Notes · English LanguageUK · A-Levels

Critical evaluation of attitudes to language

This synoptic topic draws the whole course together, using knowledge from every area to assess and challenge attitudes towards language and its users. It treats prescriptivism and descriptivism as an overarching evaluative frame, exposes how attitudes to language encode attitudes to people, connects diversity, change, discourses, identity and varieties as one field, and cultivates the habit of evaluating theory against evidence to reach substantiated judgements.

4 sections~17 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 1 · Advanced 2

T·0888 / 12

Exam profile

AO2 · Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues across the field of language studyAO3 · Analyse and evaluate how contextual factors shape attitudes and meaningsAO4 · Explore connections across texts and areas of studyAO1 · Apply methods and terminology in support of evaluation

Operators:evaluate'…' Evaluate this ideaassessdiscusschallenge

basic level

AS-Level expects recognition of prescriptivist and descriptivist attitudes and the ability to respond to them.

higher level

The full A-Level rewards a synoptic, critically informed evaluation of attitudes to language that connects the areas of study and reaches substantiated judgements.

Depth

Text

Contents · 4 sections

Critical evaluation of attitudes to language

Attitudes to language: prescriptivism and descriptivism#

FoundationAQA 7702 synoptic evaluation of attitudesDfE GCE English Language subject content

The overarching evaluative frame

Fig. 1Prescriptivism and descriptivism form the overarching frame; the mature position replaces 'correctness' with 'appropriateness' while conceding the value of a shared standard.

The single most useful frame for evaluating attitudes to language is the opposition between prescriptivism and descriptivism, which recurs across diversity, change, discourses and varieties. Prescriptivism holds that there is a correct form of language which should be preserved and enforced, and judges deviations as errors, sloppiness or decline. Descriptivism, the stance of modern linguistics, holds that the task is to describe how language is actually used, treating variation and change as natural and value-neutral rather than as corruption. Recognising which stance a text or attitude adopts, and evaluating it critically, is the organising move of the whole synoptic topic.

The distinction is not that descriptivists have no standards, but that they treat 'standards' as social conventions to be described and understood rather than eternal truths to be enforced. The linguistic evidence surveyed across the course strongly supports the descriptivist position: non-standard varieties are systematic and rule-governed (diversity and varieties), language change is natural and every 'correct' form was once an innovation someone deplored (change), and creoles and world Englishes are full, legitimate languages (varieties). The prescriptivist assumption that one variety is inherently superior does not survive contact with this evidence.

The mature evaluative position, however, does not simply dismiss prescriptivism but engages it critically. There is a reasonable core to the prescriptivist case - a shared standard genuinely aids wide communication, clarity matters, and people are entitled to aesthetic preferences about language. What the descriptivist rejects is the further claim that departures from the standard are ERRORS or signs of DECLINE, and the conflation of a variety's social prestige with its linguistic quality. The key conceptual replacement is the distinction between correctness (an absolute rightness) and appropriateness (fitness for a context): no variety is inherently correct, but varieties differ in their appropriateness to situations.

Evaluating attitudes therefore begins by identifying the prescriptivist or descriptivist stance at work, testing its claims against the linguistic evidence from across the course, and replacing the correctness frame with the appropriateness frame. This is not merely siding with descriptivism but arguing the case - conceding what is reasonable in the prescriptivist position while rejecting 'change and difference as decline'. This critical, evidence-led handling of attitudes is the foundation of the synoptic topic and the disposition the whole A-Level aims to cultivate: to analyse language use accurately and to evaluate judgements about it as claims to be tested, not truths to be accepted.

Worked example

Arguing the evaluative case

Show how to evaluate the prescriptivist claim that 'standards are falling' rather than just rejecting it.

Identify the stance and claim
The claim is prescriptivist: it assumes a fixed correct standard and reads change/variation as a fall from it.
Test it against evidence
Draw on the course: non-standard forms are systematic (diversity), change has always happened and past 'errors' are now standard (change), so there is no fixed golden standard being lost - the premise fails.
Concede the reasonable core
Acknowledge that a shared standard aids wide communication and that clarity matters - the prescriptivist concern is not wholly baseless.
Reframe and judge
Replace 'falling standards' with 'ongoing change', and judge that the claim mistakes natural, systematic variation and change for decline - a conclusion argued from evidence, not merely asserted.

