English Grouping Task

Texts B, D and F all involve to the use of imperatives to achieve the different intended effects of the text. Text B is an advert, published in The Independent newspaper, for a law firm appealing to Independent reader to contact them if they think that they have been mis-sold an investment and lost money because of this. It uses the imperative ‘DON’T DELAY. TIME LIMITS FOR CLAIMING APPLY’ to encourage the reader to take up the offer and not hold off. Having ‘DON’T DELAY’ at the beginning of the advertisement strikes a sense of urgency in the reader, suggesting that if the don’t do it now that they might run out of time and be excluded from this offer. The ad then follows this by saying ‘TIME LIMITS FOR CLAIMING APPLY’ which possibly reaffirms the sense of urgency in the reader but also suggests a sense of uncertainty to reinforce the ‘DON’T DELAY’, as the reader may think that the time limit for them might be soon and that they better be quick about enquiring for a claim. This imperative is neither cloaked nor mitigated as if it was cloaked then the urgency of the advert would be lost on the reader and possibly stop the text from achieving its purpose, which is to persuade the reader to call the business. Mitigating the imperative in this example would also harm the appeal of the ad as the connotations of a law firm is that they are strong and powerful in their field of work and by mitigating the imperative in the advert it could give the reader the idea that this firm is weak as it would almost sound like the firm is begging for the business.

Text D utilises imperatives similarly to Text B in that it uses the imperative to set the theme of the text to the audience. The difference between the two texts is that Text D is a social media message for the purpose of entertainment and discussion rather than contacting the business. Text D opens the text with the imperative ‘We want your nominations for our #TeamOfTheWeek feature’, which immediately puts across the message of the text with no confusion. This imperative also utilises inclusive language to give a more personal address to the reader, which makes them more likely to respond to the text if they feel that the text is personally addressing them. The imperative also includes ‘we want’ which suggests to the reader that the author of this text is coming to them for their opinion, and as the source of this text is the official Twitter account for the Football League 1, it could make the reader feel more important as the League itself wants their opinion for their feature, which applies to all the fans across all the football clubs in the league. This imperative also uses a positive face to elevate the status of the reader so the reader possibly feels greater inclined to help the author of the tweet by responding to their request. This text also differs from Text B in that the purpose of the imperative and the purpose of the text would not be damaged by mitigating the imperative, in fact mitigating the imperative in this case would actually further the appeal of this text as without mitigating the imperative the text comes across quite blunt and could possibly turn the reader away from responding to the text.

Text F uses imperatives as the use of imperatives is essential to the text. Text F is different to texts B and D in that it isn’t trying to open a dialogue with the readers, as Text F is an excerpt of Govt. legislation, detailing laws and the consequence for breaking them. The text comprises almost entirely of imperatives, an example of one being ‘punishable by; 6 months/maximum fine on summary conviction [or] 5 years/maximum fine on indictment’. This imperative is neither mitigated nor cloaked, as with text B, it would be inappropriate in the context of the text. It is inappropriate for legislation to be mitigated as it could give the impression that the audience can ignore this with little consequence and cloaking the imperative would confuse the message of the text. The imperative uses a bald on record face with the audience as the author of the text is not concerned with losing face and only with getting the message of the text across.

Texts B, C and D all share the common purpose which is to persuade their respective audiences. Text B, the newspaper advert for the law firm, heavily utilises inclusive 2^nd person pronouns: ‘Have you suffered losses because you were missold an investment’. By doing this the text promotes a deeper, more personal connection with the text through sounding like it’s addressing the audience as an individual rather than more impersonally, as a group. The audience for the Independent newspaper is the upper middle class and beyond/the more affluent or well-to-do in society and so more likely to be the people who have the disposable income to be making large investments, as compared to the typical audience of the a newspaper like the Daily Mirror for example, and these are the people that the advert is targeting. Text B also uses an example client to provide proof to the reader who may be skeptical of the firm and their bold claims by saying ‘Listen to our client on BBC Radio, we recovered £86,000’. This extract is effective at persuading the reader in a couple of ways, it references the BBC, which an extremely famous national institution which is well-known for good journalism, showing to the reader that this huge group recognizes their work and adds a level of prestige to the firm giving the impression that’s its exclusive, like many prestigious groups are. It also gives an example of the range of reward that the reader could receive (£86,000) for using the firms services, which when coupled with mention of the BBC, the reader knows that the figure is not exaggerated to mislead the audience.

