The PACT idea
Before you analyse the words of any text, step back and ask four questions. A handy way to hold them together is the word PACT: Purpose, Audience, Context and Text. Get the first three right and the fourth, the actual writing, suddenly makes sense.
- PACT
- Purpose (why the text exists), Audience (who it is for), Context (the situation it was made in) and Text (the choices on the page). The first three drive the fourth.
Think of it like a promise. A writer makes a silent deal with a reader: I will speak to you, about this, in order to do this. When you can state that deal in one sentence, you understand the text.
Where this is assessed
Reading purpose, audience and context is the backbone of Criterion A, Analysing. When you write your own text, matching it to a clear purpose and audience is Criterion C, Producing text, and choosing a register that fits that audience is Criterion D, Using language.
Purpose shapes choices
Purpose is the job the text is trying to do. Most texts lean on one main purpose, though many mix a few. A quick checklist of common purposes:
- To inform: give clear facts, as in a news report or timetable.
- To persuade: change a view or prompt an action, as in an advert or opinion column.
- To instruct: tell the reader how to do something, as in a recipe or safety notice.
- To entertain: hold attention and give pleasure, as in a travel blog.
Purpose leaves fingerprints. A text that persuades reaches for emotive words and imperatives; a text that informs prefers plain nouns, dates and numbers. Naming the purpose lets you predict the features, and predicting the features makes analysis faster.
Audience shapes choices
Audience is the group the writer pictures while writing. Ask about their age, their knowledge, and their relationship to the writer. These decide the register, meaning how formal or casual the language is.
| Audience clue | Question to ask | Effect on the text |
|---|---|---|
| Age | Children, teenagers or adults? | Sets vocabulary and sentence length |
| Knowledge | Experts or newcomers? | Decides how much is explained or assumed |
| Relationship | Friendly or official? | Sets the register, from chatty to formal |
Read the register backwards
If you are unsure who the audience is, look at the language and work back. Slang and jokes point to a young, casual audience; long sentences and technical terms point to an expert one. The words are your evidence.
Context shapes meaning
Context is the situation around a text: when and where it appeared, and what was happening at the time. A heatwave warning means one thing in July and something odd in December. The same words can carry different weight depending on the moment they land in.
When you put purpose, audience and context together, you can explain not just what a text does but why it works here and now. That is the level Criterion A is looking for.
A school posts this on its social media the week before exams: "Deep breath, Year 11. Revision cafe open all week, free hot chocolate, no judgement. Pop in." Use PACT to explain the choices.
Check yourself
1. What do the letters in PACT stand for? +
Purpose (why the text exists), Audience (who it is for), Context (the situation it appears in) and Text (the choices on the page). The first three shape the fourth.
2. A leaflet uses simple words, big pictures and lots of white space. What audience is likely, and why? +
Probably young children or newcomers to the topic. Simple vocabulary and images reduce the reading demand, while white space stops the page feeling overwhelming, all clues that the writer expects a less confident reader.
3. Why can the same sentence change meaning when the context changes? +
Because readers understand words against the situation around them. A line like "Stay indoors" reads as sensible safety advice during a storm, but as strange or even threatening on a calm, ordinary day. Context supplies the meaning the words alone cannot.
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