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Language Analysis Practice Essays
1. Issue: National Health Report
With the release of the national health report, and its findings to the public, highlighting the immense extent of Australia’s obesity crisis, there has been an increased awareness of this issue with both sides mud slinging. Gary Jennings’ and Simon Stewart’s opinion piece, ‘When it comes to being fatties, we’re winners’ reiterates the findings of the report emphasising the problem is a result of social issues rather than a freak accident. The writers stress the need to act now to avoid dire consequences if we are to overcome the nation’s ‘biggest’ crisis.
The writer’s opening statement, ‘reports of our obesity epidemic are far from exaggerated’, while justifying this with, ‘new figures collated by Baker BDI Heart and Diabetes Institute’, sets a controlled and reasonable tone for the duration of the piece. This use of tone allows the audience to visualise the writers as sensible characters increasing the believability of what they have to say. This also helps to provide a foundation for the findings of their own report titled ‘Fat Bomb: The long term consequences of middle age Australia’s expanding waist line.’ This puts the audience under the impression that they are being told all the facts by leading health professionals, despite this being clearly not the case. Anyhow the audience begin to accept the so called facts presented before them, agreeing with the writer’s contention that obesity is a major issue
In addition to the writer’s manipulation of tone, their frequent use of exaggerated and colloquial language such as, ‘inexorable’, ‘prevalence’ and ‘forefront’, emphasise the writer’s argument that the issue is ‘the nation’s “biggest” health concern’. This language creates a sense of great urgency to act upon, alluding readers to compare the issue of obesity to that of war. Consider the use of these words in an extract of a possible speech which world leaders may utilise to rally its people into war, ‘there is an ‘inexorable’ rise in the enemy… Our ‘forefront’ must ‘prevail’ against this new found enemy’. From this extract it is evident how these words emphasise a great need for action in both cases. The effect of the writer’s manipulation of language is strengthened through combining it with an analogy comparing, ‘123,000 men and women to more than the capacity of the MCG on grand final day’. Together these techniques enhance the audience’s understanding of the extent of the issue through providing an image of the numbers involved. As a result the audience become more aware of what’s at stake becoming more inclined to agree with the writer’s contention.
Lastly, the writer uses a number of puns, by naming their practical solution, ‘Healthy Towns’. This alludes the audience to the neighbourhood initiative ‘Tidy Towns’, a strategy involving rewards for communities to keep the environment clean, the only difference with their strategy is to provide financial incentive to keep fit. Another pun used is the writers suggestion that we may be ‘pushing for the gold medal if there were such a thing as the Fat Olympics.’ This plays on the fact that the Olympics is a place we strive to achieve gold, but in this case we would prefer anything but gold. The use of both these puns allows the readership to associate the points presented in this piece to that of more local and simplistic issues enhancing the audience’s overall understanding. This means the audience become more inclined to accept the points presented to them because they are logical, agreeing with the writer.
Jennings and Stewart collectively utilise a range of persuasive techniques to improve various aspects of their piece. Their use of tone is the most effective as it gives the audience the impression that experts are presenting the fact, meaning the audience are more inclined to believe the facts presented before them which identify obesity as a very serious problem.
2. Issue: Transport system
With the recent media coverage over the horrendous state of our public transport system, there has been an increased awareness of this issue by the general pubic, with the general consensus that not enough is being done as the system ‘goes into meltdown’. Rick Clarke’s letter to the editor, ‘Tinkering at the edges of a system off the rails’, (The Age, 20/06/2008) questions the current actions undertaken by both the authorities and operators. Similarly Robert Humphrey’s letter to the editor, ‘$9 billion? Spend it on trains and buses’ paints the government as ‘sheer madness’ for ‘considering spending a minimum of $9 billion on roads’ rather than public transport infrastructure.
Mr Clarke’s letter challenges Connex to ‘explain why it is not already running the train network at full capacity.’ He argues that if Connex’s own reports suggest that the system is not running at full, it ought to be, justifying this point through anecdotal evidence. ‘People at many stations cannot board peak hour trains, and those who can, must cram on like sardines,’ The writer’s reluctance to recount an experience with public transport as if he were actually there, shows the audience that he knows what he is talking about cause his been there. The reference to ‘sardines’ allows the wider public including those who do not use public transport, to visualise and in turn acknowledge the problems with our system. In turn the audience pay more attention to what else Clarke has to say.
