will allow you to express your ideas and analysis more accurately as you are likely to have access to a precise word that can capture the essence of your idea. Make a vocabulary list for a particular text or for Language Analysis (such as tone words) and aim to use varied language to convey yourself well.

If you’d like to see a list of sentence starters and essay phrases to help you get a headstart on expanding your vocabulary, check out this blog .

Focus on verbs and expanding your list of synonyms for words such as shows, demonstrates, highlights, emphasises, suggests and so on. An individual, character, author or director may not only be conveying but also denigrating or remonstrating or bolstering or glorifying or insinuating . Adding precision to your writing through careful vocabulary choice will distinguish your writing and also add complexity.

BEWARE! There is a fine line to tread with sophisticated vocabulary - do not overload your writing as you can risk writing convoluted sentences that hinder the reader’s ability to understand your piece. Also make sure that you understand the nuances of each synonym and that they are used in the correct context! (They are synonyms after all - not the same word!)

If you are debating whether to use a word, ask yourself: do you know what it means? 

If yes: Go for it!

If no: Do not use it until you know what it means.

Reading sample essays, The Age Text Talks, reviews and more of the texts you are currently studying will expose you to not only a multitude of interpretations of your text, but also to different sentence structures, writing styles or vocabulary that you could incorporate into your own writing.

I would also highly recommend that you read outside of the texts you are studying if you have time, whether that may be novels by the same author or even newspapers. Your written expression will only benefit from this exposure as the ways you can express yourself through writing continue to increase upon seeing others’ eloquence.

6) GET WRITING

If you do not write, you will never be able to improve your written expression. Put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard) and start constructing that essay. You can only fix your writing once you have writing to fix.

Often, with Language Analysis (also known as Argument Analysis or Analysing Argument), it can be hard to find unique things to analyse and set yourself apart from your competitors. Techniques like rhetorical questions, inclusive language and the appeal to family values are regurgitated by thousands of students every year come exam season. As you’d imagine, examiners get tired of hearing the same ol’ thing essay after essay. 

So, I challenge you to surprise them! And today’s video will help you do just that. 

The TEE rule is a very popular technique that we describe in our top-rated eBook, How To Write A Killer Language Analysis . And for a good reason, too! It guides your analysis to ensure that you’re talking about techniques, how they affect readers and using evidence to back yourself up. If you’ve never heard of the TEE rule, no worries at all! Check out our HTWAKLA eBook for an in-depth look into how the technique can help you get to that A+ level.

Today’s video is all about analysing the structure of Language Analysis articles so you can WOW examiners and score in that upper level. 

Now, what does this exactly mean and, more importantly, look like?

When it comes to pieces of writing, when we talk about structure, we’re talking about how the information is organised. 

What does the writer talk about first? What do they talk about last? How long are the paragraphs? How many paragraphs are there? While these questions might seem a little pointless to some, they can actually inspire some pretty unique and spot-on analysis in VCE Language Analysis.

OK Lisa, I get it, but how can I do this in my essays? Great question. 

Let’s have a look at some examples of this, courtesy of one of LSG’s amazing tutors, Andrea. She’s written up an incredible blog all about these advanced techniques, and it includes much more than what we have time to talk about today. So, as always, I’ll leave the link to her blog in the description and in the card up above – I highly recommend that after watching this video, you head on over and check it out. ‍

Analysing recurring themes and ideas in VCE Language Analysis

Analysing recurring ideas and themes throughout a piece is a fantastic way to show the examiner that you’ve understood the piece as a whole and that you can step back and notice similarities between smaller sections. 

Let’s take a closer look at Section C of the 2014 VCAA English exam . The author emphasises the theme of Kolumbus-21 and its significance on space travel , which is an example of a recurring idea of theme.

Paragraph 1: ‘Space exploration has been on my mind this week after visiting an exhibition presented by an international group known as Kolombus-21.’ 

Paragraph 9: ‘Kolombus-21 talks a lot about international cooperation. This hasn’t always been a feature of space exploration, but now that we have an international space station supported by 15 nations, the era of collaboration seems to be well established.’

Paragraph 11: ‘Perhaps with big dreamers like Kolumbus-21 behind it, it might even turn out that way.’

We can use an array of vocabulary to describe exactly how ideas and themes recur throughout a piece. For example, if something is mentioned repeatedly throughout a piece, we could call it a c yclical, recurring or circular idea. If an idea is built chronologically , piece by piece, we could call it hierarchical, chronological, sequential or even linear .  

In this example, notice how from the beginning to the end of the piece, the author mentions the connection between Kolombus-21 , space exploration and international cooperatio n several times. Let’s see what we get...

By returning to the original theme of Kolumbus-21 as a key driver of support for space travel, which indicates the cyclical structure of her opinion piece, Yergon links space travel with international cooperation.

It’s also a good idea to reiterate the overall structure of the piece in the conclusion, as it allows you to link the structure with the author’s contention.

Analysing the ordering of the contention, arguments and rebuttals in VCE Language Analysis

Certain elements of the article can have a different effect on the reader depending on where the author places them. When we’re talking about desired effects on readers, we want to assume that the writer has done everything a certain way for a reason , so when the rebuttal is placed first, for example, we can look into this further for possible explanations.

• When the rebuttal is placed first , it can set up the audience to more readily accept the writer’s following opinions, as opposing viewpoints have already been criticised early o n.
• You can see this in the 2013 VCAA exam, where the author argues against opposing views early on in their article. In it, the author references the opposition directly as they say ‘some people who objected to the proposed garden seem to think that the idea comes from a radical group of environmentalists’, and rebut this point by proposing that ‘there’s nothing extreme about us’.
• Or, if the rebuttal is placed towards the end of the article , it could serve to cement that the writer’s viewpoint is correct by explaining why opposing viewpoints are wrong . Also, it can give a sense of finality to the piece – assuring the audience that all bases have been covered by the writer.
•  What if there’s no rebuttal ? Well, this could imply that the author’s opinion, and theirs alone, is correct and to be supported.

Last updated 20/10/19

Planning is an essential part of any successful text response essay. It helps you ensure that you’re answering the prompt, utilising enough quotes and writing the most unique and perceptive analysis possible! The hard part of this is that you only have about FIVE MINUTES to plan each essay in the Year 12 English exam… (more info on the best way to tackle that challenge in this video !)

So, I developed the FIVE TYPES of essay prompts to help students streamline their planning process and maximise every minute of their SACs and exams.

By identifying the type of prompt you’re being challenged with immediately, a number of parameters or guidelines are already set in place. For a specific type of prompt, you have specific criteria to meet – for example, in a metalanguage-based prompt , you immediately know that any evidence you brainstorm in your planning stage should be based around the literary techniques used in your given text.

If you’d like the full picture on our best FREE advice on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response here .

1. Theme-based prompt

‘Ambition in the play Macbeth leads to success.’ Discuss. ( Macbeth )

When you’re presented with a theme-based prompt, you can automatically shift your brainstorming and planning towards the themes mentioned in the prompt along with any others that you can link to the core theme in some way.

In regard to this Macbeth prompt, for example, you could explore the different ways the theme of ambition is presented in the text. Additionally, the themes of guilt and power are intimately related to ambition in the text, so you can use those other ideas to aid your brainstorming and get you a step ahead of the rest of the state come exam day.

2. Character-based prompt

‘Frankenstein’s hubris is what punishes him.’ Discuss. ( Frankenstein )

These prompts are pretty easy to spot – if you see a character’s name in the prompt, there you have it; you have a character-based prompt on your hands.

Once you know this, you can assume that each example you brainstorm has to be relevant to the specific character named in the prompt in some way. Also, you can explore how the actions of characters don’t occur in isolation – they’re almost always interrelated. Remember, however, that the actions of characters are always connected to the themes and ideas the author is trying to convey.

This type of prompt also grants you some freedoms that other types don’t give. For example, unlike a Theme-based prompt, a character-based prompt means that it’s perfectly fine to write about characters in the topic sentences of your body paragraphs.

3. How-based prompt

‘How does Grenville showcase Rooke’s inner conflict in The Lieutenant ?’ ( The Lieutenant )

Unlike other prompts, the ‘How’ positions you to focus more on the author’s writing intentions. This can be achieved by discussing metalanguage – language that describes language (read my blog post about it here ). These prompts tell you immediately that you need to be thinking about the literary techniques explored in the text and explain how they affect the narrative.

Rather than using specific techniques to frame your specific arguments, it’s best to use them as evidence to support arguments that attack the main themes/ideas mentioned in the prompt.

4. Metalanguage or film-technique-based prompt

‘Hitchcock’s use of film techniques offers an unnerving viewing experience’. Discuss. ( Rear Window )

This type of prompt is very similar to How-based prompts, specifically in the fact that the discussion of literary techniques is essential.

For this type of prompt specifically, however, the actual techniques used can form more of a basis for your arguments, unlike in How-based prompts .

5. Quote-based prompt

“Out, damned spot!” How does Shakespeare explore the burden of a guilty conscience in Macbeth ? ( Macbeth )

Countless students ask me every year, “What do I do when there’s a quote in the prompt?!” My reply to these questions is actually fairly straightforward!