Result: The evaluation identifies the prescriptivist premise, tests it against the course's evidence that variation and change are systematic and natural, concedes the genuine value of a shared standard, and judges that 'falling standards' misreads change as decline - an argued case rather than a bare rejection.

Typical mistakes

Simply asserting 'descriptivism is right' without arguing the case or engaging the reasonable elements of the prescriptivist position.
Conflating appropriateness (fitness for context) with correctness (absolute rightness), and so slipping back into ranking varieties.

Active revision

'There is a correct way to use English, and departures from it are simply errors.' Evaluate this idea, drawing on evidence from across the course and the correctness/appropriateness distinction.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for English language (Department for Education)

How attitudes to language encode attitudes to people#

StandardAQA 7702 synoptic evaluation of attitudesDfE GCE English Language subject content

From attitude to social judgement

Fig. 2A judgement about a variety, linked to the social group that speaks it, functions as an ideology that ranks the speakers - with real social consequences.

The deepest insight of the synoptic topic is that attitudes to language are almost always attitudes to PEOPLE. Because varieties are associated with social groups - regions, classes, ethnicities, ages, genders - a judgement that a variety is 'ugly', 'lazy', 'incorrect' or 'ignorant' is, in effect, a judgement about the people who speak it. The matched-guise evidence studied in the varieties topic demonstrates this directly: listeners rate identical speech differently on the basis of accent alone, attributing more or less intelligence, competence and trustworthiness to the imagined speakers of each variety. Language attitudes are thus a socially acceptable proxy for social prejudice.

This means that language attitudes function as IDEOLOGY - they present social judgements as if they were neutral facts about language. When a variety associated with a working-class region or a minority ethnic community is called 'bad English', the linguistic claim (that the variety is deficient) is false, but it does real social work: it ranks the speakers, and it does so in a way that appears to be about grammar rather than about class or race. Deborah Cameron's concept of 'verbal hygiene' captures how the urge to clean up language always expresses deeper anxieties about social order, morality and identity - language becomes a battleground for social values.

The consequences are real, not merely theoretical. Accent and dialect prejudice has been documented in employment (candidates judged on accent), education (children's abilities misjudged from their speech) and the justice system (speakers of stigmatised varieties judged less credible). Prescriptive attitudes can thus license discrimination, which is why the linguistic insight that all varieties are systematic and legitimate matters far beyond academic interest. Exposing the social judgement hidden inside a linguistic complaint is therefore both an analytical and an ethical act - it makes visible the prejudice that 'concern for standards' can conceal.

Evaluating attitudes critically means asking, of any judgement about language, WHOSE language is being judged and what social judgement the linguistic complaint really carries. This connects the whole course: the systematicity of non-standard varieties (diversity, varieties), the naturalness of change (change), the construction of attitudes in texts (discourses) and the performance of identity (identity) all feed into the recognition that ranking varieties means ranking speakers. The synoptic evaluation does not stop at describing attitudes but analyses them as ideology with social effects - the critical, socially aware understanding of language that is the intellectual endpoint of the A-Level.

Worked example

Exposing the judgement inside a complaint

An employer says they would not hire someone with a 'broad regional accent' because it 'sounds unprofessional'. Evaluate this attitude.

Identify the linguistic claim
The surface claim is about language - that a regional accent 'sounds unprofessional' - implying it is somehow deficient or inappropriate.
Expose the social judgement
Accents are systematic and carry no inherent professionalism; the judgement really ranks the imagined SPEAKERS of the accent - typically a class and regional prejudice dressed as a standard.
Bring in evidence
Matched-guise research shows identical speech is rated differently by accent alone, proving 'unprofessional' is a stereotype about speakers, not a property of the accent; the accent conveys the same information as any other.
Evaluate the consequences
This attitude licenses employment discrimination on the basis of accent - a real harm - so the linguistic point that accents are equally valid has direct ethical and social force.

Result: The 'unprofessional accent' claim is a social judgement about the speakers dressed as a linguistic standard; matched-guise evidence shows it is stereotype, not fact, and it licenses real employment discrimination - a clear case of language attitudes functioning as ideology with harmful consequences.

Typical mistakes

Analysing attitudes to varieties only as opinions about language, missing that they encode judgements about the people who speak them.
Treating language prejudice as harmless, ignoring its documented consequences in employment, education and the justice system.

