VCE Stuff > AN’s Language Analysis Club

[2016 LA Club] Week 2

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literally lauren:

--- Quote from: HopefulLawStudent on March 18, 2016, 09:58:53 pm ---Scathingly careful with your tone + verb combinations - how exactly would you 'scathingly seek to form associations?', the North Carolina denizen this is a very 'literary' word - you'd use it in the context of 'a denizen of the valley' or 'a denizen of Medieval Europe' - it can sound a bit odd to use it in slightly more mediocre contexts like 'a denizen of some random suburb' :P seeks to form an association between the billionaire and sinister and reprehensible aspects of the world; including “terrorists, mass murderers [and] drug abuse.” Her enumerations have the effect of overwhelming are intended to overwhelm (some assessors might view what you've got here as being a tad too definitive, so phrasing this in a 'the author attempts to...' or 'this forms part of his intention to...' is a bit safer) the audience of American constituents whose natural inclination would have been to support Trump with just how perilous the world was not sure about your interpretation here(?). By frankly pronouncing word check. This only really works in terms of 'I pronounce my vowels in a certain way' - as in, it's about the articulation of sound rather than the expression of ideas. I can pronounce things in a French accent but I can't 'pronounce' my love of France 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 good. 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 v. long sentence, but the content is excellent - this is a great sentence linking the language through to the overall contention :).

I know this is a modified task, but always try to link between your paragraphs and imply a sense of continuity. 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. quotes? Some evidence here would be good. By contrasting the two, the North Carolina resident accentuates the extreme disparity between these two. To this end, great phrase, but it came up at the end of your previous paragraph; don't overuse it. Heaps of synonyms for 'thus'/'ultimately'/'consequently' if you need them 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. You've made this point already so you don't really need this sentence. That the writer should seek to depict the presidential hopeful as the antithesis of the ideal leader is supposed to manoeuvre the viewer only use this for images - 'reader'/'readership'/'audience' are preferred, or you can get more specific in cases like this where you might say 'the American public' or 'voters' to opt against voting for him because he purportedly lacks the qualities voters would typically expect in a presidential candidate.

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Bit of repetition towards the end there which might stem from the fact that your analytical interpretations aren't strictly based on any particular evidence, meaning you have little to explore other than 'Trump does not have presidential qualities --> Trump would be a bad president' but since you only refer to this in vague terms (ie. 'The author juxtaposes X & Y) w/o quotes as your foundation, it's a little less driven than your first paragraph.

But the process of analysis is solid, and when you do unpack quotes, you do it really well. Just ensure you're always making THE LANGUAGE your starting point - the more specific you are, the better.

Technically there are instances where you could get away with not quoting, but if in doubt, it's better to quote just in case you get one of those snarky assessors (like me!) who prefers that example being given as a foundation before you then build up your discussion.

+ a couple of odd word choice issues, but nothing major. Just take note of these and try not to stray into literary terminology like 'denizen' and 'rife' for analytical essays. (They're great for Lit, but they can seem a bit superfluous in L.A.) Most of the verbs and adjectives you were using to describe things were excellent though.


--- Quote from: HopefulLawStudent on March 18, 2016, 10:04:27 pm ---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.

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Two sub-problems to this, as far as I can see:
- knowing different tones, and
- being able to spot and describe them

With regards to knowing tones, you should definitely brainstorm common ones to help you get better at identifying them. In general you can take an adjective and add '+ly' and you'll end up with a word that describes tone
eg. angry --> angrily
sorrowful --> sorrowfully
sympathetic --> sympathetically
etc.

Or you can discern a tone based on the effect, sometimes. So if an author wants to elicit feelings of inspiration, they'll usually use an inspirational tone.

I know I've got a big chart of tones somewhere... it'll be on the forums somewhere but I cbf finding it right now so I might just reupload it when I get home, but there are heaps of vocabulary lists online that will list a heap of tonal words.

Next, with regards to being able to 'spot' tones, forcing yourself to discuss tone once or twice a paragraph can be sufficient in reminding you to be on the lookout for instances of important tones and tonal shifts. Alternatively, if there's some language that you can tell is persuasive but can't match up with a particular technique, it's likely that there's either a tone or some connotations involved, so that can be another good reminder.

