Anthology Texts

Purpose: 

• To entertain the reader – he's a noted for his sarcasm, cynicism and satirical nature. 
• To criticise the current culture of online communication (comments under online articles) Brooker notes that such comments are, meaningless and misogynistic towards women.  
• To lament the change from print journalism (where newspapers separated the writer and reader) to digital culture (where journalists are now encouraged to interact with fans and critics). 

Audience:

• Likely aimed at regular readers of his column - the article mentions that he regularly contributes to The Guardian. This is aimed at educated intellectual readers - clear throuh the rich language choices and high level of playfulness. Brooker's fans will expect this due to being a comedian and cultural commentator. Brooker’s frequent references to the past suggest that he is appealing to an older adult reader, someone who will likely sympathise with his longing for a pre-digital journalistic space before the age of the internet. 

Mode:

• This is a newspaper article that appeared in print form in The Guardian newspaper and online in the web-based version of the newspaper.

• The text features conventional graphological conventions of newspapers – different font sizes for the headline, sub-heading and main body of the article.
• It's a typical opinion piece, full of reflections, assertions of belief and opinions.
• But the text uses many language features more typically seen in online journalism and blogs: the familiar tone, sarcasm, playful neologisms and lapses into hyperbole make this text function more like an online comment article or blog – where writers tend to be less formal, more conversational, and use language which constructs a close relationship with the reader in order to secure a regular readership.

Context:

• He rose to fame for his television shows Newswipe and Screenwipe, and the new-year specials (satirical commentaries on current affairs) and his comic writing both for print and television (he wrote the award winning Black Mirror amongst other things).
• Brooker is famous for his cynical, sarcastic and intellectual persona, which is captured in his writing style here. 

Purpose:

• To express an opinion on the topic of disabled rights.
• To argue that society needs to change and to begin a public dialogue around disabled rights.
• Personal motivations – Birrell has a disabled child.

Audience:

• Readers of the i and The Independent newspapers. 
• Fans and loyal readers of Ian Birrell.
• Fans of African music / culture and thus followers of Ian Birrell’s work as a journalist and campaigner.
• Those with a general interest in politics and current affairs.
• Those with an interest in identity politics, sexuality and/or disability issues.

Mode:

• Newspaper article published online. (many of the online features have been removed from the anthology version – there are no hyperlinks or comment sections which typify online newspapers and which did appear on the original source article). 

Context:

• This is an article from the i newspaper by Ian Birrell, the former deputy editor of the Independent newspaper.
• He is a newspaper columnist, foreign correspondent, campaigner, and co-founder of Africa Express – an organisation that aims to promote African music and brings musicians together from around the world to collaborate on musical projects.
• Birrell also has two children, the youngest of which has profound and multiple learning difficulties, which may explain his motivation for writing this article.
• In the article, Birrell uses the context of same-sex marriage to contextualise the struggles of the disabled to achieve equality and acceptance in British society.
• Same-sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales in July 2013, and came into force on 13th March 2014. (Northern Ireland and Scotland do not follow the English law here as they have their own parliaments – in these countries same-sex marriages are not recognised and only civil partnerships are possible).
• There was overwhelming public support for same-sex marriage from the general public and in the media, following years of struggle by political campaigners and members of the public to get recognition and equal treatment in the eyes of the law.
• Birrell is using the example of the struggle for gay rights to contextualise the struggles of the disabled who, he argues, remain marginalised and badly treated. 

Purpose:

• To publish (or share) an account of Wilde’s life and this particular episode.
• To reflect upon and inform other people’s opinion.
• To offer insight into his life and behaviour. 

Audiences:

• Wilde himself - his awareness of likely publication.
• Primary audience of Wilde’s fans, contemporary writers, academics, commentators and journalists, the wider late Victorian and early Edwardian (literary) establishment, the newspapers and general public.
• Secondary audiences might include considerations of Wilde’s status as a literary icon and thus students of literature, British/Irish literary history, historians; students of social history, gender and gay studies and theories (eg ‘queer’ theory and responses to literature, including drama and poetry); the wider public. 

Mode:

• Extract of a printed autobiography published both in his time and repeatedly subsequently in print (book form) and online.

Context:

• De Profundis (Latin: "from the depths") is a letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to "Bosie" (Lord Alfred Douglas).
• During its first half Wilde recounts their previous relationship and extravagant lifestyle which eventually led to Wilde's conviction and imprisonment for gross indecency. He indicts both Lord Alfred's vanity and his own weakness in acceding to those wishes. In the second half, Wilde charts his spiritual development in prison and identification with Jesus Christ, whom he characterises as a romantic, individualist artist. The letter began "Dear Bosie" and ended "Your Affectionate Friend".  
• Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897, close to the end of his imprisonment. Contact had lapsed between Douglas and Wilde and the latter had suffered from his close supervision, physical labour and emotional isolation. Nelson, the new prison governor, thought that writing might be more cathartic than prison labour. He was not allowed to send the long letter which he was allowed to write "for medicinal purposes"; each page was taken away when completed, and only at the end could he read it over and make revisions. Nelson gave the long letter to him on his release on 18 May 1897.

