mode + generic conventions

Question 1

article

Answer 1

• can be online or in print
• often topical
• linear paragraphing and headlines, not always linear structure
• intro leads to a conclusion
• rhetorical devices
• mixes fact (stats) and opinion
  -mixes formal and informal

Question 2

(auto)biography

Answer 2

• commentary on author’s life
• subjective due to perspective it is published from
• awareness of audience, emotive
• retrospective account, past tense
• use of deixis based on context of author’s life
• often uses narrative voice and narrative line

Question 3

diary

Answer 3

• usually no intended audience
• aims to inform posterity of person or historical times
• chronological and immediate, often laid out under dates
• informal language e.g. sociolect and phatics
• past tense, first person

Question 4

memoir

Answer 4

• intended audience, more figurative language
• aims to inform posterity of person or historical times
• past tense, first person
• more of a narrative than chronological

Question 5

digital text - blog

Answer 5

• online, interactive with links and comment sections, readers more engaged in conversation than traditional prints
• potential to reach wider audiences
• deixis
• often informal e.g. discourse markers and elision

Question 6

digital text - podcast

Answer 6

• online, interactive with links and comment sections, readers more engaged in conversation than traditional prints
• potential to reach wider audiences
• spoken language features e.g. prosodics, false starts, utterances, hedges, elision, back-channelling
• deixis
• often informal e.g. discourse markers

Question 7

interview

Answer 7

• edited transcripts of recorded TV interviews
• range of question types, rhetorical, tag questions, interrogatives, extended questions to probe
• deixis
• adjacency pairs
• varied formality
• verbal and physical framing devices to the interview
• prosodics, false starts, interruptions, repetition, hedging, utterances, back-channelling

Question 8

screenplay / radio drama

Answer 8

• name of character then line of dialogue
• stage directions / sound effects / sluglines
• radio smaller budget than screenplay, depends on sound and language to set mood
• spoken language features like adjacency pairs, stichomythia, hedges, phatic talk, back-channelling

Question 9

reportage

Answer 9

• general reporting of factual content, to inform
• first person, perspective of individual observer
• uses headlines and subheadings
• register depends on how serious situation is
• often chronological and linear, evidence of drafting
• discourse markers create cohesion

Question 10

review

Answer 10

• critical appraisal
• portray subjective opinion as objective fact
• can be formal or informal, register dependent on author
• title with byline summary
• use of quotations, paraphrasing, cultural
  or exophoric/esoteric references
• intro leads to conclusion, provides a precis of plot and commentary

Question 11

speech

Answer 11

• planned and redrafted
• speakers might adapt tone, improvise and cadence can be gleaned from rhythm of sentences
• formality is context dependent
• rhetorical devices - emphasis, repetition, rule of three, incrementum, antimetabole, synecdoche, anecdote
• collective pronouns
• emotive language for engagement

Question 12

travelogue

Answer 12

• lexis conveys sense of place, semantic field of travel
• narrative with clear paragraphing
• reflective and retrospective tone
• comparative lexis and intercultural or exophoric references
• evocative sensory language, descriptive, rhetorical devices