There are two main things that you should do when presented with this type of prompt. Firstly, contextualise the quote in your essay and try to use it in your analysis in some way. Secondly, interpret the themes and issues addressed in the quote and implement these into your discussion. The best place to do both of these is in a body paragraph – it weaves in seamlessly and allows for a good amount of analysis, among other reasons!

When faced with unknown prompts in a SAC or your exam, it's reassuring to have a formulaic breakdown of the prompt so that your brain immediately starts categorising the prompt - which of the 5 types of prompts does this one in front of me fall into? To learn more about brainstorming, planning, essay structures for Text Response, read our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

The oral presentation SAC is worth 40% of your unit 4 English mark and is comprised of two sections: your statement of intention, and your oral presentation. It can be difficult to understand what is expected of you, as this SAC definitely varies from your typical English essay! So, if you need help understanding what’s expected of you, check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations . If you’d like an even more in-depth guide on how to approach this assessment, definitely check out the How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation study guide!

Here, I’m going to dissect five of the most common mistakes students make during their oral presentation, and gloss over ways in which you can improve your marks for this critical SAC.

1. Writing an Unentertaining Speech

Whilst your other English SACs may require you to write in a formal and sophisticated manner, the oral presentation SAC is the one shining exception! Many students fall into the trap of writing a frankly boring and uninspiring speech that does no justice to their academic ability. Here are some mistakes to watch out for:

Choosing the Wrong Topic

Your school may or may not already give you a list of topics to choose from. However, in the event that you must research your own topic, it is essential that you choose an issue relevant to your current audience. You must adopt a clear contention in your speech. 

Do not, for example, write a five-minute speech on why one sports team is better than the other, or why murder should be illegal. Choose an issue that you can take a passionate stance on and engage the audience with. Avoid a contention that is obvious and aim to actually persuade your class. Make sure you choose a 'WOW' topic for your VCE Oral Presentation .

‍ Writing With the Wrong Sense of Tone

This is one of the biggest mistakes students make when writing their oral presentation. I cannot stress this enough – your speech is not a formally written text response! You are presenting your stance on an issue, which means that you are allowed to be passionate and creative. You can educate your audience on the facts without boring them to sleep. Let’s analyse two sample excerpts on the same issue to see why:

Issue: Should the Newstart allowance be increased?

Sample 1: 722,000 Australians are on Newstart. Single people receive approximately $40 a day. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently increased this payment by $2.20 to adjust to price inflation. However, I am arguing that this price should be increased more.

Sample 2: As Australians, we pride ourselves on community values, and supporting one another. Yet, the way in which we treat 722,000 of our most vulnerable people doesn’t reflect this. The Australian government recently increased the Newstart payment by $2.20 weekly. But this means that Newstart recipients still live on just over $40 a day. Ask yourself, is that really enough to survive?

Samples 1 and 2 have the same information. Yet, Sample 2 engages with the audience in a much more effective manner. Try to avoid an overly formal tone and speak with passion and interest.

2. Presenting Without Confidence

Presenting in front of your class can be a very daunting experience. However, in order to distinguish yourself from your classmates, you must speak clearly and with confidence. Try to avoid making the following mistakes:

Reading Instead of Talking

Think back to primary school. Remember when your teacher would read you a storybook, and they would put on voices to make the story more engaging and interesting? The same sort of idea applies to your oral presentation. Simply reading a well-written speech will not get you marks. Rather, you should talk to your audience. Make eye contact, maintain good posture, and project your voice. Confidence is key!

Stalling for Time

I’m sure we’ve all been in a situation where we haven’t prepared ourselves for a test as well as we should have. The oral presentation SAC is not an assessment that you can simply wing on the day. Oftentimes, poor scores stem from a lack of preparation which can be reflected in the way students present themselves – and stalling for time is a big giveaway. Save yourself the mental stress and prepare for your SAC by writing out your speech beforehand (or even preparing a few dot points/cue cards). I personally find it helpful to practise in front of a mirror or even in front of pets/stuffed toys.

3. Not Distinguishing Yourself From Your Class

If you’re gunning for a good mark, you want to stand out from your class. This can be especially difficult if you are presenting the same topic as one of your peers. Avoid:

Starting in an Uninspiring Way

This is another big mistake students make when presenting. Let’s just estimate that there are approximately 20-25 people in your English class. Now, imagine if every person who presented before you began their speech with:

“Good morning, today I’ll be talking about why Newstart should be increased”.

It gets repetitive. You can distinguish yourself by beginning in a myriad of other ways. Here’s an example of how I started my own oral presentation for my SAC:

Topic: Should we ban sunscreens with oxybenzone and octinoxate?

Imagine you are a foreigner, excited to visit Australia. In your head, you’re picturing our beautiful flora and fauna, our stunning beaches, and the Great Coral Reef. You finally arrive after a long flight, eager to explore the country. You’re expecting the Great Coral Reef to be boasting colour, to look like all the pictures spotted online. Instead, you find what looks like a wasteland – a reef that has essentially been bleached to death. As Australians, we have to wonder what went wrong. If we really loved and cared for our environment, how could we not be protecting the reef, preventing any further damage? Recently, Hawaii banned sunscreens containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, reasoning that these chemicals were causing harm to coral. Yet, in Australia, banning sunscreens with these chemicals are seen as drastic and useless measures, which simply isn’t true when you look at the facts. 

This is an example of an “imagined scenario” starter. How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation outlines other ways to start your speech with examples! If you’re having trouble figuring out how to start with a BANG, definitely make use of this resource.

No Enthusiasm

I say this to my students regardless of the English SAC that they’re writing – you want your writing/speech to reflect that you are indeed learning and enjoying your education. Your teacher will be able to tell if you choose a topic that you have no interest in, or if you are simply regurgitating information. Use this SAC to learn about an issue and take interest in your learning. Believe me, your grades will thank you for it.

4. Incorrectly Using Visuals

Whether you are allowed to present with visuals or not is up to your English teacher. However, it is essential that you do not incorrectly use these visuals, as it can cost you marks. Avoid:

Overusing PowerPoint Slides

I’m a bit old-fashioned myself and honestly prefer presenting a speech with no images. That’s not to say that some images can’t be a great addition to your piece. However, PowerPoint can quickly steer you away from presenting your topic in an engaging manner. 

This is an oral presentation with a stance on an issue, not an assessment where you are marked for presenting information to an audience. Therefore, reading off of PowerPoint slides is a big NO. 

Using Cluttered Infographics

The point of focus of your oral presentation should be on YOU – your words, your stance on the issue. This ties into the PowerPoint criticism I made above, but using a cluttered infographic takes away from your well-written speech. Below is an example of an overly cluttered infographic:

If your speech was on renewable energy, your audience would be detracted from your stance, and too focussed on reading the information from the visual. If you have any key information that needs to be explained, it is better to embed this into your speech than rely on an infographic. ‍

5. Disregarding the Statement of Intention

If you’ve finished writing your speech, you may have let out a big sigh of relief. But don’t get too comfortable yet – you still have to write your statement of intention ( SOI ). This piece of writing is supposed to accompany your speech, and it’s worth 25% of your SAC mark. Do not waste all your hard efforts by not taking the SOI seriously. 

I like to think of an SOI as a language analysis of your own speech. Essentially, you should be explaining your choice of language, tone, and rhetoric, and justifying why that would make a profound impact on the audience.  Make sure you understand what an SOI is.

I like thinking of this as a three-step approach:

• Quote my own speech 
• Explain why and how my language would impact the audience
• Link back to my overall contention of the issue

‍ How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation outlines exactly what is expected of you in this section of your SAC. If you’d like to see an annotated A+ statement of intention, be sure to check it out!

I hope that going through these mistakes will help you when writing your own oral presentation! It’s always best to ask your teacher or English tutor for advice if you’re unsure of where to start. Happy writing!

We’ve explored creative writing criteria, literary elements and how to replicate the text over on our The Ultimate Guide to VCE Creative Writing blog post . If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to creative writing, I highly recommend checking it out!

There are two types of people in this world… those who love creative writing, and those who don’t. But no matter which one you are, never fear, your saviour is here (in the form of this simple guide to writing creatively – whether it’s for school, for a writing competition or just for fun)!

What Are the Five Steps?

• Do a brain dump of your ideas!
• Stay true to yourself
• Start small - keep it simple
• Don't be afraid to add "spice"
• Read your writing out loud

STEP 1: Do a brain dump of your ideas!

You’ll often find that your brain is buzzing with possible storylines or scenarios; you’ll feel so overwhelmed trying to pick just one! Or maybe, you’re experiencing  “writer’s block”,  a mind blank. My tip for this is to set a five-minute timer, get a blank sheet of paper and scribble down everything that comes to your mind! You’ll be surprised at how imaginative your mind can be under pressure! When the timer goes off, take a break and then read through each idea individually before choosing one to develop. This way you’ll be able to clearly see all your thoughts, and maybe even be able to link multiple ideas into a more detailed story !

STEP 2: Stay true to yourself

Creative writing is so different to other text types because it gives you the freedom to choose what you're writing about, and how you're going to do it! So, take advantage of this and write from the heart – don’t try to be someone you’re not. Let your personality shine through your writing. It's usually the stories that have some kind of personal backstory, or are based on a real-life experience that are the most enjoyable to read!

