4 out of 12 on a Language Question
Class test on the prescribed prose text, Passage 3 (lines 60-85). Question 4, worth 12 marks: 'Identify and explain two ways in which the writer's language makes the opponent's behaviour appear irresponsible.' Aisling writes about ninety words: 'The writer makes him seem irresponsible because he did not consult anyone and he wasted public money. He also uses a rhetorical question and this makes the reader think he is bad.' She receives 4/12 and protests that she said everything. In the passage, lines 62-63 contain anaphora of a negative (numquam ... numquam), lines 63-64 a tricolon of short clauses, and line 65 a sarcastic second-person address. The next question asks her to translate lines 66-70 for 18 marks; there she renders a technical political term by its modern English derivative and loses two marks. The rubric advises candidates to quote Latin when discussing style.
1. Explain why 4/12 is a fair mark and rewrite the answer so that it would earn full marks.
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Where the marks are. The twelve marks split into two identifications (roughly three each) and two explanations of effect (roughly three each), with each explanation tied to a linguistic feature rather than to a fact about the character. Aisling's first sentence offers two facts: he consulted nobody, he wasted money. Facts are not features. The question asks how the language makes the conduct appear irresponsible, so a fact with no quotation cannot earn an identification-and-explanation pair. Her second sentence names a feature (rhetorical question) but never quotes it, never isolates what the question form does, and ends in 'makes the reader think he is bad', which is evaluation without mechanism. Four marks is exactly what one partial identification plus one thin explanation looks like.
Model rewrite (about seventy words). The writer uses anaphora of the negative at 62-63, 'numquam ... numquam', hammering the claim that the opponent never once acted properly, so the audience hears a settled pattern rather than a single lapse. He then turns to a sarcastic second-person address at 65, 'tu ...', which confronts the accused as though caught in the act and invites the jury to share the speaker's contempt.
The technique to internalise. Each sentence does three things in a fixed order: names the feature, quotes the Latin, states the effect on the audience. That order is the mark scheme written out as prose. Note also that only two features are needed; a third earns nothing extra and costs time.
2. She lost two marks translating lines 66-70. Diagnose the likely error and state the rule she should apply with political vocabulary.
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The likely culprit. A technical political term rendered by its modern English derivative: provincia as 'province', imperium as 'empire', consilium as 'council', res publica as 'republic' in a modern constitutional sense. The English word descends from the Latin but has drifted, and the drift changes the referent.
What the terms actually do. imperium is the power of command, especially military authority, held by a magistrate. provincia is the sphere of duty or command assigned to him, not necessarily an annexed administrative region. consilium is usually 'plan' or 'advice' before it is 'council'. res publica is 'the state' or 'public affairs'. So a phrase assigning a command means 'he gave him command of that province', not 'he gave him an empire'.
The rule. Test the word in its sentence: what verb governs it, what case is it in, what role does it play? Then ask whether the derivative fits that role. If it does not, choose the institutional sense and, where two readings are arguable, add a short bracketed gloss rather than a smooth modernising paraphrase: 'he assigned him the province (his sphere of command)'. A paraphrase that changes the referent loses marks even when the English is elegant.
The lesson is not vocabulary quantity. She knew the word; she knew the wrong thing about the word. In revision, list the political nouns with their Roman institutional senses and one diagnostic context each.
3. The rubric tells candidates to quote Latin. How much quotation is enough, and what does a quotation have to do to earn its mark?
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Enough is one to four words, accurately quoted and then used. 'numquam ... numquam' is a complete piece of evidence because it can be named (anaphora of the negative) and its effect stated. A four-line block quotation earns nothing extra and burns time; it also invites transcription errors that make the examiner doubt the analysis.
What the quotation must do. It must be the thing being analysed, not decoration. The test is whether the sentence would collapse if the Latin were removed. 'He uses a rhetorical question, which makes the reader think he is bad' survives removal of the Latin, which is exactly why it earns little: the quotation is not load-bearing. 'The anaphora of numquam at 62-63 makes the charge sound absolute and unchallengeable' fails without the Latin, so the Latin is doing work.
Practical apparatus. Learn to name a small set of techniques in Latin terms and to attach one short phrase to each: anaphora, tricolon, praeteritio, apostrophe, rhetorical question, sarcasm, hyperbole, litotes. For each, be able to say what it does to an audience in one clause: hammers, accumulates, withholds, confronts, invites complicity, exaggerates. That vocabulary converts quotation into analysis.