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Sorry - I forgot to copy my answer to the language comparison question for you. Here it is:
English Language - June 2013:
Question 4 (Language Comparison) – Model Answer
Source 1 and Source 3 have very different
audiences and purposes. Source 1 is an opinion piece from the Guardian’s Life and Style section which is written
to both inform and persuade. Source 3 is a piece of travel writing, and like
most literary non-fiction, its dual purpose is to inform and entertain.
Despite these differences, there is a clear
connection between the language of these two texts – they are both written, at
least in part, in the first person, and as a result, they both convey their
information with opinions and personal touches. For instance, Source 1 uses
language to make the writer’s view clear very early on. He claims that changing
people’s diets will ‘quite easily’ deal with the demands of the projected
population of ‘9.2 billion’ in 40 years’ time. The juxtaposition of this
dismissive and simple phrase with this huge number seems bizarre, but the bold
and confident tone of the writer helps to set out his persuasive message.
Later, he says he will be ‘dropping’ meat once a week. This informal use of
language again makes his sacrifice seem simple in order to persuade others;
dropping requires no effort.
In Source 3, the writer’s unique perspective
is offered through some vivid descriptive phrases. Initially, there is a sense
of the writer’s wonder at the peace and beauty of the scene, as the stars are
described as ‘crystal stars glimmering’. The image of the ‘flat black sky’ as a
‘tarpaulin’ could be seen as comforting and safe, or alternatively, it could
give an early indication of the sense of claustrophobia she hints at later due
to the intransigence of Muhammed. Within the same paragraph, the use of the
words ‘squalid’, ‘belched’ and ‘blackened’ suggest a sense of disgust when
moving from the silence of the desert to the pollution of the towns. The
description of the air as ‘brittle’ as she grinds it between her teeth makes it
sound as if the atmosphere is breaking up and contaminating everything.
Source 1 also contains a number of
interesting descriptive phrases, often informal and subjective. Eating meat is
described humorously as ‘animal munching’, making our eating habits sound
ridiculous and over the top. More hyperbole soon arrives with the phrase
‘Brazilian rainforest-fed burgers’ which serves to crudely put together two key
issues in the piece: meat-consumption and deforestation. Further examples of
informal language in the piece are ‘guzzlers’, which highlights our insatiable
appetite for meat, and the description of meat as ‘red stuff’. This phrase
reinforces the casual attitude of ‘quite easily’ from earlier in the piece. The
writer is trying to persuade the reader by insisting that his sacrifice is no big
deal.
The writer of Source 3 uses plenty of simple
sentences for effect. The first sentence (‘The density of night’) suggests a
sense of awe in front of a sublime scene which requires no further words to
express. Similarly, short sentences are used elsewhere to create a sense of the
author’s wonder at a different way of life – often in the form of questions
like ‘or were they immune to it?’ These short questions allow us to experience
the writer’s thoughts as they pop into her head. In source 1, the writer also
uses short sentences to emphasise simple truths that he wants to stand out. In
the final paragraph, a pair of short sentences are used to empower the reader
to change their ways: ‘One day off the red stuff? Not so great a hardship,
really.’
Near the end of Source 3, the writer uses a
long complex sentence (including four semi-colons) to create a sense of
monotony and repetition before the writer expresses further frustrations about
being trapped in the car. However, a pair of short sentences bring us towards a
tense ending of the passage, with the writer emphasising her frustrations
through a near-rhyming pair of verbs (‘inched’, ‘itching’) to show the awkward
contrast between what is happening and the what the writer wants to happen.
