Analysis of the Railcard Advert

This text is a leaflet advertising a 16-25 railcard and trying to inform and persuade the audience of how it could be a good purchase. Even though the railcard can be brought from the ages of 16, I would say that the audience for this leaflet is aimed for the older audience or young adults who would be travelling a lot and maybe purchasing a railcard would be useful. The graphology of this whole leaflet plays a big part in the advertisng of the railcard as it is set ouw like a movie poster which straight away attracts the eye of the audience as this layout is eyecatching and uses the feautures of a movie poster to advertise their porduct. The images of the two charcters, boy and a girl, you can automtaically tell that they are sterotypes the representations of them. The girl looks young, attarctive, blonde and somone you would imgaine to be a star in a big movie who is longingly looking up for the handsome boy character, who is looking worried, which could be linked to the text about whether he can be the hero the auidnce expects him to be and save the girl. This links to the text of "He gets 1/3 off rail travel - but can he get her back?" as the rheotrical question also becomes a narriatve hook adding to the idea of the plot the movie senario the poster is trying to percieve. Its add to the persauive nature of the text as it helps to draw the auidnce in and get the idea of will he be the hero and get the girl back and whether the purchase of the railcard will also help this motive. The title "Saving Precious Penny" also helps to add to the whole punning of the movie theme the railcard advert is using as "Penny" can either be the girls name or actual money but the fact the adjective "Precious" can be used for both suggests that both is worth trying to achieve.

The text at the bottom of the leafet is like the small print of the movie poster as it is all capitalised but some words are bigger than others, which shows that the company has tried to keep the theme going on throughout the whole text. Its starts off with the imperative "Buy a 16-25 railcard" which makes it have a commanding tone towards the audience and therefore persauvie to go and buy one of these railcard. A personal pronoun "You" has also been used which gives the text a personal connection to the auidince so the auidnce feels like this text is directed at them and therefore useful item to purchase. Words like "Epic" have also been used in the small print which could be condsidered as film desriction specific lexis. This is imporant to keep the theme up but also how describing getting a railcard using film lexis which is used to persaude auidnces to go and watch this film can also be used to persaude the rail companies auidnce of 16-25 to buy a railcard. The whole movie theme is somthing this perticular age group can relate too and is cleverly used to be persauive for a different motive.

Pantene Advert

This advert shows us how even though men and women do exactly the same things like jobs, that they are automatically given labels to define them for example in this case of a job, the male is described as the boss where as the female is described as bossy.This shows how language towards male and females are different and males have the stereotypically high status lanaguage where as women have the language which people look down upon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOjNcZvwjxI

Peter Trudgill and Robin Lakoff

These two researchers look into language and gender and what they discovered.

Peter Trudgill, 1970's

Trudgill wanted to find out how people's ways of speaking varied and how so used Norwich speech as an example. One of the variables he looked at was the gerund ending of "ing" in words like "walking" and "running" and he found in Norwich that they missed this out on the end of words like "walking" to say "walkin" making it sound like there was an "n" on the end of the sentence. He also found that it wasn't just unique for Norwich as he says:

"Nearly everywhere in the Eng-speaking world we find this alternation between higher-class/formal ng and lower class/informal n. It goes back to the fact that in Old English (and later) there were two forms, a gerund ending in -ing (walking is good for you) and a present participle ending in -end (he was walking). The -end form was the ancestor of -n' and -ing (obviously) of -ing. "

The two have been merged and sorted into two terms in forms of prestige and "correctives" has happened in the last 300 years. Upper class Edwardian said words like "huntin", "finshin" and "shootin" which shows just how recent it is.

His study discovered:

1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'. 2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes. 3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes. 4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did. 5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.

Robin Lakoff, 1975 

Lakoff did a study into language and specifically women's. She wrote a book called "Language and Women's Place" that looked at the woman's language is often now common place.Her work looks at attention to class, power, and social justice in addition to gender.








Lakoff says that women's speech can be distinguished from men in a number of ways:

1. Hedges: Phrases like "sort of", "kind of", "it seems like"
2. Empty adjectives: "divine", "adorable", "gorgeous"
3. Super-polite forms: "Would you mind..." "...if it’s not too much to ask" "Is it o.k if...?"
4. Apologise more: "I'm sorry, but I think that..."
5. Speak less frequently
6. Avoid coarse language or expletives
7. Tag questions "You don't mind eating this, do you?".
8. Hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation: Use of prestige grammar and clear articulation
9. Indirect requests: "Wow, I'm so thirsty." – really asking for a drink
10. Speak in italics: Use tone to emphasis certain words, e.g., "so", "very", "quite"

She also developed the idea of the "politeness principle", which has three maxims that are usually followed in interaction, which we look at also in language and power. These are: Don't impose, give the receiver options, and make the receiver feel good. If any of these are not used, then it called "flouting the maxims" and she says that you need these follow them to have a good interaction.

Language and Gender

Language and gender can seem a very intresting idea to look at as at first, I don't really think about how women and mens laguage could actually be all that different as we all use it and get to know what type of language is new, when it acceptable to use certin language and how to use it in conversation. However, when you actually look into it you can begin to see the differences which could also link back to the ideas of sexism, sterotypes ect that have been made known. The idea that women could be considered the more chatty ones, good at changing topics but threre could be more masculine elemants especially with certin lexcial feilds in topics like football and maybe a bigger use of swear words which links to being sterotypical.