Purpose:

• To recount/share the details of her life with a view to publication.
• To reflect on how her career developed. 

Audience:

• Readers of autobiographies – literary and in general.
• Fans of Angelou or those who have an interest in her as a writer/celebrity. 

Mode: 

• A printed, book-form text.

Context:

• When Angelou was three her parents divorced and she and her elder brother were sent to live with their paternal grandmother. They lived there until Angelou was thirteen, when they returned to their mother. 

• At first, Angelou was resistant and angry towards her mother for abandoning her and Bailey, choosing to call her "Lady", and it took her several years to warm to her.
• When Angelou was seventeen, she became pregnant.
• Three weeks before the birth of her son, she told her mother.
• Baxter helped Angelou through the birth; from then on, Angelou began to call her "Mother", and later, "Mom".

Genre:

• Starting with Caged Bird, Angelou made a deliberate attempt while writing all her autobiographies, including Mom & Me & Mom, to challenge the usual structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre.
• Her use of fiction-writing techniques such as dialogue, characterization, and thematic development has often led reviewers to categorize her books as autobiographical fiction.

Purpose:

• To record –  Remembering  specific days which may otherwise be forgotten, or for creative expression, or as a way to reveal personal information and feelings to an imaginary ‘person’ i.e. the diary. 
• To inform – Upon initial release, readers would do so on the intention of wanting to know more about Bennett’s personal life and opinions: they would want information, but the text would not have been altered and would retain its primary purpose, for Bennett’s recollection. 
• To entertain – It is likely the diary will be quite personal and conversational in tone, and will often ‘cherry-pick’ moments or incidences during a day (people often do this as a way to remember the best parts of what happened). Consequently some of the entries may appear quite entertaining, though their tone will shift depending on what happens. 

Audience:

• Audience is a harder to pinpoint given that this is a unique example of where a diary has been published to the public. At the time of writing, diaries (unless commissioned to be written) have the sole audience of the write, but public release means that new audience appears, most likely those interested in Bennett as a writer. Bennett doesn't focus on a specific time (unlike a memoir) so the interest has to be in the writer, not the event, compared to something like Anne Frank’s diary which was read as a way to experience what it was like to live through the war. 

Mode:

• Diary – The diary form is extremely personal to the individual recording entries into it. It is a way to express memory, but with personal opinion. The writer can write whatever they like, therefore the language is often opinionated.

Context:

• An English playwright, screenwriter, actor and author.
• He attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue.
• He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years.
• His performance at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame.
• He worked closely with Richard Griffiths on numerous projects, inclusing the play The History Boys (Griffiths won a Laurence Oliver Award for best actor).
• In October 2008, Bennett announced that he was donating his entire archive of working papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries and books to the Bodleian Library - repaying a debt he felt he owed to the British welfare state for his educational opportunities which his humble family background would otherwise never have afforded.

Purpose:

• To inform the public about a personal experience of World War I, and to provide a personal first-hand account of what the war was really like for soldiers on the ground.
• To inform the public about WW1 – note that when this first appeared the historical record of the war would not have been as thorough or comprehensive as it is today. Military records would have been protected information. It was not until long after the war that official records were made public. Therefore, this text serves to fill in the historical record for those who wish to know more about the war.
• The evoke – the memoir serves to recall memory in a retrospective fashion (remember most memoirs are written long after the events that are described) thus making the memoir share similarities with autobiography. 
• To entertain – Readers of the memoir will want to know about the context of the situation but also read it to be entertained about the story. This memoir uses very little in the way of descriptions, but does in the later stages brings the scene closer to the reader, as though they are experiencing it alongside him.

Audience:

• The main audience will be people attracted to more personal accounts, therefore readers of diaries, memoirs and autobiographies – those who want a personal angle on an event or period of history. Also, given the period, it will also be readers who want to know more about WW1, a focal historical point in global history. 

Also, in comparison to a history book, this is more personal – the narrator becomes like a protagonist, giving the situation a more human connection to history. The age of the audience is not clear, but the focus on military lexis, lack of modification in descriptions, would suggest a reader seeking military history.

Mode:

• Memoir – Although this particular memoir is more factual and less emotional (perhaps because the writer is repressing the trauma of what he witnessed), it is still conventional in the sense that there is a focus on a specific point in the life of the writer (rather than a story of his whole life), and changes in the temporal framework of the narrative (that is to say it jumps forward in time at points) which are typical of memoir.

Purpose:

• Recount training ride.
• Share anecdotes of travel and sport that promote bravado, machismo, and spirit of adventure.
• Promote shared values – idealise Tour de France and sportives; promote idea that cycling on tarmac on traffic-free roads is best.
• Possibly promote the idea of going on a cycling training camp (with the reference to Wheels.

Audience:

• The conversational style implies that the reader is familiar with the author, likely a regular reader, and the context jargon (cycling, sports lexis) clearly targets a cycling enthusiast.

Mode:

• Graphological features – hyperlinks at top of page to take reader to related cycling and sports content (topical hyperlinks, typical of blogs), magnifying glass icon for searching past posts.

