Edexcel GCSE English Language

A writer picks every word from a set of alternatives, and the one chosen carries meaning beyond its dictionary definition. Reading closely means asking why this word was used and what another word would have changed. Writing well means making the same choices on purpose.

Denotation and connotation

The denotation of a word is its literal meaning. The connotation is the set of ideas and feelings that attach to it. "Thin", "slim", "slender" and "scrawny" all describe a lack of bulk, but "slender" suggests grace, and "scrawny" suggests weakness or neglect.

A writer who describes a crowd as "gathering" creates a different picture from one who says it is "swarming" or "gathered peacefully". When you analyse a word, name the connotation and then say what it does to the reader's view of the person, place or idea.

Semantic fields

A semantic field is a group of words linked by a shared area of meaning. If a description of a room uses "frozen", "brittle", "hollow" and "silent", the field of coldness and emptiness builds a mood that no single word would. Look for a pattern across a passage and say what the pattern adds up to. A text about a town that uses the vocabulary of war ("defend", "siege", "casualties") for a planning dispute is asking the reader to see the dispute as a battle.

Verbs, adjectives, adverbs and nouns

Different word classes do different work, and the choice of class is part of the technique.

• Verbs carry action and attitude. "She grabbed the letter" and "she accepted the letter" show different characters. Strong, specific verbs ("sprinted", "stumbled", "crept") often do more than a plain verb with an adverb added.
• Adjectives describe, and a run of them can build a picture or pile on pressure. A single unusual adjective ("a cheerless kitchen") can set a mood on its own.
• Adverbs show manner. They can be used to qualify a verb or to reveal how a speaker feels ("he answered curtly").
• Nouns name people, things and ideas. Concrete nouns (a cracked mug, a bus shelter) make a scene physical. Abstract nouns (freedom, grief, injustice) name ideas, and speeches and opinion writing use them to give a point weight.
• Modal verbs (must, should, could, might, will) show certainty, duty or possibility. "We must act" is forceful, and "we might act" leaves room to doubt.
• Pronouns control who is included. "We" draws the reader in, "you" addresses them directly, and "they" sets another group apart.

Register and formality

Register is the level of formality a text uses, and it should fit audience, purpose and context.

A formal register uses complete sentences, longer and more Latinate words ("assist", "commence", "insufficient"), and avoids contractions and slang. An informal register uses contractions, colloquial words, shorter sentences and sometimes slang ("sorted", "dodgy"). A text can shift register on purpose. A formal article that suddenly uses a casual phrase ("frankly, it was a mess") sounds like the writer stepping out from behind the page to share a view.

Other kinds of vocabulary to recognise:

• Colloquial language belongs to everyday speech and informal writing.
• Dialect words and spellings belong to a region or community. They often appear in the speech of characters to show where they come from.
• Archaic vocabulary is old-fashioned and is common in 19th-century writing (for example "whilst" and "ere", meaning before).
• Technical vocabulary belongs to a subject and gives a writer authority, or makes a text harder for a general audience to follow.
• Emotive language is chosen to provoke a feeling such as pity, anger or fear. "Abandoned" and "cruelly neglected" are emotive where "left" is not.

Tone and mood

Tone is the writer's attitude to the subject or the reader: serious, mocking, affectionate, bitter, matter-of-fact. Mood or atmosphere is the feeling a passage creates in the reader: tense, calm, ominous. The two can differ. A cheerful narrator describing a disaster in light, breezy words creates an unsettling mood from a humorous tone.

To name a tone, point to the words that create it. The sentence below has a sarcastic tone because the praise is out of proportion to the thing praised.

The council's latest masterpiece, a single bench placed carefully beside a bin, has already been hailed as a triumph of modern planning.

Common tones, with the language that usually signals them:

Writing about word choice

A useful analysis of a word has three parts: what the word is and what it connotes, what it suggests about the subject in this context, and how a reader would respond. For example, the phrase "the shop clung to the corner of the street" uses the verb "clung", which connotes desperate holding on, so the shop seems fragile and in danger of being lost, and a reader may feel sympathy for it and for the owner. Choose a few words and say a lot about them, instead of listing many words and saying little.

When you write your own text, use the same checks. Replace a weak verb-plus-adverb ("walked slowly") with one verb that carries both ("trudged"), keep the register constant unless a change is deliberate, and choose adjectives that add something the noun does not already contain.