Let’s not pretend this task is easy. The Analytical Commentary isn’t something you can cruise through with a formula or a checklist of features. It’s not about being able to rattle off definitions like “contractions = informal” and hoping that earns you a medal. This task asks for the kind of thinking that lives and breathes context – thinking that shows how language works for real people, in real social situations, with real communicative goals.
It’s also fast. It’s precise. And it doesn’t reward fluff. This is your chance to prove you understand the mechanics of language as a social system — and you’ve got about 45-50 minutes in the end-of-year exam to complete it.
Here’s how top students approach it, and where others go off-track.
🧠 Step One: Don’t Guess the Context – Prove You Understand It
The first few lines of your commentary are high stakes. If you get the context wrong or describe it vaguely, the rest of your analysis is going to fall apart. Assessors want to know immediately that you can recognise the text type, mode, audience, register, and primary function of the text – and that you’re going to analyse features that make sense in light of those.
Don’t start with a template. Start with clarity. Say what the text is, and why it was produced.
As an example of a solid introduction that includes the required detail for a reader to be oriented around the text and analysis that follows.
This text is a spontaneous spoken exchange between two tradespeople, H and E, on a lunch break at Fitzroy Gardens. With a primary phatic function and a moderately informal register, the conversation centres on rapport-building and shared social experiences around owning Miniature Schnauzers. The low social distance is reflective of the fact that H and E have known each other for ten years, and the casual workplace culture and banter typical amongst trades.
No vague guesses. No fluff about “talking to each other in a friendly way.” Just clean, confident context-setting that shows you understand the communicative ground the text is standing on.
🧠 Step Two: Paragraphs Are Not Subsystem Dumps – They Are Social Arguments
If your paragraph starts with “There is informal language” or “The text uses syntax,” you’re already behind. Strong students don’t organise by subsystem. They organise by function, register, mode and so on – how language manages relationships, constructs identity, reinforces register, or achieves a text’s purposes and intents. Subsystems support those ideas, but they are not the headline.
A paragraph is not a list. It is an argument. That means:
- It has a clear opening line that states the purpose of your paragraph!
- It integrates examples from the text that are specific, relevant, and precisely quoted.
- It uses metalanguage only where it strengthens clarity.
- And most importantly, it explains why these features are doing something significant in context.
🧠 Step Three: Metalanguage Doesn’t Score — Insight Does
Metalanguage is a tool. It sharpens your analysis. But dropping terminology for the sake of it – without clarity, relevance, or precision – just clutters your writing. The most common mistake students make is listing features with no link to why they matter. You’re not writing a glossary. You’re writing to explain how language performs in context.
For example, it’s not enough to say, “The speaker uses ellipsis and contractions.” That sentence tells us almost nothing. A stronger analysis would be:
Ellipsis is used in “coming to the meeting?” which omits the subject and auxiliary verb. This syntactic reduction is typical of informal speech and reflects assumed shared knowledge between the speakers, reinforcing their familiarity and casual rapport.
Now the feature has a reason to be there. It’s not a label – it’s evidence.
🧠 Step Four: Don’t Just Identify – Always Interpret
This is where students lose marks fast. The difference between identifying a feature and analysing it is everything. For instance:
🚫 “The speaker uses repetition: ‘we can, we must, we will.’”
✅ “The repetition of modal verbs combined with the inclusive pronoun ‘we’ in ‘we can, we must, we will’ creates a sense of collective momentum and responsibility, aligning the speaker with the audience and supporting the conative function of the speech.”
Markers don’t reward you for noticing repetition. They reward you for understanding how it shapes meaning, tone, and interaction within the text’s context.
Your goal is not to list what’s there. Your goal is to show how language is being used, by real people, with real intentions, for real audiences; this is beauty and challenge of VCE English Language – the texts are always authentic!
🧠 Step Five: Register Is Not Optional – It’s Core
If you don’t state the register clearly in your introduction, and if you don’t analyse how that register is achieved and maintained, you are not hitting a key VCAA criterion. The register of a text underpins many authorial choices. It shapes your choice of examples, your explanation of features, and your understanding of the speaker-audience relationship.
For example:
The Body Corporate maintains a highly formal register throughout, employing nominalisations such as “policy breach” and “procedural review” to distance themselves from direct confrontation. This lexical choice reflects an attempt to retain authority while avoiding the face-threatening act of threatening to sue a resident, consistent with the transactional purposes and hierarchical relationships held between Body Corporates and residents.
That’s analysis. That’s insight. That’s someone who understands how register isn’t just a label – it’s the by-product of dozens of deliberate language choices across every subsystem.
🧠 Final Word: You’re Not Just Naming Features — You’re Explaining Human Behaviour
This task is about language, yes – but it’s also about people. Every feature you mention must be tied back to what a speaker or writer is trying to do. Are they building rapport? Creating distance? Sounding smart? Saving face? Appealing to authority? Language doesn’t float around in a vacuum. It always has a purpose. Your job is to expose it.
So don’t just describe the words. Tell us why they matter. Tell us what they reveal about the speaker, the situation, the relationship, and the goal. That’s what makes a commentary not just competent – but exceptional.
Need Help Getting There?
We’ve worked with hundreds of students to take their AC writing from surface-level spotting to sharp, strategic analysis. Book a one-on-one with an ATAR STAR tutor and get expert feedback on how to structure, refine, and deepen your writing – so you can walk into the exam room ready to own Section B.
Because in English Language, you’re not just commenting on text.
You’re decoding how people use words to build worlds.