STEP 3: Start small - keep it simple

No one expects you to write a New York Times best seller novel in your first attempt! Even the most talented authors began with a dot point plan or a simple paragraph based on their idea. From my experience, the absolute hardest thing to do is actually get started. Keeping it simple and focusing on getting your ideas down on the page is the easiest way to overcome this hurdle. You can worry about the language and descriptions later, once you have a basic first draft, editing and developing is so much easier!

Want to also know the 11 mistakes high school students tend to make in creative writing? Check out this  

STEP 4: Don't be afraid to add "spice"

Now it's time for my favourite part; adding the flavour! This is what will make your writing stand out from the crowd! Take some risks , don’t be afraid to rewrite parts of your piece or use language techniques that are out of your comfort zone! 

Here are a few of my favourite features to use when creative writing:

• Flashbacks / Foreshadowing (these are good tools to subtly suggest a character’s backstory and add some mystery – especially if you use third-person language to make it more cryptic) 

E.g. As he entered the quadrangle for the first time since the accident, a wave of nostalgia hit Jack… The boy chuckled as the girl ran across the quadrangle to meet him, her cheeks rosy from the frosty air. The pale orange sky was transforming into a deep violet and the new-formed shadows cast dancing silhouettes on the young couple. The boy took the girl’s hand, making a silent promise to himself to protect her smile forever. A promise he would fail to keep…

• Personification (giving inanimate objects some life to spice up your descriptions!)

E.g. Her favourite oak tree stood proudly in the middle of the park, arms outstretched, waving to those that passed by.

• Oxymoron (contradictory words or groups of words)

E.g. Deafening silence, blinding darkness, cold fire

If you want to enhance your language or use different adjectives to what you normally use, https://www.thesaurus.com/ is your best friend! 😉 

If you're stuck on how to develop your descriptions and make them more vivid, I suggest relating back to the five senses . Ask yourself, what can the character see? What can they smell? What does the setting they're in sound like?

E.g. He was paralysed in front of the caskets… the cotton wrapped, caterpillar-like bodies, the oppressive silence of the parlour made him feel sick. And the overpowering stench of disinfectant mixed with already-wilting flowers certainly didn’t help.

STEP 5: Read your writing out loud

It can be awkward at first, but have some fun with it! Put on an accent, pretend you're a narrator, and read your writing. It really helps you to gauge the flow of the piece , and also identify things you might need to change. Or even better, read your writing to a friend or family member - ask them how they feel and what their initial thoughts are after hearing your piece .

Either way, reflection is one of the best ways to improve your writing and get it to the next level.

That’s all there is to it folks! Follow this simple recipe and you’ll be cooking up a creative-writing storm! Good luck! 😊

Want more tips on how you can achieve an A+ in creative writing? Read this blog post.

Before you start diving into Jamie's incredible In Cold Blood study guide, I'd highly recommend that you check out LSG's free Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Introduction and Narration ‍

• Although its structure and cinematic plot development resemble that of crime fiction, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a ‘nonfiction novel’ detailing the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Put simply, the book was conceived of journalism and born of a novelist. 

• The novel is a product of years of extensive research by Capote and his friend and fellow author Harper Lee, who followed the trails of the Kansas criminals across numerous US states. In Cold Blood revolutionised the American ideals of journalism and literature, blurring the lines between these labels.

• A notable technique Capote employed in order to access classified information was becoming personally acquainted with the criminals of the case. For example, Capote became extremely close to Perry Smith, one of the main murderers in the case, which gave him exclusive information on the personal motives of the killers. 

• In Cold Blood reflects this relationship with the murderer through Capote’s narration of the book as an objective bystander. On page 23, we see the almost endearing way that Capote describes Perry; “his voice was both gentle and prim– a voice that, though soft, manufactured each word exactly, ejected it like a smoke ring issuing from a parson’s mouth.” As such, Capote’s friendship with Perry allows him to present the killer to the audience with a certain humanity and empathy, showcasing a broader picture of criminals than just a merciless murderer.

True facts of the Case

• On the 15th of November, 1959, all four members of the small farming Clutter family were brutally murdered, including Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie Clutter and their two teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon.

• The family was discovered bound and shot in the head. Herb’s throat had also been slashed. After ransacking the entire house, the criminals had left without finding any cash, carrying with them no more than fifty dollars, a pair of binoculars and a transistor radio.

• Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene ‘Dick’ Hickock were convicted of the crime. The two men had become acquainted during serving time at the Kansas State Penitentiary, and soon confessed to the crime, claiming that that they had heard from another prisoner that Herb Clutter was extremely wealthy, and kept his money in an easy-to-reach safe in his house.

• After the confession, the two murderers were flown from Nevada to Garden City, where they stood trial for their crimes. On 29 March, 1960, they received a guilty verdict, and were sentenced to the death penalty. For the following five years, Smith and Hickock lived on death row in Leavenworth, Kansas and were executed by hanging on the 14th of April, 1965.

Character Analysis

Perry edward smith.

One of the two murderers of the Clutter case, Smith is portrayed as a sensitive and artistic man haunted by his turbulent and lonely childhood. Described by Capote as a man of ‘actorish’ good looks, he disfigured both of his legs due to a motorcycle accident, which gave him chronic pain and an addiction to aspirin. His criminal actions are often directly linked to his childhood, described as ‘no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another’. Smith’s father was extremely abusive towards his wife, Flo Buckskin, and his four children, and so Buckskin later divorced him, taking the children with her. However, on her own she became an alcoholic and died by choking on her own vomit when Smith was only thirteen years old. He was then transferred to a Catholic orphanage, where he suffered from psychological, sexual and physical abuse from the nuns, one of whom attempted to drown him. Smith’s father and two of his siblings committed suicide during his time on death row. Smith eventually befriended Capote through their extensive interviews, and is believed to have shared personal information with him, believing him to be a true friend.

Richard Eugene ‘Dick’ Hickock

The second murderer of the Clutter case. Having grown up in Kansas, Hickock was a popular football player before turning to a life of crime after realising that he could not afford to go to college. During the course of the Clutter murder investigations, Hickock persistently blamed all of the murders on his partner in crime, Smith, claiming that ‘Perry Smith killed the Clutters…. It was Perry. I couldn’t stop him. He killed them all.’ Capote later states that during the murder, Smith was the one who stopped Hickock from raping the 16-year-old Nancy Clutter, as Hickock harboured pedophilic tendencies.

Herbert Clutter

A well-liked and kind-hearted wheat farmer in Holcomb, Kansas. Proprietor of the large River Valley Farm, Herb is described as a hardworking and valued citizen before his murder, who lead a relatively quiet life other than a troubled marriage with his wife due to her chronic depression.

Bonnie Clutter

Described as an ‘anxious woman’, it is revealed that Bonnie has a history of numerous mental illnesses, one of which is postpartum depression. Capote states that she and Herb had not slept in the same bed for many years.

Nancy Clutter

Described as the ‘darling of the town’ - the class president and future prom queen Nancy was the 16 year old daughter of the Clutters.

Kenyon Clutter

Athletic but introverted, Kenyon was the 15 year old son of Herbert and Bonnie Clutter.

Alvin Dewey

A personal friend of the Clutters, Dewey was the primary investigator in the Clutter murder case and worked for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Themes and Motifs

The american dream.

The novel is Capote’s reflection upon the American Dream, as he portrays both the lives of those who epitomise it and those who are tragically out of its reach. Herb Clutter’s position as an upstanding American citizen with a prosperous farm elicits the reader’s interpretation of his character as the rags-to-riches ideal. In stark contrast with this, the rootless and criminal Dick Hancock and Perry Smith are presented as individuals for whom the Dream is perpetually unattainable. Their attempt to finally become ‘rich’ materialises through their attempt to rob the Clutters’ home, the failure of which ironically results in their brutal murders of the people who successfully represented the American Dream.

In accordance with the American Dream, In Cold Blood also explores the concept of what is considered ‘normal’ in America, and what can be revealed as the darker underbelly of its white picket fence ideal. Dick asserts throughout the novel that he is ‘normal’, but from an external, objective perspective, he is clearly far from such; he has distorted physical features and has committed a terrible, vicious murder. Capote also explores the idea of normal mental health, as Bonnie Clutter seems to have the perfect marriage and life with Herb, and yet suffers from extreme bouts of ‘nervousness’ and chronic depression which result in her hospitalisation.

What is evil is primarily explored through the character of Perry, who has conflicting ideals about what can be considered truly ‘evil’. The more feminine and gentler of the two murderers, Perry possesses conflicting morals, as despite being a ruthless murderer, he does feel remorse and is affected by what he has done. He even thinks to himself that Herb Clutter is a ‘very nice gentleman’ even in the midst of slitting his throat. Capote in the novel reveals that there are numerous facets to the meaning of true ‘evil’, and the blurred borders that exist between each of these.

Masculinity

Symbolising the idea of dominance and power, Dick and Perry, who have a complementary and polarised gender relationship, feed off each other in order to boost their own masculinity. Described as ‘aggressively heterosexual’, Dick is evidently the more stereotypically masculine counterpart, having had numerous relations with women. Perry, on the other hand, is more feminine and submissive, as Dick often calls him names such as ‘sugar’ and ‘honey’. Both men in the novel utilise the other in order to make themselves feel more masculine in their highly restrictive and conservative society — while Dick emphasises Perry’s feminine qualities, Perry admires Dick and craves his words of affirmation that he, too, is masculine.

