Practicing answering a grouping texts question

English Language - Grouping texts

Texts A, B and D are all adverts to some extent; all the texts are persuading using direct address.

Text D is an advertisement for celebrity cruises – immediately the name of ‘celebrity’ sounds luxurious and makes the audience think that if they go on this cruise they are going to be treated like a celebrity. The bold text of “An all-inclusive cruise exclusively for you” includes the 2^nd person pronoun of ‘you’ it encourages the reader to think of themselves on the cruise; as the primary audience for the cruise is most likely to attract more mature adults, celebrity cruises is advertising their product to people who have worked their whole lives and deserve a holiday and to be pampered. ‘Exclusively for you’ implies that the whole cruise is built around them; this technique of hyperbole is linking back linking back to the idea of direct address as its implying they made this cruise for you, although this obviously wasn’t the case its exaggerating the idea of being pampered- as if the members were celebrities. The quote “we’re confident that your first celebrity cruise won’t be your last” is almost inviting them to try it to see if the audience will or not. By including the verb ‘we’re’ they sound more like people and less like a company, similar to Text A  when it comes to Indiana Jones’ nickname.

Another strong inclusion is Text B which is Adidas’s homepage on their website. The first text that stands out to the audience is “Your greatest run ever” the use of the direct address is trying to encourage the audience to imagine their selves running in the new boost shoes. The verb ‘run’ is linking to the connotations of the new boost shoes which are being advertised on this page. The nouns ‘greatest ever’ makes the audience think they have to be the best running shoes ever, similar to Text D, the use of hyperbole again is exaggerating how powerful the trainers are and is advertising them as being the best running trainers ever. Another piece of text that stands out to the audience is “energy takes over #BOOST”, the shoes main target audience would be young adults in their 20’s – a generation known for their social media – by adding ‘#BOOST’ they are persuading people to trend the shoes and make more young people aware of either the brand or the shoes, this will hopefully encourage more people to buy the boost shoes.      

Text A is the weakest inclusion as although it does use some direct address it mainly is informs the audience (families with children) about his adventures and who is in the film; in this text the audience will need some pragmatic understanding about the characters and previous films for them to be interested in watching this film, “in the exiting tradition of the classic Indiana jones movies!” the adjectives ‘classic’ and ‘tradition’ both reference the other films of Indiana Jones- by including ‘classic’ the writers may be trying to appeal to an older audience who watched the films as well as the young audience they are attracting. “Indy takes you on an action-packed adventure”, the pronoun ‘you’ is a form of direct address which is creating imagery as we imagine what adventure that would be, the writer is encouraging the audience to think that the film is taking you with them on the journey. Also by saying Indiana Jones’ nickname of ‘Indy’ instead of his full name sounds like we know him and that he more of a friends than someone just on DVD- this is persuading us to watch the film more.

Text 3, Text 5 and Text 6 are all informative and provide information to the audience through the use of imperatives, interrogatives and statistics.

3 is an advert for the new ‘Flasifeye HD! Mascara’, the pun ‘Falsifeye’ already informs the audience that this is about a mascara giving a false eyelash effect on the eyes and by having the name as an exclamatory sentence it makes it more eye catching. Throughout the text there are imperatives including “Use a twisting action when applying so the lashes are combed and defined…”, this is unusual for a Seventeen advert as its main target audience would appeal to young people however they are advertising the mascara more formally which would apply to more mature women; most people already know how to put mascara on but they are making it sound like it’s an more complicated – they know what they are talking about. The statistics “94% saw more definition*, 93% saw separated lashes*, 92% saw long lasting results*” make the text appear more believable as the audience are more likely to buy a product due to other people’s opinions after using it. The repetition of the verb ‘saw’ shows that the women involved were use to experimenting with different brands of mascara and they do agree with the claims that Seventeen is making about how false this makes your lashes look.

Text 6 mainly uses strong imperatives in the lexical field of cooking to inform the audience (most likely to be older more mature adults) about how to cook using Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients Tahini. The text starts off by introducing what tahini is and where it is most commonly used in the world, “from the Arabic word for grind” – by saying its ‘Arabic’ the text is informing us about the products history and its making it sound exotic- this creates curiosity in the audiences mind and is encouraging them to use it. The imperatives “Mix”, “blitz” and “try” are all persuading audiences to buy the product as well as possibly other Waitrose ingredients from the recipes; by including a recipe, Waitrose magazine is saying what else you could do with it- its creating this illusion for having multipurpose uses. As this text was found in Waitrose magazine, the audience must already be previous shoppers of the supermarket, but by including a free magazine Waitrose is hopefully encouraging the previous shoppers to come back and possibly buy more exotic and expensive food as well as the essentials.