Text C is the weak inclusion for this group as persuasion is the texts secondary purpose rather than its primary purpose like texts B and D. Text C is the blurb for a box-set of the third season of TV show Game of Thrones. The persuasive aspect of this text mostly comes from the content of the entire text rather than techniques when compared to the other texts in this grouping. This text does however end the text by using a power of three: ‘bonds are strained, loyalties are tested and cruel fates are met’. By using this at the end of the text, it leaves the actual content of the series deliberately vague whilst simultaneously giving the reader a sample of the content in it, hopefully leaving the reader intrigued and wanting to watch to find out.  
Text D is similar to text B in that persuasion is its primary purpose unlike Text C. Text D is also similar to Text B in its use of 2^nd person pronouns to create a personal connection with the readers. This text does this in ‘We want your nominations’ and ‘who impressed you’, which hopes to elicit the same response in the reader as if it had been another fan who had asked them, and by the text putting itself down to the same level of the reader, the reader is more receptive of the invitation for dialogue. This text puts heavy emphasis on the 2^nd person pronouns, most notably the pronoun ‘you’ and ‘your’, which makes the reader feel like them and their opinions are the theme of the text rather than the text itself. Outside the text itself, the reader can see other readers responding to the text with their own views like the text has encouraged them to, which could possibly cause the reader to weigh in with their on views and opinions as the text promotes a group discussion rather than a one sided, short discourse with the author of the text.

Texts A and E both use, to an extent, informal register to contribute towards achieving the primary purposes of the texts. Text A is a weak inclusion and is a short article from the Daily Mail newspaper, published online. The typical audience for the Daily Mail is the working/lower middle class and so to relate to the audience more easily the text is more informal than other newspapers like the Independent, which is aimed towards a more affluent group of society. An example of the relative informality in this text is ‘A McLaren supercar worth £250,000 was left almost entirely destroyed’, which although not appearing very informal is less formalised than other similar publishers in the industry. The idea of this slight informality is that the reader is less likely to be turned away from the paper due to the over-formalised language that a lower class person may associate with being ‘posh’ or ‘snobby’.

Text E is a strong inclusion in this group. Text E is a phone conversation between two people about the purchasing of train tickets. The informal register in this text is more overt than in Text A. The text uses colloquial words like ‘quid’ to show that there is a level of closeness between the two participants as they talk very casually to each other. The casualness of the relationship between the two participants means that the dialogue flows more smoothly than if the two participants were trying to keep it unnecessarily formal. The informal register in this text also makes the dominant speaker more apparent in the conversation. Throughout the duration of Text E, the two participants vie for the dominant role in the conversation. Both participants use strategic interruptions to assert their power in certain points during the dialogue whilst simultaneously expressing their anger/annoyance through the paralinguistic features such as the tone and pitch. The purpose of the text is to inform and the informal register means that the friendly relationship between the two participants aids the text in achieving that purpose as the participants are extremely blunt about the  topic of discussion.

Grouping Task

Texts 1, 4 and 6 all use imperatives to achieve the main purposes, which are to persuade and inform. Text 6 is the conditions of use for a First bus ticket and has heavy use of imperatives to achieve it’s purpose, an example of this being ‘PHOTOCARDS must be carried at all times’, which is direct and leaves the statement no room to be worked around and no room for interpretation. This text uses a bald on record face throughout as the firm is not concerned with losing face with the ticket holder as the conditions are set rules that the  holder has to follow, which is emphasized by the use of all-caps on the word ‘photocards’. This is made apparent more so as the text lacks the use of mitigated imperatives, as it would weaken and/or defeat the point of the text as it would have intensity on the condition being met, and does not use cloaked imperatives as it would have no use and only serve to confuse the ticket holder, which would contradict the purpose.

Text 4 differs from text 6 in the type of imperative and face it uses to achieve its purpose, which is to persuade rather than inform. The way text 4 does this is through the use of a cloaked imperative. The text is a transcript of a phone call in which one participant (who is the father of the other participant) and uses a cloaked imperative in saying ‘Get some milk in Lidl on the way home?’ The imperative is cloaked with an interrogative in order to make the participant receiving the request more likely to accept as it gives the recipient the notion that the person asking knows they are imposing on them and that they can refuse even if they have no reason to do so. In contrast, the para-linguistic features of this sample such as the raise in tone at the end of the sentence suggests that the sentence is actually an imperative and the sentence is actually a command dressed up as a question in order to achieve the text purpose, which is even more apparent when you consider that if the asking participant was really trying to avoid losing face, the imperative would have been mitigated as well as cloaked as an interrogative. In addition, the relationship between the two participants (father and son) also suggests that the person asking the question is also banking on their natural authority coming into play in persuading them to fulfill the request. 
Text 1 also heavily relies on the use of imperatives to achieve its purpose primary purpose of persuading. The text is an appeal card from Amnesty International and is appealing to the recipient of the card to sign their name and information on the card as part of an appeal to release a union worker from prison in Bahrain. The front of the card has large, bold and all-caps writing stating ‘Free Mahdi Abu Dheeb’. The imperative used is not mitigated nor cloaked as they would serve little purpose in aiding the purpose of the text. Mitigating this imperative could possibly harm the message of the text as it would sound desperate, make the resolve of freeing the man depicted weaker and make the entire situation sound less important than the text wants the audience to think it is. The imperative used is also very direct with the audience as if to say that they themselves have the ability to free the subject of the appeal and as the audience has voluntarily signed up to receiving these appeal cards, the imperative plays on the audiences humanitarian side in order to convince the audience to sign the card. The imperative uses a bald on record face rather than a positive or negative face as it could give the audience a feeling of authority or strength, which could give an impression that this organisation is capable of doing the things that they appeal to the audience to help them with.

