AOS2 Formal Language SAC - Analytical Commentary

[Tracheotomy]

Hi all,

I have an upcoming SAC on Formal Language which is in the form of an analytical commentary. I often find that when annotating articles for these analytical commentaries, I cannot make good annotations on features of the articles which I can then use in my analysis. Are there any tips anyone has for recognising key features and such that I should be talking about? Because at this stage I believe that it is not my analysis of features that is holding me back it's the features I choose to analyse, I just can't seem to pick up on the best features. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Joseph41]

Hey Tracheotomy! Welcome to ATAR Notes.

What's your annotation technique at the moment?

I think the first step is to know what you're looking for. Pages 17-18 of the study design list all of the metalanguage you need to know quite nicely. Once (or if) you're comfortable with all of those terms, why not try to annotate 5, 10, 15 different texts? They could be newspaper articles, ads - whatever you can find. Just annotate - don't bother writing the actual analytical commentary.

I think it'll probably just come with practice.

Also, something I liked to do was use a different colour highlighter for each subsystem. So like, purple for discourse, yellow for semantics, and whatever else. This gave a better indication of what subsystems I should actually discuss in the analytical commentary.

But yeah, once you know the features you're looking for really well, you can actively search for them. And this is probably easier than just reading the text and hoping for the best.

[Tracheotomy]

Hi! Thanks

Currently, I don't have an annotation technique as such I guess, I just sort of go through the article and attempt to look out for anything I come across.

I have been practising quite a bit with articles, but I find I can't find everything that the text contains even though I'm specifically looking out for them, for instance, active and passive sentences and such.

Would you have any tips for improving in analytical commentaries by any chance as well? My teacher says that my responses are of a high level but the way she marks it is not really, in my opinion, reflective of this, and there seems to be little feedback on areas for improvement.

Thanks

[dmitridr]

Hi all,

I have an upcoming SAC on Formal Language which is in the form of an analytical commentary. I often find that when annotating articles for these analytical commentaries, I cannot make good annotations on features of the articles which I can then use in my analysis. Are there any tips anyone has for recognising key features and such that I should be talking about? Because at this stage I believe that it is not my analysis of features that is holding me back it's the features I choose to analyse, I just can't seem to pick up on the best features. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hey

A little tip I like to use that helps me identify great features (not just the obvious ones) is this:

"If I were this author/speaker, why would I write or speak like this?" - put yourself in the author/speaker's shoes and ask yourself that question.

For example, imagine if you were a tutor in a library tutoring a student. If this were to be transcribed, you would notice that the prosodic features of both the tutor and student would be of quiet volume. You put yourself in the shoes of the tutor and student - they would be speaking softly because they wish to be respectful to those around them, social norms etc.

I hope this helps!
Dmitri.