To further strengthen his contention, Clarke frequently denigrates his major opponents through the use of questions. ‘Why is Connex wasting our money?’, ‘why, when the rail network has been approaching meltdown for years, works to duplicate the City Loop are not already under way’ These questions left unanswered encourages the audience to follow the writer and ask why, while making opponents seem stupid as the questions are rather simple to answer. This tends to discourage support of the opposing side, as there seem to be many grey areas, with many questions marks.
Similarly, Humphreys describes the government as ‘sheer madness’ for considering spending $9 billion on roads in the current environment, with the public transport system in meltdown and the population growing rapidly. He denigrates the credibility of the government by offering a simplistic proposal to avoid the imminent transport crisis. ‘Imagine what $9 billion in the development of rail, train and bus infrastructure.’ In proposing this, the writer is able to project the image of the government as unable or unwilling to govern in the interest of Victorians since it overlooked such a feasible solution. As a result readers may be inclined to support Humphrey’s view that money should be directed to public transport rather than roads.
In addition, the writer uses examples of neglect, of ‘the present Brumby Government – supposedly representing “working families” - ’ upon communities. ‘(They) won’t even build a railway station at Caroline Springs to give the local population the opportunity to use rail instead of paying out of control petrol prices.’ Mr Humphrey’s comment portrays the government as not only as out of touch and inconsiderate but heartless, for not even considering “working families” who don’t have a choice. This makes the audience sympathetic towards the writer’s cause becoming more willing to support him.
In both cases the writers effectively utilise a range of persuasive techniques to support their arguments. Clarke’s use of questions, give the audience the impression that there are a lot of questions surrounding Connex while Humphrey contends that money needs to be spent on public transport rather than roads by providing examples of neglect encouraging the audience to think of their own cases. In turn both writers use their respective techniques to make the audience more likely to believe in what they have to say.
3. Issue: Child Protection System
With the recent reports of horrific child neglect in Australian states, there has been an increased awareness of the child protection system’s failure to protect children, by the wider public. The Age’s editorial ( date ), ‘A national problem that needs a national approach’, argues in a concerned tone ‘for a more integrated and collaborative framework’ for a child protection system that would protect the people it was set up to do so.
The editor highlights the failure of the child protection agencies in their duty, through presenting recent cases. ‘Eleven days ago, the decomposing bodies of 18 month twins were found in the cot they shared’ and ‘On Monday…police…found more than 20 children living in squalor’. These two cases represent the problems faced by state and territory child protection systems, and the results reflected on innocent children. The frequency of these occurrences is also highlighted by the use of ‘Eleven days ago’ and ‘On Monday’. The audience become inclined to question why this can happen so frequently time and time again. Consequently readers will begin to accept that the current system requires change to function properly to protect those most vunerable in society.
To further strengthen his piece, the writer acknowledges ideas presented by the Government discussion paper labelling them as ‘valuable tools’. Yet he still believes that there is much more to be done. Through this the audience are able to decipher the writer’s character, one of reason and education. Where he doesn’t waste time playing the blame game, but rather congratulating correct initiatives, and throwing his own support behind it. As a result the audience will ‘see there is no time to waste’ and agree with the editor’s call for change.
Lastly, the writer states, ‘How a nation cares for its children is a true measure of its humanity’ following it up with ‘professional assessments describe the incidents of neglect as…just the tip of the ice berg.’ From the second statement the audience are told that child neglect is rampart and therefore we can answer the first question, which would mean our nation is inhumane. Because those that don’t act fit under the inhumane group, more readers will support the writer’s view that many changes need to be made to avoid being called inhumane.
The editor effectively utilises a rang of persuasive techniques to strengthen his arguments, the most effective being his readiness to portray our nation as inhumane if we don’t agree with him and call for major changes to Australia’s child protection systems. A long term fix that will protect the most vulnerable in our society.
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