Twitter Posts - Affordances and Constraints

A twitter post is a piece of text from the website Twitter. A tweet consists of up to 140 characters and can include images and vines as well as utilise hashtags (e.g. #IAmACeleb) to join discussions on topics along with others using the same hashtag. The character limit both allows people to be blunt and to to the point, stopping walls of texts but at the same time stopping people from having longer and more in-depth discussions. Users can reply to someone's tweet and start dialogue with others being able to join at any point if they want. People can follow others, meaning that when they tweet it appears in their timeline. Tweets can also be retweeted meaning that the tweet reappears in the timeline of everyone who follows the person who retweeted it so they can also see the tweet. The downside to twitter is that some people can use it to abuse others and hide behind their profile so there are little to no real life consequences.

Transcript Excerpt Analysis

ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT ANALYSIS

‘bout 5 centimeters (3) then below the start of that line about towards the bottom just up from the bottom (2) draw (.) like (.)an opening or closing bracket but like horizontal and on it’s side, so like a curved line over the top’

At the start of this excerpt the speaker shows their local dialect in how they say ‘about’ in that they cut off the ‘a’ out of habit. This serves to quicken the rate at which they speak. It can also be inferred that as they are speaking informally to the other person as they are talking in their local dialect.

After this, there is a 3 second pause (which during a conversation is a considerable length of time) when the speaker waits for the other person to catch up to the point they have explained to, whilst simultaneously trying to think what to say for the next part of the explanation. The pause also allows the conversation to keep going, despite temporarily stopping, as the other person can catch up without having to interrupt the flow of the conversation by asking the speaker to stop. From that you can infer that the speaker is instructing/explaining the other person on how to do something as they are taking care to make sure the other person is able to keep up with what they are saying as well as from the nature of the way they are talking to the other person.

The speaker also uses fillers in their speech (in this case ‘like’), punctuated by short pauses, as they quickly think of how to explain the next part of the task to the other person coherently and so they can follow the instructions given, It also allows the speaker to utilise simile’s in their explanation. The example of this in this excerpt is ‘(.)like (.) an opening … bracket’ which gives more detail when explaining what the thing is and allows the other party to visualise what they need to do. The use of similes in this context (explanation) is that it makes the other person image in their mind which is easier than having to explain it with words.

Mini Saga

The dust floats aimlessly in the air, slowly coating everything in the room, keenly watched through the slither of light, the slow rhythm of his shallow breaths disturbing the stagnant air. The dust covered badge is the paper weight on the stack of colourful cards that came via the post.

Gods Among Us Commentary

English Gods Among Us Commentary

The audience I am aiming at is people with an interest with movies and that industry as well as young adults (20’s/30’s) as the topic of the article spans back 10/20 years to current times. I open my Gods Among Us article with a direct challenge to the reader in order to immediately engage them with the article and to urge them to continue reading. With the reader at this point captured by the article, I start to lay out my reasons for Tarantino being classed as a ‘God’ in the industry, which will hopefully evoke one of two responses from the reader, those being that they either;

1. Agree and continue reading because they agree.
2. Disagree and continue reading to hear my side of the debate to counter with theirs.

I continue with my argument by using repetition to force my point that this director has made many great films consecutively by saying ‘hit after hit after hit’, followed by pop-cultures references as evidence of this when I reference ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (which I in turn follow with the bold statement that it is heralded as ‘The Greatest Independent Movie of all Time’) and later in the article reference that the next title is the equally famous ‘Pulp Fiction’. Following the Reservoir Dogs reference I use a comparison of another famous director (Steven Spielberg) combined with pop-culture reference with ‘Jaws’. The intent of this is that it hopefully puts my argument into perspective to the reader. I close of the opening paragraph with a declarative statement to illicit more debate from the readers who disagree with me.

In the following paragraph I use the metaphor ‘Pulp Fiction … regarded as Tarantino’s masterpiece’. I use this metaphor as ‘masterpiece’ generally makes you think of art and all the connotations that art brings with it. I couple this more pop-culture references by mentioning actors ‘Samuel L Jackson, John Travolta and Bruce Willis’ who are all accomplished actors and show they type of talent Tarantino attracts. Using both of these techniques aides my case during this section of the article.

