Using Subject Terminology Well (AQA GCSE English Literature): Revision Note
Exam code: 8702
Subject terminology means the technical terms for literary devices and other methods writers use, such as metaphor, soliloquy or enjambment. Using these terms accurately helps your AQA GCSE English Literature essays analyse the writer’s methods precisely, which is exactly what you need to achieve the highest marks.
This page shows you how to use terminology English Literature examiners reward, with worked examples from Macbeth, An Inspector Calls and A Christmas Carol.
What is subject terminology?
Subject terminology is the technical vocabulary for the methods writers use to create meaning. Most of the subject terminology English Literature students need falls into three groups: language, form and structure.
Category | What it describes | Useful terms |
|---|---|---|
Language | The writer’s choice of words, phrases and images | Metaphor, simile, personification, imperative, modal verb, abstract noun |
Form | The type of text and the conventions it follows | Soliloquy, stage direction, sonnet, dramatic monologue, first-person narrator |
Structure | The order and organisation of the text, from the whole plot down to a single line | Cyclical structure, foreshadowing, dramatic irony, enjambment, caesura, refrain |
Word classes count as subject terminology too. Terms such as verb, adjective, abstract noun and modal verb are precise and easy to apply accurately, so they’re a safe choice when you’re unsure of a more specialised term.
You’ll find a definition and an example of every term in our glossary of literary devices. This page focuses on how to use those terms well in your essays.
Why does subject terminology matter in GCSE English Literature?
The AQA English Literature mark scheme rewards you for analysing the writer’s methods using relevant terminology. Using terms well helps you in three ways:
It makes your analysis precise, because one term can name exactly what the writer is doing
It shows the examiner you understand how the text works, as well as what it says
It saves words, so you have more time to explain the effect of each method
However, a term only earns credit when you explain its effect on the reader or audience, and how that effect links to the writer’s ideas.
Do you get marks just for naming a technique?
Naming a technique on its own earns very little. The AQA mark scheme describes answers in the lower levels as identifying methods, and answers in the higher levels as explaining and analysing their effects. A term with no explanation is therefore unlikely to move your answer beyond the lower levels.
Grade 9 answers don’t need rare or complicated terms either. The strongest answers choose the right term at the right moment, and only when it helps the analysis.
How to use literary terms in an essay
Here is how to use subject terminology in an English Literature essay, in five steps:
Read the quotation and decide what effect it has on the reader or audience
Name the method, if a term helps you describe that effect precisely
Embed a short quotation that shows the method
Explain how the method creates the effect, focusing on key words
Link the effect to the writer’s ideas or purpose
Starting with the effect keeps your analysis focused on meaning. If you start with a term, it’s easy to end up hunting for devices and listing them.
For example, in Macbeth, Shakespeare gives Macbeth a soliloquy just before he kills Duncan. Macbeth asks, “Is this a dagger which I see before me”. The rhetorical question shows Macbeth doubting his own senses, which suggests his mind is already disturbed by the murder he’s planning.
What is feature-spotting?
Feature-spotting means naming techniques without explaining what they do. Here is a feature-spotting sentence about A Christmas Carol:
“Dickens uses a list and a simile to describe Scrooge.”
This sentence names two methods, but it doesn’t say what either method shows about Scrooge, or why Dickens chose it. The examiner can see you know the terms, but there’s no analysis to credit.
To avoid feature-spotting, ask yourself “So what?” after every term you use. For example, in A Christmas Carol, Dickens calls Scrooge a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” The long list of present participles describes one grabbing action after another, which makes Scrooge’s greed sound constant and impossible to stop.
The literary terms GCSE students need most
You don’t need to learn every term. Lists of language techniques GCSE students find online can run to over a hundred devices, and many of them rarely appear in your set texts. A short list of terms you can use accurately is far more useful in the exam.
These are some of the most useful literary techniques GCSE students can learn for each type of text, with an example and its effect:
Text type | Useful terms | Example and effect |
|---|---|---|
Drama | Soliloquy, stage directions, dramatic irony, aside | In An Inspector Calls, Mr Birling calls the Titanic “unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable” in Act 1. This creates dramatic irony, because the audience knows the ship sank, so Priestley makes Birling’s confident predictions look foolish. |
Prose | Narrator, simile, pathetic fallacy, foreshadowing | In A Christmas Carol, the narrator describes Scrooge as “Hard and sharp as flint” in Stave 1. The simile suggests Scrooge is cold and unfeeling, and that he’s difficult to change. |
Poetry | Enjambment, caesura, refrain, volta, stanza | In ‘Exposure’, Owen repeats the line “But nothing happens.” throughout the poem. The refrain shows the soldiers’ frustration as they wait in the cold with nothing to do. |
Examiner Tips and Tricks
The most useful habit you can build is to start with the effect, then name the method. Ask yourself what a quotation makes you feel, or what it shows about a character or idea. Only then decide which term describes how the writer creates that effect. This keeps every term tied to meaning, so the examiner can see why the method is significant.