The other day, someone came up with the thought that they couldn't imagine men really using the term "OMG" and this is just one tiny example that actually ahows how language is differently used and how it has been interpreted into which gender would more likly to use. This links into the idea that women supposedly have a wider, superioir language use to men which is just a veiw but is this a valid point? Are women more domaint in language and how is this proven? What effects this? Nature or nurture? Age? Status? These are some of the ideas I would like to explore and find out ehy the divide between the two genders language had becoming more noticble over and become some linguists like Deborah Cameron, research topics and what they have found out helps to exaplin the divide.

This is an intresting article my Deborah Cameron which gives her veiw on what this whole debate is about and what conclusion he reaserch has come up with and her owh opinions:
www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books

What different power concepts and theory would you refer to if you were writing about this speech?

I have look at a speech done by Gorden Brown when he became prime minster of Britain and come up with some ideas to answer the question above:

• A speech is an example on influential power as the language devices used gains power for the speaker as it can be influential over the audience to be on the speakers side and agree with what they are saying.
• Using the personal pronoun of "I" would be important to use on a speech as it gives a sense that the speech is directly coming from the person speaking to the audience and making it clear that they have this power and will use it wisely. "I want the best of chances for everyone"
• There is also a collective pronoun used of "we" and that brings the audience into the speech and makes them feel like they can get involved in what the speaker is saying. "that if we can fulfil the potential"
• Both use of pronouns support the theory that Fairclough represented of Synthetic Personalisation that they are used to make the audince feel there is a relatioship between them and the speaker when they don't even know each other making the auidnce gain trust for the speaker and the speaker gaining power over the audience.
• Modal verbs like "will" and "can" are important as they give a sense of certainty on what the speaker is saying and that they can and will change try and change the future for the best of the audience. "I will be strong in purpose". It it makes the points they make very strong and forceful so therefore seem believable.  
• Repetition of words or phrases like "Change in our NHS, change in our schools, change with affordable housing". This helps to emphasis the point that the speaker is trying to make that they can see the things that need improving and they can help to do something about it.  

Half Term Homework!

Here is my half term homework of an analysis on a chairty advert that demonsteates how language is affected by power:
(picture of advert included)

This Save the Children advert persuades its readers in a number of different ways that I will discuss in this answer. One of the most noticeable features is it use of graphology as its picture is central to the advert and therefore is very striking. It is of a mother and child and is emotive towards the audience as this child is being comforted by his mother. There is a little caption with gives a small background check on what this picture is showing the audience too. Both of these things help to suggest that one of the audiences this advert is trying to appeal to is parents as the bond between mother and a child is strong and the fact this child is crying can hit emotions for parents in the fact they don't want their children to have a life like this. Therefore gaining power very the audience as using emotive pictures can be persuasive towards getting the audience on their side to give money towards their charity. Also, one the captions to the picture is a rhetorical question “How many more must die before this stops?” which make a powerful point which gets the audience thinking about the context of this advert and gives power to the writer as then it gives the message that the audiences money can help people who are hurt during bombing in places like Gaza can start to get a better life.

The emotive language is also shown in the lexis chosen. The use of negative words like “bombing”, “fight”, “attacks”, “death”, “horror” and “danger” which are all very strong words that are very truthful when relating to this matter and give a sense of despair which only the audience can help make better which is persuading which is primary purpose of the text and getting the audience to understand this matter more about what is going on with the help of adjectives like “damaging” and “terrified”.

Influential power is apparent in this text as it is very persuasive towards the reader and this is shown through the Lexis, grammar and discourse structure of the text. Personal pronouns are used as another persuasive feature of the text such as “We have to act now” and “Will you?”. This helps the text produces to address the audience as if they know them also known as synthetic personalisation which linguist Norman Fairclough made a point when linking language and power. Here he says an artificial relationship is created even though the reader has never met the writer before a sense of trust can be established. This gains power to the writer as it gets the audience on the adverts side and helps get money towards their charity. The imperative “We have to act now” has a forceful and blunt tone to it and does sound like the writer is talking directly to the audience to get the audience to help their charity. Lots of simple sentences like “Ambulances can't get to the injured” are also used which are easy to read and get the point out in a blunt tone as if the truth couldn't be any simpler but are still horrible to realise that this is the truth.

Modal verbs are also used as a persuasive technique for this text such as “Every person can make a difference.” They are used in the section where the adverts talks about how people at home can help the crisis and get involved. So the use as “can” as a modal verb is important in persuasion as it gives a sense of certainty to the reader that what they do to help can help make a difference to mothers and children who have been caught up in this violence. It gives a sense of little is more in this world and the writer here is gaining power over the audience as they are getting a sense of trust from the audience that their money will go to good use in this charity. 

 

Twitter - Language and Technology

The article that I was asked to look at showed that language had been changed so much due to the help of socail netwoking sites like Twitter and how new and old words have been changed and used to mean new things. another atrial I found managed to show how Twitter itself has helped to leave it's mark of the world. It's very own Twiiter footprint. I find it very intresting as how a small socail netowrking site can become this big in a couple of years and now well known by millions just by the symbol of a blue bird.

http://www.technologyreview.com/graphiti/522376/the-many-tongues-of-twitter/