Active revision

Analyse a text that criticises a particular accent, dialect or way of speaking, exposing the social judgement about its speakers that the linguistic complaint encodes, and evaluate the consequences of such attitudes.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level English Language (7702) specification (AQA)

Connecting the areas of study#

AdvancedAQA 7702 synoptic evaluation of attitudesDfE GCE English Language subject content

The areas of study as one field

Fig. 3The areas of study connect through the shared language levels and the through-line of context into one coherent field, unified by a descriptivist understanding of language.

The synoptic skill the A-Level ultimately rewards is the ability to see the areas of study not as separate topics but as one connected field, and to bring knowledge from across it to bear on any question. The language levels underpin everything - they are the tools used to analyse texts in diversity, change, discourses, identity and acquisition alike. Context is the through-line: the same feature means different things in different contexts, whether the context is a child's interaction, a workplace, a historical period or a national debate. Recognising these connecting threads turns a collection of topics into a coherent understanding of how language works.

The areas connect substantively as well as methodologically. Diversity and change are two sides of the same coin - the variation that exists at any moment is the raw material from which change proceeds over time, and the same social factors (prestige, identity, social networks) drive both. Identity underlies diversity, since the varieties people use are resources for performing who they are. Varieties of English apply the diversity framework at national and global scales. Discourses turn the analytical tools onto texts ABOUT language, and the critical evaluation of attitudes synthesises the lot. Even child language acquisition connects, since the systematic, rule-governed creativity children display is the same systematicity that makes all varieties legitimate and all change natural.

The unifying intellectual thread is descriptivism and its egalitarian corollary: language is systematic and rule-governed at every level and in every variety; variation and change are natural, not decay; and judgements ranking varieties are social, not linguistic. This single set of commitments connects the topics - it is why non-standard dialects, world Englishes, creoles, children's errors and new coinages are all treated as systematic and legitimate rather than deficient, and why attitudes that rank them are analysed as ideology. Holding this thread lets a student answer almost any question by drawing the relevant strands together around it.

Making connections in practice means, when faced with a question, drawing on evidence and concepts from multiple areas: an essay on language change can be enriched by diversity (who drives change), identity (change as identity performance) and discourses (attitudes to change); an essay on attitudes can draw on varieties, change and power. This synoptic reach - answering a question about one area with the resources of the whole course - is exactly what the highest mark bands and the NEA reward, and it reflects the genuine unity of the discipline. The student who sees English Language as one connected study of how language works, varies, changes and is judged, rather than as a syllabus of separate topics, is the student the A-Level is designed to produce.

Worked example

Answering synoptically

An essay asks you to evaluate attitudes to slang. Show how to answer it synoptically, drawing on several areas.

Start from diversity and identity
Slang is a systematic sociolect that marks group identity and carries covert prestige (diversity, identity) - so it is meaningful and functional, not deficient.
Bring in change
Slang is a major engine of language change; today's standard vocabulary includes many words once condemned as slang (change) - so condemning slang misunderstands how the language grows.
Bring in discourses and attitudes
Analyse how texts construct slang as 'decline' using metaphor and the correctness discourse (discourses), and expose that the complaint targets the young and marginalised (attitudes as ideology).
Reach a synoptic judgement
Conclude, drawing the strands together, that attitudes condemning slang mistake a systematic, identity-bearing, change-driving variety for decline, and encode a social judgement about its speakers - a judgement argued from across the course.

Result: A synoptic answer evaluates attitudes to slang by drawing diversity (systematic sociolect), identity (covert prestige), change (slang drives change) and discourses/attitudes (ideology) together around the descriptivist thread - the connected, whole-course reasoning the top bands and the NEA reward.

Typical mistakes

Treating the areas of study as watertight separate topics and failing to bring connected knowledge to bear on a question.
Missing the connecting threads (the language levels, context, descriptivism) that unify the course into one field.

Active revision

Take one area of the course (for example language change) and map how at least three other areas (diversity, identity, discourses, varieties) connect to and enrich it.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for English language (Department for Education)

Evaluating theory against evidence: reaching judgements#

AdvancedAQA 7702 synoptic evaluation of attitudesDfE GCE English Language subject content

Evaluating towards a judgement

Fig. 4Evaluation weighs competing theories by their explanatory power and limits and scrutinises the studies, reaching a substantiated, evidence-based judgement.