                Text 6 could be categorised as the weakest inclusion as it doesn’t provide useful information but does provide information about the characters. The transcript is of a spoken conversation between two young adults called Sally and John; they mainly provide information through the use of interrogatives and phatic talk. Unusually for a spoken conversation they don’t start off with saying the usual ‘hello, how are you?’, but instead start off with “So how’s your new job going”, this is showing the audience that they already have a previous relationship before the conversation started and a previous pragmatic understanding that the audience doesn’t know immediately. The informal conjunction ‘so’ tells the audience about the age group of the characters in the text as well as the relationship between them. The lack of punctuation after ‘going’ is a cloaked interrogative, this could possibly show that Sally isn’t interested enough and is just creating chitchat to pass the time. The informality of the transcript is easily shown through the fillers, conjunctions and repairs used such as “no (.) no it’s just like a questionnaire…” which shows John as not being a confident speaker and quite sad- this is unexpected as in the text john says “this week I’ve just been on the phones” where he has to talk to people. Johns back channels as he mainly responds to Sally’s questions, Sally is clearly the one leading the conversation on and is setting the subject matters of which they discuss – in this case mainly about Johns new job and about his friend Gizmo.

Texts 1, 2, 4 and 7 to some extent all share the lexical field of ‘escapism’, the texts present an opportunity to get away from everyday life.

Text 2 is the strongest inclusion of the groups as it is persuading people to go on the cruises and to escape on a “short 2-night sailing to Paris”, by identifying that it’s a ‘short’ cruise they are suggesting that its only two nights- its making it more accessible for the average worker as well as appealing to a more up market and older audience. Lexical word choices like “We’re confident your first Celebrity cruise won’t be your last” encourages people to go on this cruise to almost test it out and to escape to Paris to see if it really is “a unique taste of modern luxury”. Celebrity cruises also used graphology features including pictures to entice people to go on the cruises which they are advertising; the unique Norwegian Fjords are presented in a romantic way similar to Paris, both images include rivers perhaps to reflect peacefulness which is what you could possibly find on the cruise. Both pictures show iconic landmarks which can only be found in these destinations, the idea of exploring somewhere new and seeing something that can’t be found anywhere else is something that would appeal to an audience seeking adventure.

Text 2 was found on Adidas’ website homepage, it is advertising the new boost shoes. “Your greatest run ever” stands out on the homepage, the superlative ‘greatest’ could perhaps mean different things to different people but overall it means that someone succeeded- its suggesting that when you run you will feel better (this could be reflected with the yellow striped backgrounds which has positive connotations with happiness). The bold text “ENERGY TAKES OVER” stands out, by saying something takes over it is implying that there are other things needed to be done- Adidas may be suggesting that when you run you forget all your troubles and just focus on running; the shoes can give enough energy that it does ‘take over’ and ironically you relax while doing exercise-as well as persuading people to buy the shoes it’s also advertising exercise and running through their sports gear.

Text 7 is the back of a travel guide, the main text that stands out to us is “Madagascar” even the title promotes positive connotations for adventure, nature and surrealism; the outlay of the book seems very simple which isn’t something you would normally expect to see for a persuasive text, but this could appeal to a more mature audience- which is who Madagascar is most likely to attract. The text starts off by saying “Practical, informative and user friendly the Globetrotter Travel Guide to Madagascar highlights the major places of interest, describing their principle attractions…” the noun ‘highlights’ suggests that the guide is reliable and factual as it knows the most desired attractions for mature tourists who would like this travel guide- by presenting the guide to be factual it sounds more trustworthy. The noun ‘principle’ also suggests that the book would attract an older audience as it’s a formal word that you wouldn’t expect to hear a young person saying, its persuading people to buy the travel guide but to also go to Madagascar to see the attractions that have been so informative in the book. “Stay, eat, shop and relax”, by ending the paragraph on the verb ‘relax’ it’s creating imagery in the audiences mind as you think about where you are going to relax – normally we think of relaxing as pampering ourselves or escaping from something, the guide is persuading people to go on holiday to Madagascar.

You could argue that Text 1 is the weakest inclusion of the group as action films like Indiana Jones take the audience on someone else’s ‘reality’ or adventure, it’s not as such their own escape. “STEVEN SPIELBURG AND GEOGE LUCAS bring you the greatest adventure of all”, the phrase ‘bring you’ shows that they have already planned your escapism- films take you on a journey, they present an idea to the audience which  and the films leave little to the viewers imagination.