How does the author of this piece use language and imagery when discussing language? And with what effects?

“Any language is as divine and endless a mystery as a living organism.” 

In the piece 'Speaking In Tongues', the author uses imagery to help him describe how language can be compared to a living thing e.g a plant- if it is not cared for and nurtured, it will eventually die out; this causes the audience to feel sorrowful and perhaps persuade them to keep their language alive.
What many people do not take into account nowadays, is the fact that a language can easily become extinct if its people are not keeping it alive; many languages are now non-exisistant, because its people never valued its worth and did not put in the effort to pass it on to their children.
The use of the adjective 'divine' to describe language, suggests to the audience that a language is somewhat something that is extremely heavenly and something that could not easily be replaced, similarly to how a living organism can not be replaced if it passes away. The use of imagery in this piece helps the audience have a better understanding about the importance of language in one's life- it shapes us and our cultures.
Not only does a language help define a culture, but it helps us understand our history better- how and why the language was constructed and this can later on be told to our children's children.
In this piece, the audience can clearly detect that the author is trying to display the importance of language in our lives; he does this by using imagery to help the audience picture more easily

Stereotypes in advertisements

Stereotypes are made anywhere and everywhere- perhaps sometimes unintentionally, however they are very common; they help us understand the complex world we live in.
At times, stereotypes are used in the media, specifically in advertisements. Many people argue that with the use of stereotypes, good advertising is made- this is because advertisements aim to persuade and send a message to a certain audience, not everyone- advertisers aim to avoid any potential misunderstandings in the process, however at times stereotypes are made unconsciously or people may perceive them in a different way than they are actually meant to be perceived.
Marketers/advertisers may occasionally use stereotypes in advertisements to make the origin of the product more understandable to the target audience.
Personally, I believe that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people, however some of them may choose to include stereotypes for their own reasons (the product may only be aimed at people in a certain culture, therefore the marketers are sure that they are not offending anyone who doesn't belong in the aimed culture).
Overall, marketers can never really indicate or assume how the audience will react to the message they are trying to send out, however most (if not all) advertisers try to avoid using language or stereotypes that may offend a certain culture or community.
So the main question is: is the risk of using stereotypes needed to make the product advertised more remarkable?

ChildFund

This advertisement is composed by an International organisation, however if we examine closely we notice that it is mostly aimed at less developed countries such as India as well as '11 other countries'. 

Many can argue that this advertisement is gender biased, this is because women are empowered in it, we can see this in the heading, which states that 'HER future begins on two wheels', this may be because in countries like India and its neighbouring countries, education for woman is opposed to by many local individuals, therefore perhaps Child Fund is attempting to make a change on this- this helps the audience have a better understanding on the social/cultural context. The girl is shown to be smiling; suggesting to the audience that education leads to their happiness. 

Furthermore, it is suggested that this ad attempts to induce equality; there is a very bold line between the rights of women and men in East Asian countries. The use of juxtapositioning in the heading may have been used as a persuasion technique- hinting to the reader that if they choose to donate, then this girl's future can change dramatically.

The composer chose the colour green as the theme colour; this may be a device used to portray satisfaction and renewal, as the colour green is mostly associated with nature; the girl has a 'renewed' life after the Child Fund organisation gifted her with a 'Dream Bike' - hence why she is 'satisfied'(smiling).

Overall, this advertisement can be viewed in multiple ways, as people have different opinions.

The Pitch

What main appeals did you use in your pitch? Why did you decide they would be the most effective?

In our pitch, we aimed to use a wide range of appeals, however we concluded that only a couple were suitable for our pitch.
Psychological needs: we listed the 7 basic needs of aa child and we tried to link the product to as many as possible

What were some specific persuasive techniques you used (include examples) why did you believe these would be effective?

