Hey everyone! This thread if for discussing the Language Analysis. If you want to get involved with the discussion, then what are your answers to THESE 5 questions?
The Big 5 Questions.
1. Easy, normal, or hard - how difficult did you feel like Language Analysis was this year?
2. What are some of the main things you discussed in your essay?
3. What did you say about the image?
4. How do you feel like you went?
5. Are you fucking glad it's over?
My Breakdown of the Exam
Personally, I felt like it was an interesting exam. On one hand, I feel like the language is pretty easy to analyse - however, it's comparative, with three distinct pieces to analyse (including the image), so I wouldn't necessarily call it an "easy" VCAA exam, but I wouldn't call it hard, either. Overall I'd rate it as a "normal" difficult level, but I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this given you were the one in the exam room! The length was fair, and the structure of the first article will likely be accessible to most students - with four distinct paragraphs in the first article, all with a relatively distinct use of language.
Before I talk more about Section C, though, I just want to say that the English Exam is over and you should feel very fucking relieved. A lot of people will feel like they screwed up the exam however, you really can't know. Personally, I didn't finish my Language Analysis OR my Section B piece, and I thought that I would not perform very well because there were many things wrong with my essays. For example, one of my Language Analysis paragraphs was 450 words long, compared to my third paragraph which was only 150 words long!! I ended up scoring well into the 40s for English, so just keep your chin up. You could still do well. But that's not the point. Even if you did shit, you can't change it and it doesn't matter anymore - it's time to keep your head up and move forward to your next exams. As the great Rocky Balboa once said - "it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward!"
If you got hit today, then just keep moving forward.
Background Information
The background information to this article is pretty helpful. It says,
Lawton is a town of 3000 people. It used to be on a major highway. However, a recent highway diversion has isolated the town, causing a sharp drop in the number of visitors. This has caused concern for the economic future of the town. There is a range of ideas within the community about how to address the problem
The last sentence here hints pretty heavily at a comparative Language Analysis and tells students the contentions will be different. The second last sentence hints that the audience is likely to be concerned, scared, worried and whatever other word you can think of, about their livelihoods and economic security. All in all, a pretty basic "Background Information" box - nothing too secretive, just a normal bit of context.
Article 1 - Alexandra Wiley
I felt like this was pretty accessible to most students. The way I see it, there were four distinct paragraphs.
Paragraph 1
The opening essentially just shows the audience that "I am one of you!" - Wiley is trying to buddy up to the audience by showing she shares the culture of Lawton, talking about the pleasantries of crossing the street for a chat.
Halfway through the paragraph she switches tone and says "but there is a downside to this", and starts to strike a little bit of fear into the audience. The general 'aim' of the first paragraph is to get the audience to agree that, yes, we need a more tourist-based town. If she achieves this aim, then all she has left to do is talk about HOW to achieve a tourist-based town.
The most interesting thing about Paragraph 1 is the "double" nature of the paragraph - starting off nice, then changing ever so slightly in the second half.
Paragraph 2
The second paragraph takes a pretty excited optimistic tone. She's trying to suck the audience into her own enthusiasm - being so enthusiastic that the enthusiasm can't help but infect other people (in this case, the audience). That's the sort of vibe I get from the second paragraph.
This is centred around her idea of "thinking on a grand scale". There's a lot of pride and positive language in this paragraph that's "selling" the idea of some "grand" change in the town. Pride and inclusivity -> "we grow the most succulent fruit".
She uses the word "imagine" twice - clearly trying to evoke some hope, wonder about the future. And of course, this paragraph is the one where she introduces the idea of a giant monument, so she's hoping to grow an association between the positivity and wonder, and the monument itself.
Paragraph 3
A nice little rebuttal here. She concedes that she doesn't yet have the final concept - and this could actually sound reasonable to the townsfolk. She isn't trying to pull a Tony Abbott and make a "Captain's Call". Instead, she's being pretty reasonable and 'thinking' about the plan to add a monument before she goes of and decides what a monument is. This concession is intended to make her look reasonable and consultative.
And at the same time, she tries to discredit those against her, who are talking shit on the monument without even knowing what it would be.
She slips some statistics in there ofc that appeal to the hip pocket nerve and the $$ side of the town. There's more inclusive language, "We deserve a share of that prosperity". She actually excludes the town with use of hte inclusive language - they are 'included' together, but together, they are separated from all the other cool towns who are raking in the cash!!!!!!
She's trying to make the audience indignant, to get them to sook a little bit, put a big frown on their face and whine, "WEEE WANT A MONUMENT TOOO, IT'S NOT FAIIIIR!"
This paragraph has a slightly different tone again. The second paragraph was positive, this one is a little bit more critical. Critical of her naysayers, and *almost* critical of the town's situation of not sharing in the prosperity of giant tourist attractions.
Paragraph 4
"Protect our lifestyle", "Australian lifestyle" -- significant stuff there. Protect is a pretty good word, trying to get the audience to feel defensive - which follows on from the feelings of "it's unfair". She appeals to patriotism and to the Aussie ideal of mateship, talking about "looking after" each other. Farmers, nurses, jobs - sounds like a politician, doesn't she?
Basically, in this paragraph, she comes home hard with some more 'intense' techniques, trying to close her case.
