Half Caste by Agard and Search for my tongue by Bhatt use non-standard English within their writing to portray strong messages.

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Compare the way two writers use non-standard English to give a strong message.

Both poems “Half Caste” by Agard and “Search for my tongue” by Bhatt use non-standard English within their writing to portray strong messages.

In Half Caste, the poem is written as a patois and we are shown that Agard uses non-standard English to make the reader feel as though having mixed languages between English and Caribbean is a good thing, rather than making the person incomplete or simply being “half”.

Agard takes the idea of a multicultural society and incorporates both English and Caribbean influences to create a sense of incompleteness.

“Explain yuself, wha yu mean?”  shows the reader a fusion between both languages and also helps to bring out the personality of the writer as if to show that the person is abrasive, direct and informal, refusing the fact that some people cannot accept who he is, acting as though having two languages is a bad thing.

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Agard also uses non-standard English by using repetition within “Half Caste”, placing the reader on the spot as if he was speaking directly to the reader.

By using the phrase, “Explain yuself, wha yu mean?” Agard creates a sense of non-standard English through repetition and the fact that the phrase is direct and places the reader on the spot, as if it is asking the opinion of the reader creates a strong message to show that some people cannot seem to accept who he is, being of a mixed language and that it is not his fault and is ...

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The Quality of Written Communication is slightly below average. The candidate’s grammar is not absolutely perfect and often leads the essay to flow awkwardly. To counter this, candidates must remember to be accurate and to spell-check and proof-read the essays they write, to ensure clarity of their written expression, because without these checks candidates can lose easy marks.

The Level of Analysis is evident, but quite shallow; there is not much depth here. A lot of the analysis is disjointed and though a good effort is made there is not a cohesive structure evident. The candidate opts to study both poems separately and so the comparison points are limited. I would advise against this because by considering the poems separately the candidate comments about language, imagery, effect on audience, etc. of one poem and then the other. This limits the extent to which the candidate can satisfy the question because there is no explicit comparison. The candidate should therefore aim to look for two or three common themes within both poem and two or three differences (pertaining to the question) and dedicate a paragraph to each one (e.g. phonetics, dialect, second person address), comparing the presence and effect each poetic device has on its respective poems.

The Response to the Question here is average, and indicative of a candidate working towards a low/middle C grade. The reason they haven’t scored higher is because a lot of the analysis is disjointed and basic, meaning that the comparative points are not greatly explicit. The mark scheme directs “confident and explicit” analytical ideas, which are not evident here. There is also a misconstruction of analysis/understanding of the poetic devices Agard and Bhatt use in their respective poems. The candidate writes: ““Explain yuself, wha yu mean?” Agard creates a sense of non-standard English”; it’s not the best wording here, to create a “sense” of non-standard English, as non-standard English is something that is either there or it isn’t, and said sense is not created through repetition or direct accusations. The candidate should be sure to make their analysis is accurate and succinct and that they are not simply throwing ideas as the premise of the question.