Written Mode - General

Question 1

What do you first need to establish about the text?

Answer 1

Genre
Purpose
Audience
(Also could say the opinions of the piece/participants)

Question 2

What to comment about on Discourse Structure

Answer 2

What features of the structure are noteworthy?
Is the style the same throughout the text?
What tone is used to address the audience?
Any speech-like features present?

Question 3

What are speech-like features

Answer 3

Features in writing which would normally occur in spoken mode rather than written mode. This could be things like slang, more informal language, abbreviations etc.

Question 4

What to comment about on Lexis

Answer 4

formality - latinate v germanic?
polysyllabic or monosyllabic lexis?
subject specific jargon?

Question 5

What to look for in Semantics

Answer 5

• figurative language
• metaphor/personification
• hyperbole
• simile
• puns (play on words or double meanings)
• synecdoche/metonymy

Question 6

What is a synecdoche

Answer 6

a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole,in e.g. the expression “hired hands” for workmen

Question 7

What is a metonymy (2)

Answer 7

• the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant (such as “crown” for “royalty”).
• also the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it, as in describing someone’s clothing to characterise the individual.

Question 8

What to comment on for Rhetorics

Answer 8

• rhetorical questions
• hyperbole
• litotes
• antithesis (reinforced by syntactic parallelism)

Question 9

What are litotes

Answer 9

an understatement for rhetorical effect, usually achieved by using negation with a term in place of using an antonym of that term,
as in “She was not a little upset” for “She was extremely upset.”

Question 10

What is antithesis

Answer 10

are person or thing which is the complete opposite for something else (juxtaposition - however this is when opposing things are placed right next to one another)

Question 11

What to comment about on Grammar

Answer 11

• use of pronouns
• sentence functions (4)
• tense past/present
• voice active/passive
• sentence structure (3)
• phrase types noun, verb, adjective
• syntax: any odd word order, odd arrangements of clauses
• syntactic parallelism

Question 12

What is syntactic parallelism

Answer 12

Parallelism (repetition) of a similar sentence structure and word order. This is usually repeated quite close to each other so that it is more obviously done.

Question 13

What to comment on about Phonology

Answer 13

• alliteration
• assonance
• consonance
• rhyme

Question 14

What is assonance

Answer 14

When the vowel sounds in the middle of two or more words are similar

Question 15

What is consonance

Answer 15

The repetition of consonants or of a consonant pattern, especially at the ends of words, as in blank and think or strong and string.

Question 16

What to comment on about Pragmatics

Answer 16

any differences between surface sentence meaning and underlying meaning?
e.g. a phrase like “an ideal renovation opportunity” in an estate agent’s description of a property may “mean” falling down – the phrase is coded – its function is to tell us without negative connotations, so that potential buyers could feel good about considering it.