Essay Writing for In Cold Blood

Below are some possible prompts for In Cold Blood , and possible ideas to begin writing an essay.

Theme-based Essay Prompt

"I think it is a hell of a thing that a life has to be taken in this manner. I say this especially because there's a great deal I could have offered society. I certainly think capital punishment is legally and morally wrong.”

Is In Cold Blood merely a novelistic argument against the death penalty? Discuss.

To learn more about LSG’s Five Types of essay prompts, I’d highly recommend checking out this blog post . It’s a super unique strategy developed by the founder of LSG, Lisa Tran. The Five Types method, outlined in the top-rated How To Write A Killer Text Response eBook , takes the stress of students and gives them easy to follow rules and tips so that they know how to approach every essay topic, every time.

• The best way to approach any essay prompt is to recognise the limiting and/or important words of the essay question. In this thematic prompt these words are: ‘legally and morally’, and ‘merely’.

• Secondly, for prompts which incorporate a quote, it is helpful to understand the context of the quote. In this case, the quote was said by Perry as his last words before his execution by hanging. Consider the importance of this; these words are especially more meaningful as they symbolise the last direct influence he leaves upon society. They are remorseful words of a murderer reproaching the justice system, which begs the question - does Capote position the reader to agree with the murderer’s view?

• Planning this essay can be structured along three arguments...

1. Capote argues against capital punishment through eliciting pathos for the murderers and portraying them as more than mere monsters.

• Evidence for this argument could be based mostly on the descriptive elements of Capote’s writing, or his emotional attachment to the murderers, particularly Perry.

• Capote paints Perry particularly sympathetically, highlighting his sensitivity as well as his broken and abusive childhood. Quotations from the novel make it clear that his character is romanticised to an extent, such as “It was a changeling's face, and mirror-guided experiments had taught him how to ring the changes, how to look now ominous, now impish, now soulful; a tilt of the head, a twist of the lips, and the corrupt gypsy became the gentle romantic.”

2. In Cold Blood supports the anti-death penalty argument through its structure and organisation.

• The epigraph of the novel is a verse of the poem, ‘Ballade des pendus’ by Francois Villon, that he composed whilst on death row in 1463. Villon’s criminal circumstances were strikingly similar with Dick and Perry’s, as he murdered a priest and stole from his strongbox before being arrested and sentenced to death. Despite this, Villon was ultimately charged with a 10 year banishment from Paris, whereas the Clutter family murderers are hanged - a strikingly different outcome. Thus, Capote employs this poetic epigraph to strengthen his argument against the unjust executions of Perry and Dick.

• In addition to this, the structure of the novel is also used to argue against capital punishment. Although Part One focuses on the lives of both the Clutter family members and Dick and Perry preceding the murder, Part Two skips over the actual murders themselves and recounts the aftermath of its events. This allows Capote to further develop Dick and Perry into real, complex people rather than merely cold blooded murderers; people who do not deserve such a cruel fate.  

3. However, Capote does ostensibly condemn the cruelty of the murders and presents the opposing argument that capital punishment is not, in fact, ‘legally and morally wrong’.

• The brutality of the Clutter murders are emphasised through the novel, as Larry Hendricks, who discovers the bodies along with the police, provides the gruesome details of the bodies - ‘each tied up and shot in the head, one with a slit throat’.

• As Perry later admits to the murder in his extended confession, Dewey highlights the fact that the Clutters ‘had suffered’ due to the ‘prolonged terror' inflicted by the murderers, and orders them, as such, to be ‘hanged back to back’.

• The argument for capital punishment in In Cold Blood is also supported by religious beliefs. As a small and predominantly Christian town, Kansas and its residents can be perceived interpreting the words of the Bible literally; at the end Dick and Perry’s trial, the prosecuting attorney Logan Green reads an excerpt from Genesis in the Holy Bible: ‘Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Rejecting the notion that Christianity preaches forgiveness, Green strives to punish the killers for failing to abide by the laws and prophecies of the Old Testament.

Character essay prompt

Perry Smith, despite Capote’s authorial sympathy towards him, is really a cold and merciless monster. Discuss.

When approaching character-based prompts, you must depart slightly from examining the holistic messages of the author, as you would in a theme-based prompt, but rather analyse how the specific character develops this authorial message. The above essay question could be brainstormed in the following way:

1. Capote’s description of Perry shows that he is far from a ‘monster’, but a human being of great sensitivity and emotion.

• During his confession of the Clutter murders, Perry’s comment, ‘There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that,’ shows that he, to some extent, understands the gravity of his actions and regrets them.

• Perry is also described by his sister as ‘gentle’, and someone who ‘used to cry because he thought the sunset was so beautiful’. Likewise, even in moments of cruelty, he often shows mercy and a wide moral compass, even stopping Dick from raping Nancy Clutter during their murder spree.

2. Perry is also depicted as someone ‘weakened’ by the tragic events of his past and his own insecurities, rather than an inherently ‘cold and merciless’ person.

• Capote often links Perry’s violent tendencies with his childhood, described as ‘no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another’, as he was raised ‘with no rule or discipline, or anyone to show [him] right from wrong’.

• In addition to this, Perry can be perceived to be the more insecure and submissive of the two killers, as while Dick often calls him stereotypically feminine names such as ‘sugar’ and honey’, Perry admires his ‘aggressive’ masculinity and craves his words of affirmation in order to feel as masculine and strong as his counterpart.

3. Despite this, Capote does not entirely erase the murderous aspects of Perry’s character.

• Due to the prompt and seemingly nonchalant way in which he kills the clutters, Dick becomes convinced that Perry is that rarity of a person,"a natural killer.”

• Thus, Capote, despite his empathetic portrayal of Perry, never allows the reader to forget the  extent of his criminality, and how easily he was able to fire those ‘four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.’

How can the context of a film be utilised to add complexity to an analysis?

Writing a film analysis can be daunting in comparison to analysing a written text. The task of dissecting a motion picture consisting of dialogue, camera shots and dialogic sound is challenging, but an understanding of a film’s social, cultural and political background can elevate your analysis from standard to spectacular. Thus, before analysing Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller ‘Rear Window’, it is important to consider its cultural, political and social context:

Cultural Context

• The Greenwich Village setting of ‘Rear Window’ is located in Lower West Manhattan, New York, and was known as America’s ‘bohemian capital’ during the 1950s, in which avant-garde artists freely explored unconventional lifestyles.
• Hitchcock’s decision to use Greenwich Village as the backdrop of the film links its image of human suffering to the failed vision of American progressivist culture.
• Despite acting as the main location of progressive culture, such as the beginning of the international gay rights movement, Greenwich Village was also the setting for the broken dreams of its eclectic residents.
• This cyclical nature of hope and defeat can be observed in the film, as the audience can perceive the frustrated songwriter destroying his latest work, and Miss Lonely hearts desperately seeking true love in the seedy bars and gloomy alleyways of the ‘bohemian heaven’.
• Additionally, it is this social radicalism of Jeff’s neighbours that provides the basis for his voyeuristic habits; by portraying their individual eccentricities though their respective apartment windows, Hitchcock offers to Jeff a range of human peculiarities, which he eagerly observes through his ‘portable keyhole’.

Political Context

• ‘Rear Window’ encapsulates the rampant Mccarthyism, and subsequent suspicion, at the time of its release in 1954.
• The fear of Communist influence in the USA led to heightened political repression from the government, and Americans could only prove their loyalty to the country only by offering others’ names to the government.
• As such, Jeff’s insubstantial speculation about Thorwald murdering his bedridden wife is disturbingly reflective of the social strife in 1950s America, as thousands accused their neighbours for treason or subversion without concrete evidence.
• Along with heightened political surveillance followed the allure of voyeurism; just as Jeff is contained to his wheelchair, and can merely gaze through his rear window into his wider world - the courtyard, so were Americans during the Cold War; expected to only ‘gaze’, and leave all the ‘involvement and engagement to the politicians’.

Social Context

• The suburban setting of‘Rear Window’ reinforces the sense of confinement and suspicion rampant during the 1950s.
• After WWII ended in 1952, millions of US soldiers returned to a multitude of suburban homes built using mass production techniques, all overwhelmingly close to another. The Greenwich Village of ‘Rear Window’ is an example of one of these suburbs.
• The crowded Greenwich Village apartment complex of the film acts as an effective narrative device, as Hitchcock employs the physical proximity of the apartments to reinforce the overwhelming sense of voyeurism and paranoia amongst neighbours.

How to Analyse a Scene

The Film’s Opening Sequence:

As the blinds roll up to reveal the apartment complex, a medium shot of the wide-open windows of each apartment immediately convey to the audience an environment of an uncomfortable openness. However, despite this, the separation of each apartment by brick walls as a separate entity on its own serves as a symbol of the widespread suspicion characteristic of the McCarthyian era. Within the frame of the main window, the windows of each apartment act as mini frames within the big frame, multiplying the sense of voyeurism present in the shot.