In general though, if you're aware of different tones, you're more likely to see them, so try to widen your vocab base and you should then find it easier to move past 'scathing' and 'blunt' or other really typical/boring words like 'formal' or 'emotional' :P

HopefulLawStudent:
So basically invest in a good thesaurus and one of those "tone sheets" every English teacher apparently gives out. And keeping an eye on word usage which continues to be a big problem for me.

How do you think I would best go around resolving my word usage problem? My problem is a lot of the words I do use wrong are words I thought I was using correctly but it turns out I wasn't. Short of starting a list of words to just not use in my essays, what else could I do to fix this problem?

Also: Could you please clarify what you meant by linking between paragraphs?

HopefulLawStudent:
Side note: Could those two paragraphs have been compressed into one?

Marmalade:

In response to the approval Donald Trump has gathered from many, Corrigan-Smith endeavours to dissuade the public from voting for him. In a forthright and scathing tone, Corrigan-Smith vilifies the presidential candidate by accentuating his disrespectful behaviour; accusing him of having ‘degraded the campaign’ and ‘dragged [it] through a gutter.’ From this, it can be intimated that Trump has corrupted the significance of the debates as for the people - especially given his ignorance of ‘situations that impact our daily lives’ - but has instead run simply ‘to satisfy his narcissistic personality’, which holds nuances of a selfish ulterior motive and portrays him as unsuitable to be a political leader. Hence, not only does this undermine the authenticity of Trump’s desire to ‘make America great again’ (is this allowed?), but also brings into doubt his motivation for following up appropriately on the responsibilities the role carries, as it seems he aims for presidency for personal reasons instead. Subsequently, these points are only further exaggerated by Corrigan-Smith’s comparison of Trump to other presidential candidates. By describing them as ‘well educated’ and holding ‘an unspoken respect for each other’, she accentuates the perks of the other candidates and thus bolsters the image of these parties in the audience’s perspective, dislodging Trump’s standing as a result. Readers are consequently made more reluctant to vote for him, given this disrespectful, selfish nature that seems uncaring of catering towards the country’s true needs, and are thus more likely to consider other candidates instead.

literally lauren:

--- Quote from: HopefulLawStudent on March 23, 2016, 09:03:36 pm ---So basically invest in a good thesaurus and one of those "tone sheets" every English teacher apparently gives out. And keeping an eye on word usage which continues to be a big problem for me.

How do you think I would best go around resolving my word usage problem? My problem is a lot of the words I do use wrong are words I thought I was using correctly but it turns out I wasn't. Short of starting a list of words to just not use in my essays, what else could I do to fix this problem?

Also: Could you please clarify what you meant by linking between paragraphs?

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Yes indeed - the more vocabulary you have at your disposal, the more techniques and language features you're likely to find in the material. Online tonal worksheets should suffice, and I cannot for the life of me find the one I used in Year 12 but I might just type up a replacement if I get the chance.

Word-usage-wise, just keep making mistakes :) You shouldn't view not using these words as the easiest fix because chances are there's only a few minor shifts to your internal grammar that you need to make, and after that, you're totally fine to start using them in the proper context.

Out of curiousity, when these issues of word usage are pointed out to you, can you recognise how and why the word doesn't fit? Like, is it a case of 'oh, yeah, I can tell I'm using this wrong' or more like 'oh, k, my usage is just wrong but I don't know how to distinguish it from the right usage?' Because the former is easier to deal with if you only need to be shown once why a word has certain restrictions placed upon it (eg. you can't use the verb portray followed by 'that' because a phrase like 'the author portrays that eating vegetables is important' is really clunky.) But the latter case would take quite a bit more work, especially if even after reading an explanation or a dictionary.com entry for something, your brain still can't quite grasp it. In that situation, it's work persisting when it comes to important or useful words like 'portray/ indictment/ reductive' that are useful from a VCE perspective, but if it's a relatively obscure word like 'denizen,' then you can afford to just ignore it :P


Regarding linking between paragraphs, aim to have some kind of connection that you establish within the first few words of the start of each B.P. from the 2nd para onwards.

