2B - How to write an analytical paragraph

Intro –

Even from a brief reading of the texts, it is clear that the relationship between the writer and audience of Facebook statuses will drastically affect the language chosen by the composer of the text.

Due to the fact that texts 2 and 6 are written on personal Facebook pages, pragmatic understanding between the writer and receiver plays a big part in the language chosen. In Text 2, the writer uses abbreviations such as ‘ikr’ (meaning ‘I know right’) and clippings of verbs such as ‘hav’ and movin’ which reflect a degree of informality within the text. This shows that the writer and receiver are comfortable with each other and do not expect a high degree of formality within their communication. We also see the writer use abbreviations such as the conjunction ‘cos’ instead of ‘because’ and a lack of punctuation in the contraction ‘ill’. Arguably, this is an indicator that the writer sees social media as a multimodal form of communication and so is using features of spoken language in his writing. In text 6, we see slightly different features as the writer uses exaggerated formality to create humour through the formal salutation ‘dear’ and religious proper non ‘Lord’. The receivers of this status would immediately realise, through shared understanding, that the writer was not being serious. Additionally, the writer attempts to replace the prosodic features lost through CMC by using emojis ‘😊’ to show how happy she is, and non standard punctuation ‘!!!!’ after the adjective ‘brilliant’ to show that she is in a good mood. If it was not for this, her final statement ‘please don’t let my husband be home…’ could sound quite sinister. The use of abbreviations in text 2 would be looked down upon by prescriptivists such as broadcaster John Humphrys who says that CMC is ‘doing to the English language what Genghis Kahn did to Asia.’ I would disagree with this attitude, however, as the message is clearly understood between sender and receiver due to shared understanding, and so is merely improving the efficiency of their message rather than ruining it.

Bringing text together through context (AO3)

Analyse examples

Explain why this is being done in context