Writing for Different Audience, Form and

Purpose

Purpose

How do you identify a text’s purpose?

Word Level- look for:• fact and opinion• Subject specific words• Description e.g. adjectives, imagery...• Verb types e.g. imperatives or modal• Persuasive language e.g. rhetorical devices• Personal e.g. use of pronouns

Sentence Level – look for: • Tense and narrative voice• Balance of sentence functions e.g. interrogative,

statement, exclamatory, imperative• Balance of sentence types e.g. simple,

compound, complex, minor

Text Level – look for:• Topic sentences• Length of paragraphs• Layout and presentational devices e.g. Images,

colour, headings...• Connectives• Order of information e.g. chronological

Form

How do you identify a text’s form?

Look for:

• Text level features like presentational devices and layout

• Word level features like ‘yours sincerely’ or ‘dear diary’

Audience

Audience• What is an audience?

• Can you match these text types to their audience?

TEXT AUDIENCE

The Gruffalo Adults, 18-34, with an interest in the horror genre

The Chris Moyles Radio Show

For Year 10 and 11 students studying science GCSE

Nightmare on Elm Street Teenagers with an interest in rap music

A KS4 science textbook Children aged 2-5 and their parents

An advertisement for the new Eminem album

Adults who like animals, 25-60

A leaflet for the RSPCA 18-45 year olds on their way to work/school

How do you identify a text’s audience?

Word Level – look for:• Register• Complexity of words• Noun and verb forms e.g. use of

abstract nouns

Sentence Level – look for:• Narrative voice• Complexity of sentence forms

Text Level – look for:• Presentational features like font

size, amount of text versus image, colour, layout...

What is the text’s register?

Register?

A form of language appropriate to a particular situation i.e. formality.

Formality has a spectrum:

Highly informal

Highly formal

What is the text’s register?

Highly informal

Highly formal

Where would you place the following situations on this spectrum:

• A meeting between a teacher and the head teacher?

• A conversation between a customer and a shop assistant?

• A letter from a firm of solicitors?

Why is the level of formality appropriate in each situation?

What is the text’s register?

Look at the selection of texts:

• Where on the spectrum would you place them and why?

• How has this influenced the basic language features?

Word formalityA text’s register is determined by the way a writer uses language and structure.

When a writer chooses their words they have any number of synonym choices and have to decide on the formality of the word they want.

Look at these words and put them on your formality register:

mate acquaintance

friend associate

colleague bro

pal buddy

chum comrade

Can you think of any others?

Words can also have different meanings to a reader

Denotation = literal meaning/dictionary definition

e.g. Winter denotes the season between autumn and spring.

Connotation = associated meanings of words/emotions and attitudes aroused by words

e.g. Winter connotes cold, dark, depressing.

What does winter mean to you?

Denotation and connotation

Explain the differences in the following sets of near synonyms, in terms of their differing connotations:

Sets of Synonyms

Differences

My house / my home / my pad / my place

Fat / plump / big-boned / obese

Cheap / inexpensive / bargain / economical

Time to practice...Text: Text: Text: Text:

Purpose

Three features which show the purpose

• • •

Form

One feature which shows the form

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Audience

Three features which show the audience

• • •

Theme of text

1. Adrenaline Junkies 3-4

2. A bigger wave 6

3. Walk into the past 10

4. Fact facts: the faces of poverty 12

5. People against poverty 14

6. Your country needs you 17

7. Noel Chavasse 18

8. Everyday life 19-20

9. Jaws 22

10.I think I caught one 23

11.How to... 26

12.Cambodia 31-32

Some synonyms have different effects on the reader. Some are stronger or more forceful.

Look at the words below. They are all synonyms for a evil person but some are more evil or

powerful than others. Put them on the line in the order of ‘evilness’.

Identifying Purpose, Audience and Form

How would you recognise ...?

A persuasive text

An informative text

A text for young children

An instructional text

A text for scientists

A magazine article

A Website article

A review

A text for teenagers

What is the purpose, audience and form of the article ‘I think I’ve caught one’?

