2. Text producers and receivers Flashcards
What is a ‘discourse event’?
It is a specific act of communication with a time and location, involving text producers and text receivers.
What is a ‘text producer’?
The person or people responsible for creating a text, through either speaking or writing.
What is the ‘text receiver’?
The person or people interpreting/receiving the text, through either listening or reading.
What does the term ‘purpose’ mean in English language?
The ‘purpose’ of a text is defined by the motivations that the text producer has for it and how they want it to be used, whether it is to empathise, educate or entertain.
What is the term used to describe a text written more than one purpose?
It is a ‘multi-purpose’ text.
What is the main and probably most recognisable purpose of a text called?
The ‘primary purpose’.
What is the name for any additional purposes in a text, that are often more subtlety identifiable?
These would be ‘secondary purposes’.
What is the ‘function’ of a text?
This is how a text actually gets used by the text receiver. It is different from the ‘purpose’ of the text, which is how the text producer intends it to be used.
There are 2 different types of audience. What are they?
There is the ‘implied reader’ and the ‘actual reader’.
What is the ‘implied reader’?
The ‘implied reader’ is the audience that the text producer has in mind when writing a text. This shapes how the producer creates the text and what language features they use in order to appeal to said reader.
What is the ‘actual reader’?
The ‘actual reader’ is the audience that actually receives the text, as opposed to the intended audience. This is often shaped by how and what the producer has written, but this is not always the case.
What is the ‘implied writer’?
The ‘implied writer’ is the image constructed in the reader’s mind of what the writer looks like, based on what they talk about and how they convey this.
What is the ‘actual writer’?
The ‘actual writer’ is the real writer of a text, irrespective of how they may come across in the reader’s mind.
What is a ‘discourse community’?
A ‘discourse community’ is a group of people that have shared beliefs and interests that will interpret a text in the same or similar ways to one another due to these similarities. These can be any size, from Man United fans to the school book club.
“Frankenstein is a classic horror novel written by 18 year-old Mary Shelley in the early 19th century. Despite its horrifying descriptions and heart-wrenching story, it has captivated people of all different ages from all corners of the world.”
Identify the implied reader, the actual reader, the implied writer, and the actual writer.
The implied reader would be horror fans (discourse community), typically adults, and English speaking. The actual reader is the same as the implied reader, but with some younger readers, fans of any genre, and from many non-English speaking nations. The implied writer would be an middle-aged adult male (because of the shortage of female writers, especially in the horror genre), but the actual writer was a teenage woman.
