ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE English Studies => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English & EAL => Topic started by: illuminati on January 05, 2011, 08:40:23 pm
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So I'm okay with the identification of techniques in language analysis.
But I'm sorta struggling with the structure of the body paragraphs.
Is there any particular way of grouping the techniques and making your structure fluent, so it flows well?
Whenever I try, I just stick this heap of messy analysis together and call it a paragraph =/
Help?
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E.g. paragraph?
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2006 English Exam, First Article
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/english/pastexams/2006english-w-cpr.pdf
The writer commences the article with a rhetorical question, “why not make your money work for you?” The intended effect is to draw the attention of the audience, as the young audience is inexperienced with money, and does not know what to do with it. By phrasing it as a rhetorical question, the writer attempts to open the reader’s mind by getting them to think about a world of possibility for what they can do with their money, provoking their curiosity to continue reading. There is also heavy repetition of “you” throughout the article, which is used to create a sense of empowerment, and show that it is ultimately the reader who gets to decide what to do with their money. The writer then proceeds to ask the reader to “think of all the things that make you happy.” This is an appeal to the reader’s emotion, more specifically targeting the emotion of happiness. Given the position of this sentence in the article, it seems that the writer is trying to establish a connection between money and happiness, which ties back to the writer’s contention that money equates to happiness.
But then I'm stuck on what to write next because ionno how to group the techniques...
And also, I've been told my paragraphs are just statements of fact after fact and not very enjoyable to read =/
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That's fine and fluid. There's nothing wrong with going in chronological order. Otherwise you can group things thematically, looking at different aspects of how the author tries to persuade. For example you could look at tones, examples of repetition, appeals, calls to action.
LA can be quite dry, nothing wrong with a large slab of writing that just does the task. It is after all a piece of prose.
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Ya ^^, don't worry too much if it doesn't sound great, as the structure of LA is rather formulaic.
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I was never one to group techniques. Working through a language analysis chronologically worked for me. Having said that, there's no magic formula. Maybe try writing up your analysis of the same article two or three times, each time paragraphing it differently? Eventually you'll find a method you're comfortable with.
There was one other method I would sometimes use - but it only worked for certain articles. Say the article was about alcopops and mainly focused on the tax, the government, teens and parents. I would write four parapgraphs - one about the alcopos tax, the government etc. In each paragraph I would solely focus on how the writer would use persuasive techniques to present that particular group to the reader. Does that make any sense?
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I would tend to agree with Saaam's second method - if this is done well it can help you seem more logical and thought out, collected and intelligent. By all means language analysis doesn't have to be dry or formulaic in any way. For fantastic examples of persuasive techniques, read things like Barak Obama's 'Yes We Can' speech, and you'll see how it can be exciting to discuss some of these techniques. I personally find that doing it chronologically can lead to an overly simplistic analysis, or a more formulaic and straight-forward response. I went into a little more detail in another post here http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,36354.0.html