Although seemingly insignificant, the brown tabby cat that runs across the steps of Greenwich Village represents freedom and individual autonomy, later comparable to the character of Lisa in the film. The compounding sense of surveillance during the 1950s add more meaning to the freedom symbolised by the cat, which can then be contrasted to the suppressed independence of the protagonist, who is seen invalid in a wheelchair in the next shot:

By this extreme close-up shot of Jeff sleeping in his wheelchair during the opening sequence, Hitchcock immediately places the viewer in an uncomfortable position as the original and ultimate voyeur, surpassing the intimate boundaries of the protagonist. The camera’s focus on the beads of sweat on Jeff’s forehead signify the intense heat of summer in Greenwich Village, confirmed by the following close up shot of 94F on the thermometer:

The stifling temperature of the season foreshadows imminent tension about to unfold in the film, as does the following close-up shot:

The slow panning from Jeff’s head to his broken left leg in a cast, in tandem with the ominous, epitaph-like words, ‘Here lie the broken bones of L.B Jefferies’, increase the impending sense of tragedy.

Jeff’s profession as a photographer becomes gradually more evident, as the camera slowly pans from focusing on Jeff’s injury to around his room. This close shot of a destroyed, seemingly irreparable camera, literally reflects the cyclic nature of broken dreams characteristic of Greenwich Village, and also signifies that Jeff too has been hurt (literally) by radical pursuits in his progression. It is important to note that Jeff’s room is plain and lacks any decorative sophistication, establishing his character as a simple, ‘everyday’ American man.

The only things adorning Jeff’s small room are his many photographs, all taken by himself. Despite varying in size and setting, they all share a single point of similarity; they all focus on sights of destruction, such as the race car crash or the remains of a volcanic eruption. The framed nature of these photographs signify Jeff’s appreciation for tragic devastation, establishing further doom in the film by lending a darker note to his voyeuristic tendencies.

The last photograph the camera focuses on in the opening sequence is the picture taken by Jeff of an elegant woman, who bears a striking resemblance to Lisa.

This image of ‘Lisa’ in the negative literally symbolises Jeff’s negative perception of his girlfriend Lisa at the beginning of the film. In contrast, the following shot of ‘Lisa’ in the ‘positive’ foreshadows the development of the film, as he begins to perceive Lisa as a possible life partner:

Want to save this for later? Download a PDF version of this blog here .

We've curated essay prompts based off our All the Light We Cannot See Study Guide which explores themes, characters, and quotes.

LSG-curated All the Light We Cannot See Essay Topics

• Contrary to what the title might suggest, All the Light We Cannot See explores light more so than darkness. Is this true?
• How does Doerr’s narrative structure highlight the similarities and differences between Marie Laure and Werner in All the Light We Cannot See?
• All the Light We Cannot See demonstrates that war brings out the best and worst in humanity. Discuss.
• Explore the forms of courage demonstrated in All the Light We Cannot See.
• What is the role of family in All the Light We Cannot See?
• Werner’s character is defined by his cowardly and harmful conformity to the Nazi regime. To what extent do you agree?
• All the Light We Cannot See is a warning against unethical and selfish scientific pursuits. Discuss.
• Who deserves our sympathy in All the Light We Cannot See and why?
• Throughout All the Light We Cannot See, various forms of guilt are shown to be emotionally crushing. Is this true?
• “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” Explore the value and meaning of human life as evinced in All the Light We Cannot See.
• No character from All the Light We Cannot See is totally monstrous, just as no character is totally pure. Do you agree?
• In All the Light We Cannot See , Doerr suggests that nobody truly has agency over themselves. Discuss.
• More so than any other object, it is the radio which drives the plot of All the Light We Cannot See . Is this an accurate statement?
• All the Light We Cannot See posits that strength must come from within. Discuss.
• “Open your eyes and see what you can see with them before they close forever.” To what extent do characters exhibit this sentiment in All the Light We Cannot See ?

If you'd like to see a fully planned, written and annotated essay, see our All the Light We Cannot See Essay Topic Breakdown .

All the Light We Cannot See is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Get exclusive weekly advice from Lisa, only available via email.

Power-up your learning with free essay topics, downloadable word banks, and updates on the latest VCE strategies.

latest articles

Check out our latest thought leadership on enterprise innovation., how to incorporate sunset boulevard's cinematic features into your vce essay.

VCE Creative Writing: How To Structure Your Story

The White Girl by Tony Birch: Historical Context and Quotes

Keep in touch

Have questions? Get in touch with us here - we usually reply in 24 business hours.

Unfortunately, we won't be able to answer any emails here requesting personal help with your study or homework here!

Copyright © Lisa's Study Guides. All Rights Reserved. The VCAA does not endorse and is not affiliated with Lisa's Study Guides or vcestudyguides.com. The VCAA provides the only official, up to date versions of VCAA publications and information about courses including the VCE. VCE® is a registered trademark of the VCAA.

03 9028 5603 Call us: Monday to Friday between 3pm - 6pm or leave us a message and we'll call you back! Address: Level 2 Little Collins St Melbourne 3000 VIC

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

English Works

Improve Your Essays: use metalanguage to good effect: Analytical Terms

It’s a good time to get ahead by learning your metalanguage – analytical terms.

English Language: See Sample Responses : VCAA English Language Exams

For Sponsorship and Other Enquiries

Keep in touch.

Planning and Structure

When writing your analytical response you must be able to answer the question/s and explore all aspects of it with great insight.   The way you develop and prove that argument will require some elaboration. When planning your essay, think about how your paragraphs are sequenced and why you want to sequence them in a particular way. How does the order of your ideas help to develop a logical and coherent line of argument? It is important that there is a kind of conceptual glue that connects the ideas from one paragraph to another and that you are not just repeating a single idea throughout the response. 

Brainstorming

A mind map can be helpful to some people. Start with your central topic, and arrange smaller ideas around it in bubbles. Connect the bubbles to identify patterns and how things are related.

Good brainstorming can be all over the place. In fact, that can be a good way to start off! Don't discount any ideas just yet. Write down any element or fact that you think of as you examine your topic.

Before you even start writing your essay...

Unpack the prompt (identify keywords, write down synonmous for these words and connect it to the text).

Think about your 3 arguments/big ideas that will be the focus for your three TEEL paragraphs

Write your contention

If you do all three of things you will have a better understaning of the prompt, a clear direction for your essay and feel ready to write!

• Games & Quizzes
• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center

metalanguage

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

metalanguage , in semantics and philosophy, language used for the analysis of object language (language that is used to talk about objects in the world). Thus, a metalanguage may be thought of as a language about another language. Such philosophers as the German-born Logical Positivist Rudolf Carnap and Alfred Tarski , Polish-born mathematician, argued that philosophical problems and philosophical statements can be resolved only when seen in terms of a syntactical framework. The logic of semantics is what determines the truth of a statement, rather than the statement’s nonformal, or actual, meaning . Carnap felt that by making use of symbolic notation in a metalanguage and by adhering to rules of logic it was possible to avoid metaphysical judgments, which, in his system, were by definition invalid.

The 7 Types of Essays Every Student Needs to Know

Throughout your academic career, you’ll write a lot of essays . And you’ll probably write a lot of different types of essays, such as analytical and argumentative essays. Different kinds of essays require different skills, like infusing figurative language into a personal essay to help it come alive or critically thinking through a multifaceted problem in an analytical essay to reach a solution. Essays vary in length and structure , too, with some spanning pages and others fitting neatly into just a few paragraphs.  

Get to know these seven types of essays before you’re assigned to write them. Understanding how they’re different—and how they’re the same—will turn you into an expert essayist.

Give your essays extra polish Grammarly helps strengthen your academic writing Write with Grammarly

The four main types of writing

In many of the online resources you’ll find about the types of essays, you’ll find references to the four main types of writing :

• Descriptive

These aren’t four specific types of essays, but four distinct methods of communicating an essay’s theme. They are the four most commonly used of the nine traditional rhetorical modes , which also include methods like classification and process analysis. 

When you’re assigned an essay, using one of these rhetorical modes might be part of the assignment. For example, you might be asked to write an argumentative essay about a new proposed campus policy and whether it should or should not be enacted. In your essay, you’d use persuasive writing techniques, like expressing your point of view about the proposed policy and its likely repercussions, to communicate your position. 

Understanding the four main types of writing can help you understand the texts you work with better. When you’re reading an essay, try to identify which type of writing the author is using by examining the essay’s structure , tone, words used, and how the author presents their theme. By doing this, you can analyze an essay on a deeper level and write a stronger essay of your own based on those insights. 

7 types of essays to know

1   personal essays.

In a personal essay, your focus is on something that has impacted you personally. It could be an event from your past, a situation you’re currently facing, or a broader look at how different experiences and circumstances shaped you into who you are today. 

Often, personal essays employ narrative writing techniques. However, they can also rely on expository or descriptive techniques, depending on the essay’s content and theme. Personal essays can overlap with other types of essays, like argumentative, humorous, and college application essays. 

Personal essay example: The Death of a Moth by Virginia Woolf. In this essay, Woolf explores the fleeting nature of life by juxtaposing it against inevitable death by describing a moth’s final moments. 

2 Political essays

You may recognize some of the most well-known political essays from what you read in history class. These essays are pieces by famous historical and contemporary thinkers that discuss society and how it should be governed. A few famous political essayists you’ve likely read in class include Thomas Hobbes, John Rawls, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In a political essay, the author comments on present circumstances and proposes solutions to them, sometimes pulling examples of similar circumstances or solutions from history. Generally, political essays fall into the expository or persuasive writing categories. 

