AS LANGUAGE: MODE ANALYSIS - semantic features may be different in different modes,
e.g. written language is more likely to be figurative than spontaneous speech.
AS LANGUAGE: CHILD LANGUAGE - children’s early spoken words tend to come from a small
range of semantic fields, e.g. toys, food, social words, people. Children’s early
writing also tends to reflect their interests or school topics, e.g. a 6 year-old
may use a range of football-related terms in a story, or they may use several words
from the field of dinosaurs.
A2 LANGUAGE: DIALECT - words may be used differently in different linguistic varieties
e.g. youth dialect uses ‘gay’ and ‘sick’ differently to the standard.
A2 LANGUAGE: CHANGE - semantic shifts such as pejoration/amelioration, weakening,
broadening/narrowing are worth discussing.
A2 LANG-LIT: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS -semantic analysis is likely to focus on imagery
in the poetry coursework, while the exam analysis may require consideration of the
semantic fields used. It is likely, for example, that a literary text may use a
greater range of lexis within the main semantic field than a transcript of spontaneous
speech would. It is also probable that the written texts may use secondary semantic
fields metaphorically more than the spoken text will.
