Meanings and reps

• Meanings


  How ideas and concepts are put across to the reader or listener by a text to create a certain meaning – basically the effect on the reader
• Representations


  How a person, group in society, idea or activity etc. are represented – how they are made to seem
• Aspects of form and context to consider

  • Mode
  • Register
  • Genre
  • Audience
  • Purpose
• Mode


  How does the text communicate? Is it written, spoken, visual images? Is it a mixture of more than one of these (multimodal)?
• Register


  How formal, conversational, academic, complex, simple etc. are the language choices?
• Genre


  What type of text is it? Letter, email, article, advertisement, conversation in a shop, formal presentation in a meeting, internet forum, etc.
• Audience


  Who is the text aimed at? Are the people it is aimed at its only audience? Who will actually see/read it?
• Purpose


  What is the text trying to do? Many texts will have more than one purpose: is someone persuading you by entertaining you? Is someone informing you in order to better advise you?
• Things to look for in the text

  • Purpose
  • Mode
  • Register
  • Genre
  • Audience
  • Overall representation/ attitudes of topic
  • Grammatical features - dynamic verb use
  • Graphology - features of online mode, image
  • Language: modern society, rudeness, social class, young people, commuters, the negative effect of technology and society in the past
  • Semantic field/ patterning
  • Asyndetic listing