Political essay example: The Era of Easier Voting for Disabled People Is Over by Sarah Katz. In this essay, Katz discusses how pandemic-related changes to the voting system made voting easier for individuals with disabilities and how new bills that aim to curb voter fraud can have a negative impact on this voter population. 

3 Compare-and-contrast essays

Compare-and-contrast essays are likely one of the types of essays students write most frequently. In this kind of essay, the author exposes key differences and similarities between two subjects by comparing them to each other and contrasting them against each other. 

You might be asked to compare two novels you read for class, two historical figures from the period you’re studying, two processes used to achieve the same result, or two concepts your instructor covered. In some cases, you may be asked to compare three or even more subjects. But generally, compare-and-contrast essays involve two subjects. 

Usually, compare-and-contrast essays are pieces of expository writing, as the essay’s theme is exposed through the comparisons the author makes. They can also be pieces of persuasive writing when the comparisons are made to persuade the reader to take a specific position.

Compare-and-contrast essay example: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven . This compare-and-contrast essay explores how an individual can become unaware of and trapped by their own suffering by comparing how both authors create this dilemma for their characters in these works. 

4 College (application) essays

Not all essays you write in college count as college essays . In fact, unless you apply to graduate school or another kind of specific academic program once you’re in college, you’ll write all your college essays before you become a college student. 

A college application essay, also known as a personal statement , is a brief personal essay that highlights the personality traits and experiences that make you an ideal fit for the college to which you’re applying. These essays are evaluated alongside high school transcripts for one’s admission to college. 

Usually, college essays are written in response to specific prompts, like the prompts provided by the Common App . These prompts are crafted to help applicants write engaging, compelling personal essays by asking them to respond to multiple related points. 

College application essay examples: You can read great examples of successful college essays on websites like collegeessayguy.com . Your school might even have a collection of successful essays for applicants to read, as this page on Johns Hopkins’ website does. In one essay, Switching Shoes , by a recently accepted Johns Hopkins applicant, the writer discusses how getting out of his comfort zone by trying a new sport reshaped his perspective. It pushed him to accept feedback more readily, speak up when he has questions, and appreciate his chosen sport in a broader way. 

5 Analytical essays

Analytical essays are essays that drill down to the core components of the subject at hand and reach conclusions by thoroughly working through these components. You might be asked to write an analytical essay about the themes in a novel or about the ideas presented in a political essay. Analytical essays are pieces of expository writing; the goal with these is to present facts by interpreting content.

In an analytical essay, the author does not try to persuade the reader to take a certain position. Rather, the author presents a work, such as a movie or a short story, and analyzes its theme by discussing ways the work communicates its theme. For example, you might write an analytical essay about how the film Up communicated its theme of love being an action fueled by fulfilling promises. In illustrating this, you might bring up Russell’s dedication to earning his merit badge and Carl’s never giving up on Ellie’s goal of reaching Paradise Falls. 

In some analytical essays, the author analyzes two or more works. When this is done to compare the works, the essay can be considered both a compare-and-contrast essay and an analytical one. 

Analytical essay example: Island of Fear by Moses Martinez. In this high school–level literary analysis essay, the author explains how William Golding uses three characters in Lord of the Flies to demonstrate how differently people react to threats and trauma, even when those people are in the same environment. 

6 Argumentative essays

In an argumentative essay , you . . . well . . . argue. 

Specifically, you argue for or against a particular position. For example, your assignment might be to take a position about your school’s policy of not allowing a student to take more than two AP courses per year and support your position with data. To support your position that it’s a good policy, you might point to the correlation between how many AP courses a student takes and their average AP test scores or the hours of homework required for each AP course. 

Well-written argumentative essays don’t rely on emotional appeal. Rather, they convince readers of their positions’ merits through statistics, facts, and logic. In most cases, argumentative essays are pieces of persuasive writing . 

Argumentative essay example: Does Truth Matter? Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization by Carl Sagan. In this essay, Sagan argues that rather than being in opposition to spirituality, science should be considered a source—perhaps the most valid source—of the kind of fulfillment people usually take from spiritual practices.  

7 Humorous essays

Another kind of essay you might find yourself reading or writing is the humorous essay. As the name implies, this kind of essay is meant to elicit laughs and entertain the reader. A humorous essay could be a personal essay that recounts a funny event in the author’s life, but it can also be a political essay that uses satire to comment on current events. As long as it’s funny and an essay, it counts as a humorous essay. 

Humorous essays generally use the same techniques that other essays use, often leaning more into the techniques found in narrative writing like descriptive language and metaphors. Often, humorous essays are pieces of descriptive writing, using hyperbolic, irreverent, or whimsical language to express a funny take on the subject covered. 

Humorous essay example: The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris. In this essay, Sedaris writes from the perspective of a man playing an elf at a mall Santa setup. Through this point of view, he satirizes this American holiday ritual through ironic anecdotes. 

Grammarly helps polish any type of essay

No matter what you’re writing about, grammar and spelling mistakes in your essay undermine the point you’re making. Don’t let it happen to you—use Grammarly to catch every mistake before you click “submit.”

Sometimes the issue isn’t your grammar, but your tone. Grammarly can help with that, too. Whether you’re writing a serious political think piece or a silly narrative of the last time you attempted to do Black Friday shopping, our tone detector can pick up on your intended tone and help you rein in your writing appropriately.

Please login to system to use all resources

Search the forums now!

We have moved.

We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has made the original ATAR Notes forum such a helpful, warm and welcoming place. Your contributions are appreciated and we will be leaving the forum in archive mode for posterity.

Please visit our new website and discussion area .

Welcome, Guest . Please login or register.

• ATAR Notes: Forum »
• VCE Stuff »
• VCE Subjects + Help »
• VCE English Studies »
• VCE English & EAL »
• What are examples of metalanguage for text response?

Author Topic: What are examples of metalanguage for text response?  (Read 47006 times)  Tweet   Share  

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

• Forum Leader
• Live life with no regrets.
• Respect: +13
• School: West side
• School Grad Year: 2012
• ATAR Notes Superstar

• Posts: 2356
• Respect: +218

Re: What are examples of metalanguage for text response?

• Posts: 2147
• When I grow up I'm going to Bovine University.
• Respect: +66
• Forum Obsessive
• Respect: +35
• Trendsetter
• Respect: +1

Recent Posts

• Top Courses
• Online Degrees
• Find your New Career
• Join for Free

What Is Artificial Intelligence? Definition, Uses, and Types

Learn what artificial intelligence actually is, how it’s used today, and what it may do in the future.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems capable of performing complex tasks that historically only a human could do, such as reasoning, making decisions, or solving problems. 

Today, the term “AI” describes a wide range of technologies that power many of the services and goods we use every day – from apps that recommend tv shows to chatbots that provide customer support in real time. But do all of these really constitute artificial intelligence as most of us envision it? And if not, then why do we use the term so often? 

In this article, you’ll learn more about artificial intelligence, what it actually does, and different types of it. In the end, you’ll also learn about some of its benefits and dangers and explore flexible courses that can help you expand your knowledge of AI even further.  

Want to try out your AI skills? Enroll in AI for Everyone, an online program offered by DeepLearning.AI. In just 6 hours , you'll gain foundational knowledge about AI terminology , strategy , and the workflow of machine learning projects . Your first week is free .

What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the theory and development of computer systems capable of performing tasks that historically required human intelligence, such as recognizing speech, making decisions, and identifying patterns. AI is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide variety of technologies, including machine learning , deep learning , and natural language processing (NLP) . 

Although the term is commonly used to describe a range of different technologies in use today, many disagree on whether these actually constitute artificial intelligence. Instead, some argue that much of the technology used in the real world today actually constitutes highly advanced machine learning that is simply a first step towards true artificial intelligence, or “general artificial intelligence” (GAI).

Yet, despite the many philosophical disagreements over whether “true” intelligent machines actually exist, when most people use the term AI today, they’re referring to a suite of machine learning-powered technologies, such as Chat GPT or computer vision, that enable machines to perform tasks that previously only humans can do like generating written content, steering a car, or analyzing data. 

Artificial intelligence examples 

Though the humanoid robots often associated with AI (think Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Data or Terminator’s   T-800) don’t exist yet, you’ve likely interacted with machine learning-powered services or devices many times before. 

At the simplest level, machine learning uses algorithms trained on data sets to create machine learning models that allow computer systems to perform tasks like making song recommendations, identifying the fastest way to travel to a destination, or translating text from one language to another. Some of the most common examples of AI in use today include: 

ChatGPT : Uses large language models (LLMs) to generate text in response to questions or comments posed to it. 

Google Translate: Uses deep learning algorithms to translate text from one language to another. 

Netflix: Uses machine learning algorithms to create personalized recommendation engines for users based on their previous viewing history. 

Tesla: Uses computer vision to power self-driving features on their cars. 

Read more: Deep Learning vs. Machine Learning: Beginner’s Guide

The increasing accessibility of generative AI tools has made it an in-demand skill for many tech roles . If you're interested in learning to work with AI for your career, you might consider a free, beginner-friendly online program like Google's Introduction to Generative AI .

