Paper 1: Texts and conventions

Speech

Structural elements

• Salutation - shows the relationship between speaker and audience.
• Introduction
  • Establishes purpose
  • Introduces stance of the speaker
  • Relates to the audience
• Body paragraphs
  • Purpose is emphasised through different techniques.
  • Repetition of the purpose using rhetorical devices.
  • Proving the benefits of the purpose using appeals.
• Conclusion
  • Call to action
  • Concludes message and ends with finality.

Linguistic elements

• Aristotelian appeal: Logos, ethos, and pathos
• Use of facts and figures
• Anecdotes or personal examples
• Allusions
• Figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification, imagery)
• Hyperphora, anaphora, rhetorical structures
• parallel structures, tricolon
• Asyndeton, polysyndeton
• Personalised language, usage of second person pronoun

Article

• Structural elements
  • Masthead or title
  • Headline
  • Strapline under headline, more detail
  • Standfirst (might or might not be there)
    • Short paragraph summarising entire article
    • Generates interest in the audience
  • Byline
    • name of the writer
  • Image and caption
  • Pullquote
    • One or two lines that grabs the attention of the audience.
    • Pulled out of the matter
    • relevant and important text.
  • Introduction
    • States the purpose and topic.
    • States the relevance of the topic by relating to the audience.
  • Body matter (largest part)
  • Conclusion
    • Either one of the four:
      1. Author gives a comment
      2. Talks about an investigation
      3. Predicts a consequence
      4. Call to action.
  • End credits
    • Shows the credibility of the journalist.
    • Call to action, eg. comment on twitter, etc.
• Linguistic elements

Opinion Columns

• Inherits all conventions from article.
• Opinion is stated very strongly in first paragraph.
• Body paragraphs have arguments in favour and rebuttic arguments.
• Newspapers and magazines often have columnists who write for them
• Generally speaking, newspapers or magazines want there to be a cult of personality surrounding these columnists to generate good sales and brand loyalty
• Columnists may be very outspoken in their opinions
• Nevertheless, their opinions are in tune with the readership of a particular magazine or newspaper
• Furthermore, their opinions are newsworthy, meaning that they both comment on the hot topics of the day and their opinions are worthy of publication.

Structural Elements

• Introduction
  • Introduces the issue and states the writer’s stance.
• Conclusion
  • Strongly puts forth call to action.

Editorial

• At times, the reader of a magazine or newspaper gets to hear the editor’s voice directly
• This usually takes the form of a brief explanation or justification on hoe they have decided to cover a topic in their newspaper or magazine
• Remember editors are the gatekeepers at a publishing house who decide what goes in to the final publication
• In an editorial they may comment on their journalists’ fieldwork, their columnists’ reputation, or their newspapers’ status in society

Op-ed

• This is written by a renowned person, somebody who has authority in a field.
• Opposes the stance of the editorial.
• Written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or a magazine written by a named writer/public personality usually not affiliated by the publication’s editorial board
• Op Eds are different from editorials (which are usually unsigned and written by the editorial board members) or Letters to the editor (which are submitted by the readers to the journal/newspaper)
• Examples:
  • the general of an army may write an op-ed about the status of war
  • a famous rockstar may write an op-ed in Rolling Stone magazine
  • the president of a country may write a letter to a political opponent, which he or she wishes to be published as an op-ed

Features common with editorials

• Short sentences and simple sentence construction
• Active voice rather than passive voice in verbs
• Short words from common vocabulary
• Almost no use of number or math
• Attention grabbing title
• Important point first, not last
• Use of people’s first and last names for ‘human interest’
• Affiliation language (business, university, titles, location) for persuasion
• Who, what, when, where, why, how

Infographics/image

• Contains all the conventions of a cartoon or a graphic novel.

Structural Elements

• Stacking and flow between images and photographs.
• Number of images
• Spacing and use of negative space
• Foreground
• Background
• Mid ground

Graphical/linguistic elements

• Camera angles
• Colour scheme - light and shade
• Simple, fluent language
• Use of formatted text
• Facial/bodily gestures and expressions

Blog

• Begins and ends with a hook, an attention grabber.
• Retains the curiosity and interest.
• Feedback mechanisms from the audience are present.

Linguistic Elements

• Personal
• Audience focused
• Informal
• Follows online conventions
• Figurative, but to the point

Letters

Structural Elements

• Salutation
• First paragraph
  • Sets out the purpose of the letter
  • Introduces context and content for analysis
  • Contains statement of intent
• Body paragraphs
  • Contains purpose and contextual clues
• Closure
  • Call to action (formal open letter)
  • Reiterating purpose + intent
  • Pleasantries

Linguistic Elements

• Base three elements for analysis:
  • The tone, which establishes the relationship of the writer to the primary audience
  • Relatability of the text
  • Purpose of the writer
• Possible devices:
  • Anecdotes
  • Contextual references
  • Inference
  • Minced words, euphemisms
  • Questions
  • Imagery
  • Vernacular/local language
  • Sarcastic elements
• Uses emotive, personal language
• Contains subliminal references
  • The hidden implications of the text
  • The real meaning of the text below the language

Tabloids

1. Informal
2. Use of puns
3. Use of alliteration
4. Exaggeration for effect
5. Slang
6. Colloquial language
7. Informal names used
8. Short, snappy sentences
9. Heightened language (over the top)
10. Brand names
11. Sexual innuendos
12. A focus upon appearance / colours
13. Frequent use of elision e.g. won’t, don’t.

Broadsheets

1. More formal
2. Metaphors rather than puns (puns - sometimes used, although more subtle)
3. subtle rhetoric
4. More complex sentences (look for sentences separated by lots of commas, semi-colons etc.)
5. Statistics
6. Descriptions of people tends to relate to personality or position in society ;
7. Politician’s comments often included, with a commentary by the journalist
8. Focusses more on being authenticity and sophistication

Internet Article

• Name of the journal – masthead
• Headline
• Contextual information under the headline, it establishes relevance of lead story – standfirst
• Image
• Caption
• Name of the writer, when it was published, place – by-line
• Lead story
• Selective excerpts magnified - pull quote
• Quotations/sources
• Other reading suggestions - off-lead
• Sidebar

Characteristics

• Voice – this refers to many aspects of language including word choice, verb tense, tone and imagery
• Newsworthy – is the column relevant to its time? What makes it newsworthy?
• Call to action – columnist usually call on the reader to become involved or care about an issue
• Humour – this is really an aspect of voice; humour usually helps readers see a topic through an original and fun perspective
• Hard facts – this aspect of newsworthiness gives an opinion column credibility
• Logos – appealing to logic will help persuade your readers