My group and I, decided to try and use as many persuasive techniques as possible to make our pitch as persuasive as can be. Some of the techniques we include are:

• Rhyme- "well oh boy, its time to eat that toy!"
• Triplets- "no harm, no mess and no, no yes"
• Humour- we aimed to make the audience (company) laugh, to assure their attention
• Association- we linked the ice cream to the dippin dots toy
• Maybe- we made suggestions about how each target audience would feel about this product
• Rhetorical questions- "have you ever witnessed your child attempt to devour this believed toy?"
• Direct address- we spoke directly to the company we presented to
• Scientific evidence/ statistics- we included the conclusions about some studies that looked into the views of kids channels 

How did an awareness of audience and context influence your overall approach to this activity? 

For us, we had a couple of target audiences instead of just one, therefore we made sure to explain how the marketing ideas would be perceived from the 2 points of views. For example, for the marketing idea, one of our picks was a tv commercial on disney channel. We stated that we would ensure that its very visual and factual as well; this is because the children will be persuaded by the visual aid, whereas the parents would be persuaded by the factual information given. 
  
If you were to complete this presentation again, what would you do differently in terms of content and preparation? 

Next time, we would assure that we are 100% ready before we took the stand. Also, we would assure that the entire group was involved in every section, instead of splitting up the sections.

Rhetorical Analysis- #WEAREJORDAN: Drake

Drake uses an anecdote to explain his very first experience with a pair Jordans; he explains that he "will never forget it", as it was a gift from his father- this creates a feeling of compassion, as it suggests to the reader that perhaps these shoes can create memories that last a long time.
The audience for this advertisement are more likely to be males who have interest in basketball or males who idolise Drake, as, if someone is your role model, you are more likely to imitate their behaviour and try to identify with them; in this case Drake feels very motivated to go on stage and perform- with a pair of Jordans.
Moreover, Drake states that a pair of Jordans "promote a winning mentality"- this is very persuasive as it can urge the audience to purchase them, believing that they will have a higher chance of winning, with Jordans on their feet.

Ethos: Drake is the speaker in this advertisement; people are more likely to listen to his opinions, as he is worldwide known singer/rapper.
Also, this advertisement is posted on Jordan's official youtube channel (with the verification tick), suggesting that it is a legitimate advertisement
Pathos: Drake uses emotive language when he mentions that his father was the one who bought him his very first pair, this is emotive, as anytime anyone mentions their family, it leads to the reader feeling sympathetic
Logos: Jordans are extremely popular shoes, many celebrities have stared in advertisements for Jordans, meaning that they are most likely very high quality shoes

Letter to the Editor

To Editor,

Firstly, I would like to state that I do not agree with the statement "textspeak is eroding hard- learned skills in such basic areas as spelling and grammar". Why? Because studies have shown that 'txtspk' in fact is expanding children's dictionaries as it exposes them to a variety of forms of the English language, therefore they are able to witnesses the different ways English can be used and this is in fact beneficial to them. In total, over 3 billion have mobile phones (that's almost half of the Earth's population!)- so how can we expect everyone to get rid of their phones, to 'protect' themselves from txtspk as it 'erodes' their language skills- we can't, because this is false. People in general tend to look up to people who are higher than them in the social hierarchy (e.g. royalty), therefore if you try to tell someone that only 'uneducated' people use txtspk, they will disagree with you. But why? Because Queen Victoria did txt spking and that will definitely be a point of argument that they may use.
I believe that this article uses a large amount of hyperbole, because I am quite sure that children are NOT 'in danger of growing up with limited vocabularies', this is not life-threatening.
Texting is something that is essential is people's lives, it is there as a form of communication and for passing information to others and I know that many of us like to cut down on things that could be time-consuming, so that's why txtspk was created- it's not there to determine how educated we are.
Yes, there are people out there who do not form a line between the way they write in class and the way they text, but these people can not be generalised to all of us.  Also, txtspk is not a whole new language, it is simple the removal of vowels and unnecessary letters from ENGLISH words.


If texting is THAT bad, then why was it created in the first place?

Yours Truly,
Reem Abusin
Street 274
Dubai
12/10

 Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2587824/Twtr-Its-not-majorly-...her-condemns-text-speak-eroding-schoolchildrens-language-skills.html