AI in the workforce

Artificial intelligence is prevalent across many industries. Automating tasks that don't require human intervention saves money and time, and can reduce the risk of human error. Here are a couple of ways AI could be employed in different industries:

Finance industry. Fraud detection is a notable use case for AI in the finance industry. AI's capability to analyze large amounts of data enables it to detect anomalies or patterns that signal fraudulent behavior.

Health care industry. AI-powered robotics could support surgeries close to highly delicate organs or tissue to mitigate blood loss or risk of infection.

Not ready to take classes or jump into a project yet? Consider subscribing to our weekly newsletter, Career Chat . It's a low-commitment way to stay current with industry trends and skills you can use to guide your career path.

What is artificial general intelligence (AGI)? 

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) refers to a theoretical state in which computer systems will be able to achieve or exceed human intelligence. In other words, AGI is “true” artificial intelligence as depicted in countless science fiction novels, television shows, movies, and comics. 

As for the precise meaning of “AI” itself, researchers don’t quite agree on how we would recognize “true” artificial general intelligence when it appears. However, the most famous approach to identifying whether a machine is intelligent or not is known as the Turing Test or Imitation Game, an experiment that was first outlined by influential mathematician, computer scientist, and cryptanalyst Alan Turing in a 1950 paper on computer intelligence. There, Turing described a three-player game in which a human “interrogator” is asked to communicate via text with another human and a machine and judge who composed each response. If the interrogator cannot reliably identify the human, then Turing says the machine can be said to be intelligent [ 1 ]. 

To complicate matters, researchers and philosophers also can’t quite agree whether we’re beginning to achieve AGI, if it’s still far off, or just totally impossible. For example, while a recent paper from Microsoft Research and OpenAI argues that Chat GPT-4 is an early form of AGI, many other researchers are skeptical of these claims and argue that they were just made for publicity [ 2 , 3 ].

Regardless of how far we are from achieving AGI, you can assume that when someone uses the term artificial general intelligence, they’re referring to the kind of sentient computer programs and machines that are commonly found in popular science fiction. 

Strong AI vs. Weak AI

When researching artificial intelligence, you might have come across the terms “strong” and “weak” AI. Though these terms might seem confusing, you likely already have a sense of what they mean. 

Strong AI is essentially AI that is capable of human-level, general intelligence. In other words, it’s just another way to say “artificial general intelligence.” 

Weak AI , meanwhile, refers to the narrow use of widely available AI technology, like machine learning or deep learning, to perform very specific tasks, such as playing chess, recommending songs, or steering cars. Also known as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), weak AI is essentially the kind of AI we use daily.

Read more: Machine Learning vs. AI: Differences, Uses, and Benefits

The 4 Types of AI 

As researchers attempt to build more advanced forms of artificial intelligence, they must also begin to formulate more nuanced understandings of what intelligence or even consciousness precisely mean. In their attempt to clarify these concepts, researchers have outlined four types of artificial intelligence .

Here’s a summary of each AI type, according to Professor Arend Hintze of the University of Michigan [ 4 ]: 

1. Reactive machines

Reactive machines are the most basic type of artificial intelligence. Machines built in this way don’t possess any knowledge of previous events but instead only “react” to what is before them in a given moment. As a result, they can only perform certain advanced tasks within a very narrow scope, such as playing chess, and are incapable of performing tasks outside of their limited context. 

2. Limited memory machines

Machines with limited memory possess a limited understanding of past events. They can interact more with the world around them than reactive machines can. For example, self-driving cars use a form of limited memory to make turns, observe approaching vehicles, and adjust their speed. However, machines with only limited memory cannot form a complete understanding of the world because their recall of past events is limited and only used in a narrow band of time. 

3. Theory of mind machines

Machines that possess a “theory of mind” represent an early form of artificial general intelligence. In addition to being able to create representations of the world, machines of this type would also have an understanding of other entities that exist within the world. As of this moment, this reality has still not materialized. 

4. Self-aware machines

Machines with self-awareness are the theoretically most advanced type of AI and would possess an understanding of the world, others, and itself. This is what most people mean when they talk about achieving AGI. Currently, this is a far-off reality. 

AI benefits and dangers

AI has a range of applications with the potential to transform how we work and our daily lives. While many of these transformations are exciting, like self-driving cars, virtual assistants, or wearable devices in the healthcare industry, they also pose many challenges.

It’s a complicated picture that often summons competing images: a utopia for some, a dystopia for others. The reality is likely to be much more complex. Here are a few of the possible benefits and dangers AI may pose: 

These are just some of the ways that AI provides benefits and dangers to society. When using new technologies like AI, it’s best to keep a clear mind about what it is and isn’t. With great power comes great responsibility, after all. 

Read more: AI Ethics: What It Is and Why It Matters

Build AI skills on Coursera

Artificial Intelligence is quickly changing the world we live in. If you’re interested in learning more about AI and how you can use it at work or in your own life, consider taking a relevant course on Coursera today. 

In DeepLearning.AI’s AI For Everyone course , you’ll learn what AI can realistically do and not do, how to spot opportunities to apply AI to problems in your own organization, and what it feels like to build machine learning and data science projects. 

In DeepLearning.AI’s AI For Good Specialization , meanwhile, you’ll build skills combining human and machine intelligence for positive real-world impact using AI in a beginner-friendly, three-course program. 

Article sources

UMBC. “ Computing Machinery and Intelligence by A. M. Turing , https://redirect.cs.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf.” Accessed March 30, 2024.

ArXiv. “ Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 , https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712.” Accessed March 30, 2024.

Wired. “ What’s AGI, and Why Are AI Experts Skeptical? , https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-artificial-general-intelligence-agi-explained/.” Accessed March 30, 2024.

GovTech. “ Understanding the Four Types of Artificial Intelligence , https://www.govtech.com/computing/understanding-the-four-types-of-artificial-intelligence.html.” Accessed March 30, 2024.

Keep reading

Coursera staff.

Editorial Team

Coursera’s editorial team is comprised of highly experienced professional editors, writers, and fact...

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

Advertisement

The Role of Metalanguage in an Explicit Literacy Instruction on Scientific Explanation

• Published: 29 August 2020
• Volume 19 , pages 1311–1331, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

• Kok-Sing Tang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2764-539X 1 &
• Natasha Anne Rappa 2  

1338 Accesses

14 Citations

2 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

This paper illustrates the role of metalanguage in an explicit literacy instruction to talk about the forms and functions of scientific genres, particularly the genre of explanation. In the context of science, metalanguage refers to the technical terms for talking about scientific language using words like law, hypothesis, and evidence. Despite many efforts to use literacy strategies to address the challenges of learning scientific language, the conventional genres commonly found in science remain implicit in most science classroom teaching. In order to explicitly discuss the nature of scientific genres and how they are linked to scientific practices, scientific metalanguage provides a potential literacy tool. To illustrate this argument, we draw on a case study where four teachers and their grade 9 students learned how to use a specific type of metalanguage to describe scientific explanation. Analysis of their classroom discourse showed that the use of the metalanguage facilitated explicit communication about the logical sequence, epistemic structure, and validity of scientific explanation. Based on the findings, we discuss the usefulness of metalanguage for teachers and students to describe and analyze scientific genres as well as how these genres are used to construct and communicate scientific knowledge.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

How is disciplinary literacy addressed in the Science classroom?: A Singaporean case study

Language, Discourse, Argumentation, and Science Education

Developing Oral Science Explanations: Secondary School ELs’ Experimentation with Intertextual Linkages

Science teachers often make a distinction between describe and explain to their students, whereby “explain” usually requires more elaboration and a higher Bloom’s Taxonomy cognitive level. However, such distinction is vague and oversimplified and only emphasizes the level of thinking required, particularly for assessment purpose. It does not delve into the language and social practices that account for the difference between informational report (description) and explanation.

Abrahams, I., Reiss, M. J., & Sharpe, R. M. (2013). The assessment of practical work in school science. Studies in Science Education, 49 (2), 209–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2013.858496 .

Article   Google Scholar  

Achinstein, P. (1983). The nature of explanation . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Andringa, S., de Glopper, K., & Hacquebord, H. (2011). Effect of explicit and implicit instruction on free written response task performance. Language Learning, 61 (3), 868–903. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00623.x .

Barber, J., Pearson, D., & Cervetti, G. (2006). Seeds of science/roots of reading . California: The Regents of the University of California.

Google Scholar  

Basturkmen, H., Loewen, S., & Ellis, R. (2002). Metalanguage in focus on form in the communicative classroom. Language Awareness, 11 (1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658410208667042 .

Braaten, M., & Windschitl, M. (2011). Working toward a stronger conceptualization of scientific explanation for science education. Science Education, 95 , 639–669. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20449 .

Brown, P. L., & Concannon, J. P. (2016). Students’ perceptions of vocabulary knowledge and learning in a middle school science classroom. International Journal of Science Education, 38 (3), 391–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2016.1143571 .

Bruna, K. R., Vann, R., & Escudero, M. P. (2007). What’s language got to do with it?: A case study of academic language instruction in a high school “English Learner Science” class. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6 (1), 36–54.

Cavagnetto, A. R. (2010). Argument to foster scientific literacy: A review of argument interventions in K-12 science contexts. Review of Educational Research, 80 (3), 336–371.

Chin, C. (2006). Classroom interaction in science: Teacher questioning and feedback to students’ responses. International Journal of Science Education, 28 (11), 1315–1346. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690600621100 .