                                                                                     

Next paragraph, I acknowledge the opposing opinion to avoid a disconnect from the readers whose opinions on the subject disagree with those in the article, which keeps them engaged with the article, as the  articles objective is to persuade/argue my point. I also use jargon appropriate to the movie industry, when I use the term ‘Cinematography’ which refers to the way Tarantino films his scenes. This adds to the credibility and legitimacy to the argument I am making as it displays knowledge and understanding of the subject.

I begin to reach the conclusion of my article I give a brief overview of Tarantino’s career so far as further evidence of my case which contains small amounts of my own personal opinion to add personal feel to the article so the reader can visualise the other side of the debate. I then conclude the article by conceding ground to the opposing argument which lets the reader know that this argument put forward considers other opinions and is for open debate and not bias, one sided argument, meaning they are more receptive of the argument which helps achieve the purpose of the article which is to persuade the reader of my opinion.

Column Article

A love/hate relationship with Twitter

How one of the most useful things on the internet never ceases to annoy me.

[Picture of Twitter logo]
The source of my headache.

If thirty years ago you’d asked someone what the world would be like if anyone, anywhere could communicate with someone on the other side of the globe instantly, effortlessly and for free, you may have received a few reactions. Some may have said that it would help bring the world closer together, that with greater communication would bring greater understanding, leading to peace between contrasting groups around the planet. Or if you’re a cynic such as myself and you don’t believe any of that hippy nonsense, then you may have said something along the lines of ‘Great! More people to annoy me with stuff I don’t care about’. As of 2014, social networking site Twitter has upwards of 250 million people using their site to share the most mundane and uninteresting going-ons in their lives.

As much as I bash Twitter I still find myself oddly drawn to it as a service, as it is more the people that use it that give me headaches rather than the actual site itself. I find that if you can narrow down the people you see to those who share common interest as you it can actually be rather useful and interesting. Imagine the potential from having a group of minds focused around a single subject all contributing ideas and opinions from all over the globe.

                                                                                                

But no. We use this great advancement in communication in technology for stupid reasons like taking pictures of food or to moan about some of the pointless stuff we can. I’m all for having a moan as [SPOILER ALERT] that’s what 90% of this article is about, but complaining to a bunch of people sat in front their computer screens wont make the bus come quicker or make you that sandwich because your hungry.

The worst part is the hive mind Twitter users seem to have. When a hash tag comes up that requires people to even attempt to be witty, the average is five jokes. Five. Five jokes that are constantly repeated between twenty thousand or so people trying to scrounge retweets from others in an attempt to validate their poor attempt at comedy. After seeing the same awful joke for the twentieth time inside an hour, the urge festers inside you to put your fist through something. It’s like the people mindlessly copying and pasting it straight into my timeline never had the thought cross their mind that people may possibly have seen the joke before. It would be like if the Edinburgh Fringe had every comedian repeating the five jokes from the back of Penguin bars, its terrible.

On top of this is the Twitter hate hive mind that befalls people who excessively tweet stuff that (ironically) annoy the masses, honorable mentions going to TV presenter Piers Morgan and footballer Joey Barton, to the point that the people blindly sending hateful comments towards those half the time have no idea what they themselves are going on about. Even worse is the racial hate some get like ex-footballer Stan Collymore, the amount of racial abuse and abuse in general this guy gets is sickening. Admittedly he’s not a saint, far from it, but does the guy deserve to be living with hate more akin to the 60's and 70's than 2014?  No. And chances are half the people abusing the guy over Twitter would never even dream of saying such stuff to the guy in person.

Although this being said, being a football fan, Twitter allows for some great … ‘debates’, if you can call 19 year old's swearing and generally taking a shot at one another about anything other than the teams they support ‘debating’. I can. From a neutral point of view, it’s almost as entertaining as the football itself, some times more so.

I suppose the upside of Twitter is that any annoying crap that some one wants to say they have to be inside 140 characters, which makes it kind of bearable  but not by much. Tweeting about your mad Saturday night and wanting McDonalds to deliver will still make me hate you, just hate you in a small amounts of words.

The worst part is even though I've spent the last god knows how long explaining everything that I hate about Twitter, I can’t stop using it. As much as I complain about it, whenever I have a spare moment, like waiting for a bus or what ever, I whip out my phone and browse Twitter. I wish it was a simple as ‘stop using it’ as many have often said I should do when I bring up how much I hate it. It’s like a subconscious addiction to see what people deem important enough to tell me about.

In all though, I can see why Twitter has had such a wide appeal to people, even it does just boil down to everyone just spouting out what nonsense pops into their heads. Maybe I am being cynical for the sake of being cynical, if close to a quarter of a billion people worldwide use Twitter, it has to be doing something right. Maybe it’s everyone else that’s wrong.

I’m inclined to go with the latter.