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English AS Language Essay - Language and Power

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With detailed reference to Text H and to relevant ideas from language study, explore how written language is used to assert power Text H is a poster which displays the rules and information to students taking or entering an exam. It also is for the use of the invigilators, to inform them of the rules as well as the candidates. This poster will be shown right across the country to students preparing to take an exam. This is done to make sure there is regularity and equality everywhere, so that nowhere has different rules. The text asserts power using different language techniques, for example the use of instrumental power to enforce the exam boards’ authority on the candidates. The text uses words such as “must” and “must not”; this …show more content…

These sentences are imperatives. This particular imperative uses the pronoun “you”. The use of “you” is Fairclough’s synthetic personalisation; this asserts power by making it seem the poster is talking directly to you by creating a relationship with the exam board. It also gives the audience a duty to comply with the rules given. There are also lexical fields of teenagers, they use items that are associated to teenagers that will be taking their exams, for example “iPods” and “mp3 players” this also adds synthetic personalisation to the text. The graphology used in Text H, also asserts power throughout towards the candidates. Discourse features of numbers and bullet points apply power; it shows the importance of the certain points for example, “1. You must be on time for all your examinations”. It clearly explains to the candidates that they should follow these clear rules, as the exam board stresses their power. The colour of some parts of the text in Text H uses a red font. This inflicts power because there are connotations of the colour red as danger and as a warning. This matches the genre of the text, because it’s warning the candidates to do something. As only some sentences are in a red font, it emphasises that these particular sentences are more important than the rest of the text.

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