Collins, A., Joseph, D., & Bielaczyc, K. (2004). Design research: Theoretical & methodological issues. Journal of Learning Sciences, 13 (1), 15–42.

Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards . Washington, DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.

Denzin, N. K. (2002). Interpretive interactionism (2 nd ed.). London, England: Sage.

Erduran, S., Simon, S., & Osborne, J. (2004). TAPping into argumentation: Developments in the application of Toulmin’s Argument Pattern for studying science discourse. Science Education, 88 (6), 915–933. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20012 .

Erickson, F. (1992). Ethnographic microanalysis of interaction. In M. D. LeCompte, W. Millroy, & J. Preissle (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 201–225). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change . Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Fang, Z., Lamme, L. L., & Pringle, R. M. (2010). Language and literacy in inquiry-based science classrooms, grades 3–8 . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Ford, M. J. (2015). Educational implications of choosing “practice” to describe science in the next generation science standards. Science Education, 99 (6), 1041–1048. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21188 .

Garcez, P. M. (2017). Microethnography in the classroom. In K. A. King, Y.-J. Lai, & S. May (Eds.), Research methods in language and education (pp. 435–447). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

Gee, J. P. (2004). Language in the science classroom: Academic social languages as the heart of school-based literacy. In W. Saul (Ed.), Crossing borders in literacy and science instruction: Perspectives on theory and practice (pp. 13–32). Newark, NJ: NSTA Press.

Gee, J. P. (2010). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (3 rd ed.). London, England: Routledge.

Gillies, R. M., & Baffour, B. (2017). The effects of teacher-introduced multimodal representations and discourse on students’ task engagement and scientific language during cooperative, inquiry-based science. Instructional Science, 45 (4), 493–513. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-017-9414-4 .

Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & Perencevich, K. C. (Eds.). (2004). Motivating reading comprehension: Concept-oriented reading instruction . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1993). On the language of physical science. In M. A. K. Halliday & J. R. Martin (Eds.), Writing science: Literacy and discursive power (pp. 54–68). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3 rd ed.). London, England: Arnold.

Hand, B., Shelley, M. C., Laugerman, M., Fostvedt, L., & Therrien, W. (2018). Improving critical thinking growth for disadvantaged groups within elementary school science: A randomized controlled trial using the Science Writing Heuristic approach. Science Education, 102 (4), 693–710. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21341 .

Lemke, J. L. (1990). Talking science: language, learning and values . Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Love, K. (2010). Literacy pedagogical content knowledge in the secondary curriculum. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 5 (4), 338–355.

Martin, J. R. (2007). Genre, ideology and intertextuality: A systemic functional perspective. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 2 (2), 275–298.

Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause (2 nd ed.). London, England: Continuum.

Mitchell, J. C. (1983). Case and situation analysis. The Sociological Review, 31 , 187–211.

Moje, E. B. (2007). Developing socially just subject-matter instruction: A review of the literature on disciplinary literacy teaching. Review of Research in Education, 31 , 1–44.

Mortimer, E. F., & Scott, P. (2003). Meaning making in secondary science classrooms . Buckingham, England: Open University Press.

National Research Council. (2012). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66 , 60–92.

Norris, S. P., & Phillips, L. M. (1994). Interpreting pragmatic meaning when reading popular reports of science. Journal of research in science teaching, 31 (9), 947–967. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.3660310909 .

Norris, S. P., Phillips, L. M., Smith, M. L., Guilbert, S. M., Stange, D. M., Baker, J. J., & Weber, A. C. (2008). Learning to read scientific text: Do elementary school commercial reading programs help? Science Education, 92 (5), 765–798. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20266 .

Osborne, J. F. & Patterson, A. (2011). Scientific argument and explanation: A necessary distinction?. Science Education, 95 (4), 627–638.

Pearson, P. D., Moje, E., & Greenleaf, C. (2010). Literacy and science: Each in the service of the other. Science, 328 (5977), 459–463. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1182595 .

Robertson, A. D., & Elliott, L. J. A. (2020). Truth, success, and faith: Novice teachers’ perceptions of what’s at risk in responsive teaching in science. Science Education, 104 (4), 736–761. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21568 .

Sampson, V., Grooms, J., & Walker, J. P. (2011). Argument-driven inquiry as a way to help students learn how to participate in scientific argumentation and craft written arguments: An exploratory study. Science Education, 95 (2), 217–257. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20421 .

Schleppegrell, M. (2013). The role of metalanguage in supporting academic language development. Language Learning, 63 (1), 153–170.

Shanahan, M. C. (2012). Reading for evidence through hybrid adapted primary literature. In S. P. Norris (Ed.), Reading for evidence and interpreting visualizations in mathematics and science education (pp. 41–63). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: SensePublishers.

Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15 (2), 4–14.

Sørvik, G. O., Blikstad-Balas, M., & Ødegaard, M. (2015). “Do books like these have authors?” New roles for text and new demands on students in integrated science-literacy instruction. Science Education, 99 (1), 39–69. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21143 .

Stake, R. E. (2000). Case studies. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2 nd ed., pp. 435–454). London, England: Sage.

Tang, K.-S. (2016a). How is disciplinary literacy addressed in the science classrooms? A Singaporean case study. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 39 (3), 220–232.

Tang, K.-S. (2016b). Constructing scientific explanations through premise–reasoning–outcome (PRO): An exploratory study to scaffold students in structuring written explanations. International Journal of Science Education, 38 (9), 1415–1440. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2016.1192309

Putra, G. B. S., & Tang, K.-S. (2016). Disciplinary literacy instructions on writing scientific explanations: A case study from a chemistry classroom in an all-girls school. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 17 (3), 569–579. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6rp00022c

Tang, K.-S., & Danielsson, K. (Eds.). (2018). Global Developments in Literacy Research for Science Education . Cham, Switzerland: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69197-8

Tang, K.-S., & Putra, G. B. S. (2018). Infusing literacy into an inquiry instructional model to support students’ construction of scientific explanations. In K. S. Tang & K. Danielsson (Eds.), Global developments in literacy research for science education (pp. 281–300). Cham, Switzerland: Springer

Tang, K.-S. (2019). The role of language in scaffolding content & language integration in CLIL science classrooms. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 7 (2), 315–328. https://doi.org/10.1075/jicb.00007.tan

Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The uses of argument . Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Unsworth, L. (2001). Evaluating the language of different types of explanations in junior high school science texts. International Journal of Science Education, 23 (6), 585–609.

Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language (Translation newly rev. and edited / by Alex Kozulin ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wellington, J., & Osborne, J. (2001). Language and literacy in science education . Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Wilson, A., & Jesson, R. (2018). A case study of literacy teaching in six middle- and high-school science classes in New Zealand. In K.-S. Tang & K. Danielsson (Eds.), Global developments in literacy research for science education (pp. 133–147). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Wright, K. L., Franks, A. D., Kuo, L.-J., McTigue, E. M., & Serrano, J. (2016). Both theory and practice: Science literacy instruction and theories of reading. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 14 (7), 1275–1292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-015-9661-2 .

Yang, X., Kuo, L.-J., & Jiang, L. (2020). Connecting theory and practice: A systematic review of K-5 science and math literacy instruction. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 18 (2), 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-019-09957-4 .

Yore, L. D. (2018). Commentary on the expanding development of literacy research in science education. In K. S. Tang & K. Danielsson (Eds.), Global developments in literacy research for science education . Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Download references

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our gratitude to the teachers, students, and colleagues who collaborated in this research project.

This paper refers to data from the research project “Developing disciplinary literacy pedagogy in the sciences” (OER 48/12 TKS), funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

STEM Education Research Group, School of Education, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia, 6845, Australia

Kok-Sing Tang

School of Education, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia

Natasha Anne Rappa

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kok-Sing Tang .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Tang, KS., Rappa, N.A. The Role of Metalanguage in an Explicit Literacy Instruction on Scientific Explanation. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 19 , 1311–1331 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-020-10121-6

Download citation

Received : 30 January 2020

Accepted : 11 August 2020

Published : 29 August 2020

Issue Date : October 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-020-10121-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Language of science
• Literacy instruction
• Metalanguage
• Scientific explanation
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Advertisement

Supported by

Climate Change Added a Month’s Worth of Extra-Hot Days in Past Year

Since last May, the average person experienced 26 more days of abnormal warmth than they would have without global warming, a new analysis found.

• Share full article

By Raymond Zhong

Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday.

The past 12 months have been the planet’s hottest ever measured, and the burning of fossil fuels, which has added huge amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, is a major reason. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population experienced at least 31 days of atypical warmth since last May as a result of human-caused warming, the researchers’ analysis found.

Hypothetically, had we not heated the globe to its current state , the number of unusually warm days would have been far fewer, the scientists estimated, using mathematical modeling of the global climate.

The precise difference varies place to place. In some countries, it is just two or three weeks, the researchers found. In others, including Colombia, Indonesia and Rwanda, the difference is upward of 120 days.

“That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people,” said one of the researchers who conducted the new analysis, Andrew Pershing, the vice president for science at Climate Central, a nonprofit research and news organization based in Princeton, N.J., adding, “It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.” In parts of South America and Africa, he said, it amounts to “120 days that just wouldn’t be there without climate change.”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .