Friday, 7 March 2014
Texts C, E and F: Dualogs
Texts C, E and F are all dualogs. Text E is a transaction in a newsagent's, text F is an extract from an online chat log between and Text C is a conversation from a fictional children's novel. In texts E and F the speakers are using informal language and colloquialisms such as 'gonna' and 'yeah'. In text E this is likely result of certain sociolects or idiolects possessed by the speaker. Text F features non standard grammar far more, and interestingly resembles a transcript due to it's lack of punctuation and standard grammar. This is possibly because when communicating with a keyboard, the text producer wishes to balance speed with eloquence, which means they will sometimes use abbreviations and colloquialisms in an attempt to communicate more swiftly while still preserving meaning. Text C, however, is a far more formal dualog, with the two men using impeccable grammar and form while talking to each other. 'As you and I know, it was morning.' is phrased in a very 'proper' way. This is probably because as a novel for young children, the writer wished to use clear and simple terms but still aim to teach literacy and social conventions by example, whereas in the other examples it was simply two real people trying to communicate as quickly as is reasonable, whilst Text C is almost a sort of educational book intended to be extremely clear, without any motivations to rush things.
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Good grouping, understanding and APF comment. Make sure you are tying your points into quotes and techniques, for instance what is it in the Text C quote that gives it that highly formal register? You could comment on the use of the subordinate clause to orientate the reader in a planned way, with hypercorrect punctuation to indicate the start of the main clause and, principally, the use of the pronouns showing a less friendly demarcation between writer and reader, rather than a more modern alternative of the inclusive pronoun "we" but, as you remark, that was probably expected at the time and only reads as 'old fashioned' now due to the informalisation of texts in general, but especially children's texts that would seem much more accessible to a modern reader, although the Mr Men are still incredibly popular (it might be interesting to look at whether the modern ones have been updated in any way like the Enid Blyton books have been - there are new ones now with Miss something etc, aren't there?), they are 'of a certain time' in the impression they give.
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