In ‘London’, Blake’s speaker hears “mind-forged manacles” in the voices around him. One precise term and one clear effect will earn you more than a list of devices. For example, you could write: “Blake’s metaphor of ‘mind-forged manacles’ suggests that the people of London are trapped by ideas they’ve been taught to accept, as well as by poverty.”
What does good use of terminology look like?
The table below shows the same point written three ways. Each version uses terminology more precisely and explains its effect more closely.
Version | Macbeth |
|---|---|
Weak | Shakespeare uses a rhetorical question and hyperbole when Macbeth talks about the blood on his hands. |
Better | Shakespeare uses hyperbole when Macbeth asks if “all great Neptune’s ocean” could wash the blood from his hand. This shows that he feels guilty. |
Strong | Shakespeare uses hyperbole to show the scale of Macbeth’s guilt, as Macbeth asks whether “all great Neptune’s ocean” could wash the blood from his hand. The rhetorical question expects the answer “no”, which suggests Macbeth already knows his guilt can never be washed away. |
The weak version names two terms and stops. The strong version uses each term to explain an effect, and links that effect to Macbeth’s guilt.
Version | An Inspector Calls |
|---|---|
Weak | Priestley uses a list of three in the Inspector’s final speech. |
Strong | In his final speech, the Inspector warns that people who don’t learn to look after each other will be taught “in fire and blood and anguish”. The polysyndeton slows the list down, so the audience hears each word as a separate threat. Many people in Priestley’s first audiences would have connected this warning to the two world wars. |
What are the common mistakes with literary terms?
Listing terms: naming three or four devices in one sentence leaves no room to explain any of them, so the examiner has no analysis to credit
Vague terms: writing “imagery” or “language” on its own doesn’t tell the examiner which method you mean, so your point stays general; say what kind of image it is, such as animal imagery or religious imagery
Obscure terms: rare terms used to impress are easy to misapply, and an examiner won’t give credit for a term you can’t explain
Forcing a term: claiming a technique that isn’t really in the quotation makes your argument less convincing, so only name a method you can point to in the words
What if you don’t know the name of a technique?
Describe what the writer does in plain words. For example, in An Inspector Calls, you could write that the Inspector repeats “millions” three times to show how many people share Eva Smith’s situation. A clear description of a method, followed by its effect, still counts as analysis of the writer’s methods.
Using subject terminology in your AQA English Literature exam
AQA assesses your use of subject terminology through AO2, which asks you to “analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate”.
The words “where appropriate” matter, because they mean you don’t need a term for every point. AO2 is also the most heavily weighted assessment objective in AQA GCSE English Literature, at 42.5% of the qualification.
The AQA mark scheme shows how your use of terminology should develop through the levels:
Level | AQA mark scheme wording |
|---|---|
Level 2 | “Some reference to subject terminology” |
Level 4 | “appropriate use of relevant subject terminology” |
Level 6 | “subject terminology used judiciously” |
“Judiciously” means with good judgement: choosing the most precise term, at the right moment, to support your analysis.
This table shows how to use terminology in each part of your two exam papers:
Paper | Question | How to use terminology |
|---|---|---|
Paper 1 | Use drama terms, such as soliloquy and stage directions, alongside language terms for the extract | |
Paper 1 | Use prose terms, such as narrator and pathetic fallacy, to explain how the writer shapes your view of a character or theme | |
Paper 2 | You won’t have the text, so attach terms to the short quotations and precise references you’ve learned | |
Paper 2 | Use form and structure terms, such as enjambment and volta, to compare the methods in both poems | |
Paper 2 | Use terms to analyse the first poem (27.1), then to compare the methods in both poems (27.2) |
Examiner Tips and Tricks
In Paper 2, Question 27.2 asks you to compare the methods the two unseen poets use. All 8 marks are for AO2, so this short question is entirely about methods. You don’t have time for a long essay, so pick one method both poets use and compare its effect in each poem.
Enjambment, imagery and stanza structure are good choices, because you can spot them quickly in any poem. For example, you could write: “Both poets use enjambment to show strong feeling. In the first poem, the run-on lines make the speaker sound excited, while in the second poem they make the speaker sound breathless and anxious.”
Sources
Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (eds), 2005, The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Second Edition), Oxford University Press
Priestley, J.B. (1992). An Inspector Calls. Heinemann.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Project Gutenberg eBook #46. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46
AQA. (2015). Past and Present: Poetry Anthology. GCSE English Literature (8702). AQA.
AQA. GCSE English Literature (8702) Specification. AQA.
AQA. GCSE English Literature (8702) Paper 1 and Paper 2 Mark Schemes, June 2023. AQA.
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