Breathless: An American Girl In Paris

Question 1

Genre and mode

Answer 1

-Coming of age autobiographical memoir.

Question 2

Text producer and text receiver

Answer 2

-Females who dream o a similar adventure.
-Student oriented text as it is written by a student as the pivotal point in her life.

Question 3

Variation, register and representation

Answer 3

-Semi formal.

Question 4

Lexis and semantics

Answer 4

-Abstract noun “spell” has magical connotations.
-Semantic field of sexuality “sex” “orgasms” “desire” highlights the correlation she saw as a teen between independence and sexual freedom.
-Triplet “self possessed, independent and unafraid” highlights the desire to be free.

Question 5

Grammar

Answer 5

-Parenthesis quotes her former self’s letters home.
-Exclamative sentences used to heighten emotion and differentiate from usual declaratives.
-Minor sentence “finding out” emphasises her anticipation and excitement.

Question 6

Phonetics

Answer 6

-Cacophonous sounds to convey her strong teenage emotions “bitter daily skirmishes”.
-Pattern of harsh, plosives stop consonants in the phrase suggests conflicts that existed between her and her parents.

Question 7

Graphology and mode

Answer 7

-A large header is used for the chapter, “waiting for Goddard” reflecting the beauty she presents through the intertextual references to ‘breathless’.

Question 8

Pragmatics

Answer 8

-Embodied knowledge of Paris is not directly presented, as the narrative at this point in the novel is more personal opinions than descriptive location.
-Schema before moving to Paris is very much based on the film ‘breathless’, portraying it as weak.

Question 9

Narrative and discourse

Answer 9

-Good example of a double journey; growing physically and mentally.
-Anecdote of a cleaner threatening to report her.
-Bond with Monique helped her transformation as the text ends with the inclusive pronoun “we”.