Analysing Genres and Judging Sources

P343-346Language Course 6: Document Analysis

Content

• Texts – Genre, Language and Purpose• Types of Articles– Feature Article– Editorial– Review– Advertisement– Factual Report– Personal commentary and blogs

• Judging Sources

Texts – Genre

• When we analyse a text for it genre we look at the following;– Content – Linguistic features– Form– Style (read Pp 201-204)• Expressive, which is a personal text about the thoughts,

feelings, experiences and memories of the writer of the text.• Objective, which aims for a more neutral style.

Texts – Language

• We differentiate between four central styles of writing. The four styles are the formal, semi-formal, informal and colloquial.

• Each of the main styles has their own characteristics. A high frequency of formal features characterizes the more formal language, e.g. P343 from Hutchinson Encyclopedia.

• We can find formal features in informal or even colloquial styles.

News Articles – FormalArticle’s Structure: As a general rule, a news article has all essential information in its first paragraph. There are six useful questions journalists ask themselves when writing this first paragraph.

– Who (what) the subject is about?– What happened?– Why did this happen?– When did it happen?– How and where did the events take place?

Perspective is Objective: Written from an observer’s point of view without the personal pronouns “I” or “me”. That is the journalist’s name is given, but s/he is invisible in the text and does not use the pronoun I.

News Articles – FormalFacts vs. opinion: It will contain facts and not opinions e.g. an apartment building has burned down is a fact. An opinion is how the fire started. Eyewitness reports may be used to add weight to theories. If a statement cannot be checked as fact, it may be reported in the following manner: “According to a witness at the scene, the driver appeared to lose control of the car.”Transition: Every phrase, sentence or paragraph flows from the preceding one and carries the reader smoothly from one thought or event to the next. For example words which aid the transition will be: also, thus, since, likewise, however, another, meanwhile, accordingly, subsequently, furthermore, etc.And finally – remember it is usually follows the The Kiss Principle (Keep It Short and Simple).

News Articles – Formal

• A formal text is often more advanced than the an informal text, with a complex vocabulary and better flow, partly because the author makes use of a higher lexical word density which packs in a lot of content in a little space with correct punctuation (commas).

• We find complete sentences and facts stated without any subjective input.

• Often the interviewer concludes with something that the interview object has said i.e. a punch line.

News Articles – Informal

• The purpose of a news article is to give information about an event or issue of public interest. So a news article does not necessarily have to be objective and impartial. Sometimes the newspaper’s attitude to events shines through e.g. in the editors column (leader) and sometimes through the choice of language.

Feature Articles

• A feature article differs from a news article in that it does not inform about breaking news.

• The subject matter is usally topical and may concern politics, social issues, or stories of human interest. The purpose is both to analyse and entertain – and sometimes to persuade or influence readers too.

• The feature article has a clearly defined target audience – the readers of a newspaper/magazine.

Feature Articles

• The feature article must grab the readers attention

• It has a similar layout to a news article i.e. a headline, ingress (in bold letters) a main body with subheadings and a concluding paragraph.

• Where as a news article sometimes “peteres out” a feature article often ends with a thought provoking final comment.

Feature Articles

• Unlike the news journalist, the writer of a feature article is usually “present” in his text.

• There is a personal, subjective tone and often quite informal language.

• Facts and statistics are used to support the writer’s views, quotes and interviews, anecdotes and stories.

• Feature writers see themselves as “writers” as well as journalists.

• They use a broad range of literary devices, like irony and metaphors.

Examples of different stylesTask

Task 1 from SPR3008 V2013; Read the three texts in the AppendixWrite two or three paragraphs in which you discuss whar genre each text belongs to and comment on some of the language features of the texts. Use examples from each of the texts in your answer. • Article nr. 1: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind

the NSA suveillance revelations• Article nr. 2: No Defence left for America’s Blanket Spying• Article nr. 3: Whistleblower or Traitor, Snowden Must Shut

Up

Texts – Purpose

• Writing newspaper articles• Study the following guidelines to writing a newspaper article carefully.• Structure:• Begin with basic information and try to answer the questions.• – Who or what are you writing about?• – What happened?• – Why did this happen?• – When did it happen?• – How and where did the events take place?•

Write objectively:• Write from an observer’s point of view without the personal pronouns “I” or “me”.•

Facts vs. opinion:• It will be fact that an apartment building has burned down but only opinion as to how the fire started. Eyewitness reports may be

used to add weight to theories. If a statement cannot be checked as fact, it may be reported in the following manner:• “According to a witness at the scene, the driver appeared to lose control of the car.”•

Transition:• Every phrase, sentence or paragraph should flow from the preceding one and carry the reader smoothly from one thought or event

to the next. Some useful words to aid the transition are:• also, thus, since, likewise, however, another, meanwhile, accordingly, subsequently, furthermore, etc.•

And finally – remember The Kiss Principle: Keep It Short and Simple.