The highest-order skill the A-Level cultivates is the disciplined evaluation of theories and studies against evidence and against one another, in order to reach substantiated judgements rather than assert opinions. Across the course, every area offers competing accounts - the deficit, dominance and difference models of gender; the behaviourist, nativist and interactionist theories of acquisition; the theories of change; prescriptivism versus descriptivism - and the intellectual work is not to memorise them but to weigh them: what does each explain well, where does the evidence support or undermine it, and which account best fits the data in front of you?

Evaluating a theory means examining its explanatory power and its limits. A strong theory explains a range of evidence economically; its limits appear where evidence resists it (the behaviourist theory cannot explain virtuous errors; the deficit model is undermined by O'Barr and Atkins's finding that 'women's language' indexes status not gender). Studies must be evaluated too - their sample size, representativeness, method and date - so that a small or dated study is not treated as conclusive. This critical scrutiny, applied consistently, is what distinguishes evaluation from the mere reporting of what theorists have said.

Reaching a judgement is the culmination of evaluation and is what the top mark bands require. A judgement is not a refusal to decide (fence-sitting) nor an unsupported opinion, but a reasoned conclusion that follows from the weighing of evidence - typically a nuanced position that recognises the partial truth in competing accounts while coming down, on balance, in a particular direction. In acquisition, the judgement is usually that nature and nurture are both necessary; in gender, that features index power and context more than gender; in change, that it is patterned and multi-causal, not random or declining. These judgements are defensible because they are argued from evidence.

Evaluating theory against evidence therefore means weighing competing accounts by their explanatory power and limits, scrutinising the studies that support them, and reaching a nuanced, evidence-based judgement rather than narrating or fence-sitting. This disposition unifies the examined essays (all of which reward evaluation over description) and the NEA (which tests the data against theory), and it is the ultimate aim of the subject: to think critically and independently about language, holding claims - whether a linguist's theory or a newspaper's complaint - up to the evidence and judging them accordingly. A student who has learned to do this has acquired not just knowledge of English Language but the analytical and evaluative habits of mind the discipline exists to develop.

Worked example

Weighing theories to a judgement

Evaluate the competing theories of language acquisition to reach a judgement, in the synoptic manner the course rewards.

Set out the contenders
Behaviourism (imitation/reinforcement), nativism (innate LAD), cognitivism (language follows thought) and interactionism (scaffolded social learning) each offer an account of how children acquire language.
Weigh explanatory power and limits
Behaviourism explains vocabulary and accent but not virtuous errors; nativism explains rule-governed creativity and universal stages but neglects interaction; interactionism explains the caregiver's role and why mere exposure (TV) is insufficient.
Match theory to evidence
Use the data: a virtuous error is nativist evidence, a scaffolded exchange is interactionist evidence, an imitated accent is behaviourist evidence - no single theory covers all the data.
Reach the judgement
Conclude that acquisition requires an innate capacity realised through social interaction: nature and nurture are both necessary, a nuanced judgement that follows from weighing the evidence rather than from picking one theory.

Result: The evaluation weighs each acquisition theory by what it explains and where it fails, matches theories to specific evidence, and reaches the substantiated judgement that innate capacity and social interaction are both necessary - the evidence-based, nuanced judging the course cultivates as its highest skill.

Typical mistakes

Narrating theories in turn without evaluating them, or treating a single study as proof without scrutinising its method and scope.
Fence-sitting (refusing to reach a judgement) or asserting an opinion that does not follow from the evidence weighed.

Active revision

Choose a debate from the course (gender, acquisition, change or attitudes) and write an evaluation that weighs the competing theories against the evidence and reaches a substantiated judgement.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level English Language (7702) specification (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for English language

AQA

AQA AS and A-level English Language (7702) specification

Critical evaluation of attitudes to language

4 sections~17 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 1 · Advanced 2

Critical evaluation of attitudes to language

Key points

Arguing the evaluative case

Key points

Exposing the judgement inside a complaint

Key points

Answering synoptically

Key points

Weighing theories to a judgement

Sources

Critical evaluation of attitudes to language

Key points

Arguing the evaluative case

Key points

Exposing the judgement inside a complaint

Key points

Answering synoptically

Key points

Weighing theories to a judgement

Sources