VCE Stuff > AN’s Language Analysis Club

[2016 LA Club] Week 2

<< < (3/6) > >>

michael leahcim:
Oops accidentally posted as anonymous...  ::)

FallingStar:

--- Quote from: Anonymous on March 09, 2016, 02:12:40 pm ---Only just got wind of this. Am typing this on my phone, right now. So, I hope it's good enough. It's just an introduction, but if possible I'll try to make a body paragraph as soon as I get home.

There has been much attention drawn by the controversial presidential candidate, Donald Trump, as his candidacy has split U.S voters, who hold polarising views on his legitimacy in running for presidency. Corrigan-Smith condemns in a scathing commentary of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump's candidacy as a disgraceful development, yet also deeply reflective of contemporary politics. That it has devolved into a commodified franchise exempts the presidential seat as having any true objective duty, which Corrigan-Smith coerces her readers to reject. Corrigan-Smith urges the American public to ignore and put aside their votes for Donald Trump lest his presidency degrades the American public image further, as evident from the public's consideration of him as president.

--- End quote ---

I understand you may have only done this in very little time, but there a few key information that's missing from your introduction:
Title: Trouble with Trump
Source: An American Newspaper
Technique: One has been stated, but it needs to be named.


--- Quote ---Corrigan-Smith condemns in a scathing commentary of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump's candidacy as a disgraceful development, yet also deeply reflective of contemporary politics.
--- End quote ---

Correction for clarity:
SpoilerIn Corrigan-Smith's scathing commentary of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump's candidacy is not only condemned as a disgraceful development, it is also deeply reflective of contemporary politics.
But given you've whipped that up in five minutes, probably with no plan, you have done quite a good job.

literally lauren:

--- Quote from: FallingStar on March 04, 2016, 05:24:37 pm ---To convince the readers that Donald Trump they should not vote for Donald Trump as the president of the United states, Corrigan-Smith portrays Trump as having a "narcissistic personality."  The word narcissistic has a strong negative connotation as a selfish person, of selfishness, encouraging the readers to disapprove of Trump's personality, hence positioning them to feel as though Trump should not be the president of their country. Furthermore, Corrigan-Smith states that he only offers "ridicule and insults" instead of discussing "current events." These words are often connoted associated with "adolescent pettiness", sentence structure is a bit confusing here. Are you trying to say that the quotes: "ridicule and insults" are associated with "adolescent pettiness?" Because that second one is an actual quote, that should be the language you're explaining rather than being part of your explanation, if that makes sense. Basically rather than saying "the author says X which has connotations of "quote from the article," making readers feel..." <-- that "quote from the article" should be the focus of your discussion, not a way to supplement it presenting Trump as not sufficiently mature enough to be the president. Voters generally want someone who is a strong leader to be the head of state in the country. With Donald Trump being reduced by the writer into (because you reduce someone TO something, not INTO something - just a minor expression thing) a selfish, uneducated bully, the readers can only be are encouraged to view him as a weak political leader, thereby they will view him as being unsuitable for being the president. sentence is getting a bit long, and your point about him being a weak politician should suffice; you won't have to zoom all the way out to the overall contention each time - talking about the portrayal of Trump is enough in this case. Corrigan-Smith also mentions that America needs a president who is "prepared to meet the challenges ahead." Readers, after being convinced might come across as a bit too definitive - perhaps use 'assured' or just make the author your focus by saying 'Thus the author, having established that Trump is a bully, attempts to persuade readers that...' that Donald Trump as being an immature bully, they are likely to view that Trump will not meet the challenges of solving issues in a variety of situations. This viewpoint highlights that Donald Trump is likely to be an incompetent person given that he is in the position of president, this is more of a hypothetical at the moment since he's just one of several candidates convincing them that Trump does not deserve to be the president of the United States. Also, the readers of this letter are likely to be voters in the presidential elections, so they probably would be convinced that try and swap out these kinds of expressions for ones with 'the author' as the focus. For instance 'the author is therefore able to engender their support for...' or 'hence the author evokes feelings of...' as this will stop you from sounding too definitive they should not vote for Trump as the president of the United states.

--- End quote ---

- statements about the effect on the audience and the author's intent were spot-on :) It's clear you understand the contention, and there's a good amount of solid interpretative statements here. Most of my comments are only little fine-tune-y details.

- your use of 'connotes' was a little wonky; it should either be:
The word "whatever" connotes carelessness and frivolity, and elicits a sense of...
The author's use of the word "whatever," with its connotations of carelessness and frivolity, elicits a sense of...
The connotative language used by the author - specifically the word "whatever" which is associated with carelessness and frivolity, elicits a sense of...
or something like that.

- the stuff you've chosen to analyse was awesome, and aside from that minor grammatical thing with the word 'connotes,' the way you unpacked connotations was excellent. If possible, aim for a bit more super obvious metalanguage - like, 'the author's use of ___.' For this piece, you could've discussed the listing in the second paragraph, or the short, imperative sentence structure of "Don't vote for him." You could even say something about the use of past tense in "Candidates were always educated..." which kind of creates this sense of loss and nostalgia for the glory days when politicians weren't idiots :P No technique is compulsory, but if you haven't overtly mentioned a couple, some assessors will erroneously think you're not closely analysing language. Obviously for a short bit of analysis like this, it's not a huge deal, but just know that somewhere in your body paragraphs, you should be doing some clear technique identification alongside all this other good stuff.

HopefulLawStudent:
Scathingly, the North Carolina denizen seeks to form an association between the billionaire and sinister and reprehensible aspects of the world; including “terrorists, mass murders [and] drug abuse.” Her enumerations have the effect of overwhelming the audience of American constituents whose natural inclination would have been to support Trump with just how perilous the world was. By frankly pronouncing Trump had “degraded” the political campaign and put it “through a gutter”, the writer thus intimates that to vote the presidential hopeful into the White House would be akin to exacerbating the world’s present situation. Corrigan-Smith thus forms an association between Trump and unappealing aspects of humanity in order to make the reader less inclined to want to vote him into the position of president because their patriotism precludes them from wanting a man like Trump who purportedly represents such atrocious aspects of life in a position of authority in which he would effectively become the epitome of American civilisation; to this end, they infer that Trump’s presidency would imply America was a place where “mass murders, drug abuse… anger, hatred” and the like were rife.

Corrigan-Smith seeks to vilify president hopeful Donald Trump, positioning the audience to perceive the billionaire as the antithesis of the ideal leader. She juxtaposes what characteristics an ideal leader would purportedly possess with the characteristics displayed by Trump. By contrasting the two, the North Carolina resident accentuates the extreme disparity between these two. To this end, she intimates Trump would be a horrible choice for president because he displays no qualities commonly associated with a leader. Establishing he lacked these leadership qualities, the writer thus suggests Trump lacked the substance or credentials that would have given the impression he could be a competent leader of the American public. That the writer should seek to depict the presidential hopeful as the antithesis of the ideal leader is supposed to manoeuvre the viewer to opt against voting for him because he purportedly lacks the qualities voters would typically expect in a presidential candidate.

HopefulLawStudent:
Points for trying, right? I actually intended to do this ages ago but I got swamped in SACs and I got a little lazy/busy. Admittedly, it's not my best piece of work. I was sort of trying Lauren's subargument approach but having written it, I now feel as though I should have just condensed the entire thing into a "the writer wanted to vilify Trump" paragraph considering how short the piece was but oh well.

PS: What sort of tone does the writer adopt? I'm particularly interesting in shifting tonality; I NEVER see them. "Scathing" and "Blunt" are like my go-to tones when I have no idea what I'm doing. LOL.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page