So when reading the extracts for the first time, you should

identify…

• Tone (friendly, argumentative, sad, shocking, excited etc.)

• Purpose (persuade, argue, advise, inform, entertain etc.)

• Audience (age, gender, interests, education...)

• Form (e.g. letter, broadsheet article, tabloid article, leaflet etc.)

Tone

What is tone?

Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work.

Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, guilty, condescending, or many other possible attitudes.

Each piece of literature has at least one theme, or central question about a topic, and how the theme is approached within the work is known as the tone.

Create a mindmap of potential tones a writer may use.

How do we evaluate the tone of a text?

When you read a text for the first time you should be thinking about: meaning, tone and the response you think the writer wanted from the reader. The tone and reader response are created by the overall text – the events and their order, the narrative voice, the use of imagery, the word choices, the layout on the page...It is like looking at a picture and being able to sense the tone and mood an artist wanted to create. Or hearing a piece of music and having it put you in a particular mood.

How do we evaluate the tone of a text?

• Listen to the songs. How does each make you feel?

This is probably the mood and tone the artist was going for when they composed the song. They wanted to make the reader feel a particular way about an idea or issue. They also wanted to portray their own feelings.

TEACHER: choose some songs with clear

tone and mood

e.g. Ride of the Valkyires, Swan Lake, The Lazy song Bruno Mars, Muse’s olympic theme, So what Pink...

(all available on youtube – but just listen don’t

watch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBfjjGGkNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2KAI4FronQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W0Z9_hMg8Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=66molzUEkWI

How do we evaluate the tone of a text?

Take a look at the images that follow. For each write down the tone/mood in the image and how you think the artist wanted the person looking at it to feel. What emotion do they evoke in you?

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How do we evaluate the tone of a text?

Any text is just like the songs or painting, it is a way of communicating an idea and feeling.

Now take a look at these extracts of non-fiction writing :

• What is the tone/mood of each extract? How does the writer feel about the subject of their writing?

• How do you think the writer wanted the person reading it to feel? What emotion do they evoke in you?

• How does the writer show the tone/mood in this extract?

1. What is happening to Britain? One man is stabbed for wearing a Rolex. One girl is shot for texting on her mobile. One gran is battered for the pennies in her purse. And no one seems to care.

2. Flying at 200mph might not sound particulary thrilling. After all, a jet airliner travels at three times that speed and that’s about as exciting as a bus ride. But when you’re flying on your side and so low that you think your ear is going to brush the ground, it’s one hell of a buzz.

3. I wonder whether we shouldn’t just quietly do away with all elderly people on the eve of their 60th birthday? It could be done in a gentle fashion, with a celebrational (but suitably spiked) loving cup, and the system would carry with it many advantages... Statistics tell us that one person in seven is now over the age of 65. That makes 8 million, and looking after them costs the nation £1 billion per year. So the answer is simple – get rid of all the old grey beards...

4. Imagine being beaten every day of your life. Imagine being starved and left out in the cold by the person who is supposed to love you. Imagine being maliciously tortured and left to die in agonising pain.Sadly, this is the reality for thousands of animals in Britain today.

6. There’s an awful lot of sentimentality around the concept of extinction. We have the sense that when a species dies our we should all fall to our knees and spend some time wailing. But why? Apart from a few impotent middle-class Chinamen or if you want a nice rug, it makes not the slightest bit of difference if Johnny tiger dies out. It won’t upset our power supplies or heal the rift with Russia.

5. Raising a cool £200k for charity is no mean feat even when you have four feet to help. Mr Fowley, a large, 5 year old, 12 and half stone Leonburger canine is one such fundraiser whose adventures are to be published in paperback next year. Through all his good work and many appearances on behalf of charity Mr Fowley has gathered celebrity status and now has a worldwide fan club.

7. You never forget a close encounter with a bear. They can approach slowly., sedately, stealthily, but once they are upon you, its is one of the most terrifying experiences you are ever likely to have.

How do we evaluate the tone of a text?

What are we looking for/at?

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