All in all, there's a lot to talk about in this piece, and I feel like it's accessible to students who are looking for average scores as well as offering something to students who want the high scores, too.
Article 2- Ian Warwick
President of the 'Lawton Progress Association'. Interesting.
A pretty straightforward piece. He's clearly against the Mayor's proposition, despite "sharing her concern". He uses some pretty pompous (but strong) language throughout, such as "destroying [the town's] beauty", "pursuit of beauty", "defaced by vandals", "quality of ideas". It sort of positions him, and those who agree with him, as "above" the mere trifles of giant watermelons.
He also directly get's a 'zinger' in on the Mayor, saying the world as too many selfie opportunities. This type of ridicule supports the idea of him putting his idea "above" the populist one. It derides the opposition and positions the audience to want to join him - everyone would prefer to be the cool kids doing the humiliating rather than the lonely kids getting humiliated. That's the type of situation that Warwick's trying to create with his language here.
He's basically using negative language to paint the thing as a disaster. "Overrun" connotes an invasion on the rural culture of the town, "defaced by vandals" also implies that their town is too good, too refined, too classy for vandalism but that would change. These words (words associated with the monument) are contrasted with phrases like "art gallery", "literary week" - things far more high-brow and sophisticated.
Basically, so long as you said that Warwick thinks it's a shit idea to build a monument, you probably got some points for this piece :P
The Image
PLOT TWIST - YOU COULD SAY THE IMAGE SUPPORTED EITHER OF THE OTHER ARTICLES WAAAAAATTTTTTTT???
The most striking thing about the image this year is that it was almost presented as a third piece. Normally the image might be like, "the speaker included this image in their PowerPoint slide" or something like that, but this year, the caption was "The newspaper's cartoonist also contributed to the debate".
To frame the cartoonist as 'contributing to the debate' deliberately positions them as a third author, or as having their own contention. Normally, students aren't sort of told "HEY THE PERSON WHO MADE THE IMAGE HAS THEIR OWN CONTENTION". Instead, the image is sometimes just "there". But in this exam, it's in its own separate little box, presented as a third piece.
You could analyse it however you want, really, but I just thought it was interesting that the image was presented a bit differently this year.
As for the image itself, it has a few pretty interesting features. On the left of the image, you can see the highway that "bypasses" Lawton - it goes off into the hills. This is presumably the highway that was diverted to bypass the town. There's also another road running over that highway and circling around back into Lawton.
There's the gigantic watermelon right of centre, obviously, and to the left of the watermelon is the measly Church. Those with an eye for detail will notice that there are lots of people around the watermelon. There are many cars parked near the watermelon, a few cars driving to the watermelon, and if you look at the car in the bottom left hand corner of the image, the child and the reckless driver are staring out the window with exciting, looking forward to going to Lawton.
There are also a lot of fresh watermelons available - hinting at the economic prosperity the giant watermelon would bring. The sun is also shining - a nice symbol. The sign, bottom centre of the image, also claims Lawton is the "Home of the gian watermelon", essentially making the claim that the watermelon would indeed be a great tourist attraction.
HOWEVER the image can be read in two ways - depending on how you look at it. Let's check it out below:
If you look at the image from the perspective of someone AGREEING with Alexandra Wiley:
- The sun says it will be a good thing
- The excited faces of the people in the car say its a good thing
- The sign says it's a good thing
- The people around the watermelon says it's a good thing
- The Fresh Watermelons store says it's a good thing
However, you could say that the image might be pretty concerning to those AGAINST the watermelon. If people agree with Ian Warwick, the cartoon would be concerning because:
- The Church (a symbol of community and perhaps culture) is far overshadowed by the watermelon, which is impacting the town negatively (if you see it that way).
- There's a lot of people around, changing the landscape of the town.
- There are many children and cars in the image, supporting Warwick's point.
I feel like if you're not good at analysing images this one might have been a bit tough on many students, so I wouldn't beat yourself up about if it you didn't say much good stuff about the image. But whether you said the image supported Wiley or Warwick, you would get points either way, because it can support both arguments.
FAQ’s.
I didn’t finish/didn’t write a conclusion. Am I screwed?
Answer
Definitely not. Personally, I didn’t finish my exam either and still scored well into the forties. A friend of mine scored a 50 without finishing any of the three sections. We both went to a low-ranking public school. Ultimately, your mark is determined by how well what you did write hits the criteria.
I spelled an author's name wrong. Am I screwed?
I didn’t mention the image. Am I screwed?
Answer
To be honest with you, it might have been beneficial if you had mentioned the image, but you definitely are not "screwed:. The criteria sheet says “analysis of ways in which language and visual features are used to present a point of view and to persuade readers”. If you didn't speak about the image, then you are not FULLY hitting this criteria, but you are still hitting it by talking about language features. You might have hit the criteria better if you had spoken about the image, but at the end of the day, you won't be penalised brutally just for forgetting the image - your essay will still be marked on its merits.
I didn’t talk about the statistics/rhetorical question/patrotism/<any technique>. Am I screwed?
Answer
NO! It simply isn’t required to talk about absolutely every technique in the article. For all you know, your friend and yourself could both get 10/10 without mentioning any of the same things (although… that would be pretty improbable – but you get the idea!)