Generic ones like: 'Furthermore, the author also seeks to elicit support for...' are okay, but it's best to find a more specific link if possible. eg. if you were going from one paragraph that looked at how the author depicted politicians as mercenary bastards to the next para that looked at the needs of the community, then you might say: 'This portrayal of the government's greed also aids the author in implying that the general public deserve a better class of state-level representation.'


--- Quote from: HopefulLawStudent on March 23, 2016, 09:09:23 pm ---Side note: Could those two paragraphs have been compressed into one?

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Possibly, but I'm not being too stringent with comments about the length of analysis unless it's ridiculously excessive (~1000 words of analysis on 100 words of material) or really underdone (eg. only a couple of sentences and they're noticeably generic.) Idea-wise (/key player-wise) there's enough similarity between these two paragraphs that you could combine them with a bit of work on the linking, but even from an exam standpoint, the assessors won't be too fussed provided each distinct paragraph has a relatively defined focus. It's natural for there to be a bit of overlap since it's all based on the same argument/material anyway :)


--- Quote from: Marmalade on March 27, 2016, 07:22:55 pm ---In response to the approval Donald Trump has gathered from many, Corrigan-Smith endeavours to dissuade the public from voting for him. In a forthright and scathing tone, Corrigan-Smith vilifies the presidential candidate by accentuating his disrespectful behaviour; no need for a semicolon here accusing him of having ‘degraded the campaign’ and ‘dragged [it] through a gutter.’ From this, it can be intimated that Trump has corrupted the significance of the debates as for the people - especially given his ignorance of ‘situations that impact our daily lives’ - but and has instead run simply ‘to satisfy his narcissistic personality’, which holds nuances expression is a bit odd here of a selfish ulterior motive and portrays him as unsuitable to be a political leader. Hence, not only does this undermine the authenticity of Trump’s desire to ‘make America great again’ (is this allowed?) haha, as much as this is relevant and objectively valid given the context of the situation, you're not really meant to do anything with the context of the situation and just concentrate on the language that's provided. So no, it wouldn't be "allowed" in that you won't earn any marks for it :P but also brings into doubt his motivation for following up appropriately on the responsibilities the role carries, as it seems this is okay, but rather than overusing these kinds of sentence types, try to err on the side of using 'the author' as the focus of your sentences. The whole task has to revolve around how the author uses language to persuade, so if you can reflect that focus in your sentence structure by saying 'the author highlights XYZ' instead of 'the audience may infer XYZ' or 'it would appear that XYZ,' then you'll be in a much better position. Those other types are still totally fine as interchangeable options to vary things up if you're too dependent on 'the author does suchandsuch' but still favour those authorial-intent based ones wherever possible he aims for presidency for personal reasons instead. Subsequently, these points are only further exaggerated by Corrigan-Smith’s comparison of Trump to other presidential candidates. By describing them as ‘well educated’ and holding ‘an unspoken respect for each other’, she accentuates the perks of the other candidates and thus bolsters the image of these parties in the audience’s perspective, dislodging Trump’s standing as a result v.good! Readers are consequently made more reluctant to vote for him, given this disrespectful, selfish nature that seems uncaring of catering towards the country’s true needs, and are thus more likely to consider other candidates instead.

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Excellent spelling out of the effect and intention. I think a few more mentions of the author's name (or just 'the author') would help make this conform with what the assessors consider to be a top-band response. It's not that your current analysis is flawed, really, it's just that typically, frequent use of the author's name to describe the process of persuasion is a characteristic of high range responses, whereas not mentioning the author is something that low/mid-range pieces do. Now that doesn't mean this would be a low/mid range piece since the quality of analysis is clearly above that, but the assessors are trained to look for characteristics, so knowing how to 'fake it' by moulding your work such that it showcases the analysis in the best possible way is an obvious recipe for success.

The content you've got here is pretty good, though closer discussion of some of the language might help (eg. "through a gutter" and "unspoken respect," both of which you kind of mention without fully unpacking.) It's not necessary to do for every single quote, but can be an excellent way to show off and do some really unique analysis. Other than that, your metalanguage and vocab is mostly fine give or take a couple of missteps, but on the whole, you're commenting on the material really effectively :)

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