Wednesday, 25 March 2009

CHAPTER 5

Reading 5.3 (Types of Exposition: ‘Persuading That’ and ‘Persuading To’)
In this chapter, it states that it has two type of exposition which is ‘analytical exposition’ and the other one is ‘hortatory exposition’. ‘Analytical exposition’ is to persuade people that some judgment is correct or to explain why things are as they are. In other words, it tries to tell why something is like we see or hear. It often associated with academic speaking and writing. For ‘hortatory exposition’, it tries to persuade people to do what the ‘Thesis’ recommends’ or to explain why things should change’. It includes text such as political speeches, letters to the editor and office memos designed to changed employee behaviour. ‘Thesis’ in hortatory exposition refers to the main point of an argument. In expository writing, ‘objective’ will attempt to give the impression that arguments is based only sound evidence, not in particular interpretation or opinion of the evidence.

Reading 5.4 (Metaphor)
This reading focuses on explaining the relationship between the writer’s choices of metaphor and how these choices may influence the readers. It stated clearly that metaphor plays a key role in enabling us to talk about and construct the world, and allows language users the flexibility to cope with rapidly changing circumstances. ‘Metaphor’ means language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In simple way, metaphor function is describing something with something for example She is flower which means that girl is beautiful. But then, nowadays people not really use it in their daily life. It comes naturally in our daily conversation. Metaphor in discourse is to illustrate an object in a rather different way (Interpretation of language). While container metaphor means an ontological metaphor in which some represent as having inside and outside, and capable of holding something else. Ontological metaphor is which an abstractive such as an activity, emotion or idea is represented as something concrete such as an object or a person.

Monday, 2 March 2009

CHAPTER 4

Reading 4.3 (What is the Evidence)
This part explained about issue of evidence. ‘Evidence’ refers to information that gives a strong reason for behaving or proves. In other words, to give answer to a question, describe on an event at which one was present. Two type of evidence. There is testimonial evidence while the other one is circumstantial evidence. Testimonial evidence refers to the thing that they use in court to show it as proves about something such as tape recorder, pictures, letters or else. Circumstantial evidence is not altogether trustworthy as a basis for determining guilt. They prefer testimonial evidence, such as eyewitnesses, who testify that they themselves have seen the accuse commit the crime.

Reading 4.4 (Statistic)
Statistic has two different meaning. For plural, it means information about any phenomenon or activity expressed in numeric form. For singular, it symbolized the art and science of collecting, presenting analyzing and interpreting numerical data. Statistic is important because it easy to use (basis) of rational decision and conclusion. The important of statistic are for the government, they use it to show the quantitative aspects of the social and also for the economics and physical condition. For business, it prediction of sales and cots, show the quality control, show the production markets researches and quantitative personal records. For research, it use for rely heavily on statistical analysis other quality of animal feeds and other form materials. But it often is misused. People with vested interest may enforce figures to serve their ends. Advertisement, for examples, always misleading statistical statement and reports. Ignorance and carelessness may also give rise to statistical blunders.

Reading 4.5 (Crooked and Fallacious Thinking)
Based on the presentation, ‘crooked’ means bent or twisted thinking while fallacious is an idea that people think that is rue but actually not. In this chapter, I understand on how the writers or speakers influence readers or viewer to agree with their statement.

Sunday, 15 February 2009

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

Reading 3.3 (A Sketch of a Possible Linguistic Approach to Critical Literacy)
This reading tells about how language influences readers. Wignell’s approach is to develop the linguistic tools readers need to enable to them to recognize certain global or key elements of a text. All these elements have technical names. The first one is genre. It refers to types or style of literature. For field, it means scope of the writer about his/her writing. Tenor means general meaning of reader interpersonal. Mode refers to a way in which something occurs or is done. The last one is ideology, system of the idea. He said that although a text seems innocently devoid of ideology may in fact be shown to be highly ideological.

Reading 3.4 (Speech and Speaker: the Formation of Individuals in Discourse and Genre)
In this reading, I understand about how the article influence the readers (actually, this text are similar with Reading 3.3 but in different way of subject that the writer used in the text). There are some key terms that I need to understand. Ideal readers refers to one who is aware of the analyses of sexist discourse provided by feminist critique (and feminist discourse), and one who identifies with that critique. Discourse means the ways of speaking or writing which promote particular view of the world and how it should be; a particular perspective or stance. Stereotype means a fixed pattern of behaviour or thinking. Reading position can define as how the writers wanted the readers to view the text and take the stance. While subject position, there are sets of statement which describe and prescribe a range of poisons one may take up. The last one is genre that refers to type or category.

Friday, 6 February 2009

CHAPTER 2

Reading 2.2 (Language Perspective and Ideology)
Based on my understanding, Lee does two things; explain the key terms and shows how these nations are connected to the choices made by the writers in the construction of text. The key terms that I understand from this reading are ideology which means a set of ideas that an economic or political system in based on. It is the belief system and outlook of particular group of people. Then perspective means a particular attitude towards something. It’s like nigger for Negro. For, metaphor it refers to word or phrase that imaginative something that describe something/somebody for example ‘the boy as stupid as a cow’. While metonymy, it means that the act of something that refer to somebody else. An example from this reading, the inhabitants of a town are referred to as ‘township’. In this reading, Lee shows how a text will contain linguistic features that act as ‘markers’ or indicators of the representatives and ideology of both writer and intend audience.

Reading 2.3 (Texts and Textualities)
Text refers to the main printed part of reading materials and textualities means connected with or contained in a fact. The idea of this chapter is that texts are always socially constructed to have certain meanings. We can learned about a society by exploratory their customs. When we analyzing the text, we can discover about attitudes and belief that encourage them towards the social action and we can think about the effect. This reading explains how by examine the writer’s choice of structure of sentence, and the pattern of language that the writer used. Some key terms that the writer used in the reading are signifier, signified, paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Signifier means the word that printed that stand for other things. It contrasts with signified which means the object that they talking about. Paradigmatic is a typical example or pattern of something. Syntagmatic is relating to the choice or pattern of sentence structure.

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

CHAPTER 1

In the first chapter, I understand about the introduction of Critical Literacy. In this chapter, I need to focus on who produced the text, for whom and why. The ten elements which are topic, contents, source, audience, rhetorical function, purpose, perspective, positioning, impact and visual literacy is the main thing that I have to know to understand the article given.

For the reading 1.2, it is all about Stories and Facts. It shown about Martin explores the relationship between the function and the form of different types of writing. It focuses on forms of factual writing like description, recount procedure, and report in writing. Recount is flashback about something happen. For procedure writing, it general conclusion from specific events and explain how things that already done. For description, we need to describe about the particular features of people, events or other phenomena. It also states about genre, which is culture specific. It may serve a different function in a different culture. Explanation is a judgment that made by the writer. While exposition, it includes an arguments to justify the theory.

For the reading1.3, it discusses about Rules and Regulations. Fowler and Kress show how they manipulate the readers in their belief and action. Rules are instruction for behaving in ways which will bring about an intended or desired state. They state that language influence our own behavior. The writer may manipulate and control the readers if they understand how people use language. This part also shows the power of relationship between the writer/speaker of the rules as commander and the readers/listener as commended. Commander is the one who gives the command to the people while commanded is a person who receives the command. It also states the differences between declarative and imperative. Declarative is a statement that is true as a fact and it is not very specific. Imperative is a sentence a command. More specific and direct compared to declarative.