• Features – informal register, conversational style – typical of blogs which construct the reader as an imagined friend or sympathiser with shared values.  Anecdotes designed to entertain reader.  Some spoken language features (e.g. starting sentences with conjunctions) convey conversational style.
• Some travel writing features – but only where they serve to illustrate cycling anecdotes (Grice’s Maxims of Quantity and Relation).

Context:

• George Scott became the editor of RoadCyclingUK in 2014.
• He joined the team in 2010 and has played a key role in the growth of the website.
• He recently edited RoadCyclingUK's first foray into print, the RCUK100 - a guide to the top 100 products for 2015.The 180 page magazine showcased the best bikes, wheels, tyres, etc.
• Scott is now charged with shaping the editorial vision for RoadCyclingUK, retaining its focus on the mid to high end of the market, with a goal to "cement RCUK's position as the go-to online destination for performance road cycling".

Purpose:

• To promote the work of the National Archives (this podcast is made by employees working for the organisation itself).
• To celebrate history and make it accessible to a wide audience.
• To educate.

Audience:

• Millennials and teens (those who have grown up familiar with iPods, podcasts and smart technology, including smart mobile phones, who are familiar with how to download and use podcasts. Families with adults who are literate in technology and able to use podcasts – note the tone is informal, the language switches between complex and simple lexis to ensure all members of a family can access it.

Mode:

• Graphology – as this text appears on the website run by The National Archives, normal web-based graphological features apply – text boxes, search bars, hyperlinks with pictures for easy navigation – although there is a tendency towards text over image, suggestive of an older, more educated audience – likely adults in a family accessing the content or older teens or millennials.

• But crucially the website content does not appear in the anthology version of the text (this only contains the text of the podcast itself). Therefore, these features should be ignored in analysis.
• Features -  Note that The National Archives provides a transcript of the podcast at their website. A transcript is a written version of the spoken conversation. However, the very ordered turn-taking and transactional nature of the conversation is rather suspicious – it suggests the entire thing was a planned script simulating a spoken debate rather than an unplanned discussion. Contextually, this would make sense: The National Archive, as a public body, would want editorial control over what its employees say; they would not want an unruly, or rude debate to be their public face. The spoken language features we see here seem, therefore, more simulated and contrived – an attempt to create an artificial debate in order to make the content more exciting and engaging for the audience. This was probably because The National Archive supposed that its younger listeners would not listen to a dry historical account of the information and felt that the format of a debate would make the content more exciting.
• NOTE: this version of the text is an extract of a much longer podcast. 

Purpose:

• To inform and entertain.
• To gain insight into a popular figurehead’s life.
• To explain and set out a case for Diana’s public role against coverage of her and Prince Charles’ marriage/private life.
• To put forward Diana’s side of the story.

Audience:

• Wide – first broadcast in 1995 and since repeated on television, online and in documentaries since her death; anyone with an interest in current affairs, the Royal Family; fans and followers of Diana and Martin Bashir. 

Mode:

• A written transcript from a recorded television interview, edited before broadcast and likely with prepared answers or at least ‘pre-seen’ questions.

Context:

• This 1995 interview was recorded three years post Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ very public marriage separation. This highly controversial interview is set against a backdrop of many rumours and allegations that surrounded the royal couple. This interview was portrayed as a retaliation to an interview that Prince Charles had made 18 months earlier, where he had alluded to his infidelities with Camilla Parker Bowles (his now wife and the Duchess of Cornwall). It can also be seen as Diana’s attempt to put across ‘her side’, as well as attempting to re-establish her role as a public figure, philanthropist and mother. 
• It received high viewing ratings during its initial broadcast, where it attracted an audience of around 15 million (a record for the programme) and is subsequent years, with interest in it spiking again after Diana’s death in 1997. The pre- scripted interview shows and unprecedented level of candidness, Diana reveals her bulimia, post-natal depression and her infidelity as well as borrowing extensively from the rhetoric of speeches to create both an intimate and a public voice in the text. According to a contemporary Daily Mail article the late princess’ frank discussion about her acrimonious marriage and dealings with the palace ‘plunged the monarchy into the greatest crisis since the Abdication’. 
• Public opinion on Diana was widely divisive post the Panorama interview, it is important to acknowledge that the idolisation of Diana as the ‘people’s princess’ only really started after her death; two years post the broadcast of this interview. The media intrusion into the private lives of the royal’s during the 1990s has subsequently been widely criticised. 
   

Purpose:

• To give air time to the President, and by extension to his party/political views; to give an insight into his personal/family life; to question him on a current political issue in the ‘relaxed’ context of a friendly interview.

Audience:

• Wide – the original studio audience, television viewers interested in celebrity chat shows; fans/followers of Obama; fans/followers of Jay Leno and his show. 

Mode:

• A transcript of a televised pre-recorded interview (filmed in front of a live audience). 

Context:

Obama in  2013:

• Successfully won second election in 2012 (51%) was sworn in in January 2013.

• Was in the process of trying to pass some difficult bills, including discussion based on tightening gun control in the aftermath of the Sandyhook Shootings* and a bill providing greater health care (Obamacare).
• These are difficult bills to swing in America ( a conservative country).

Jay Leno in 2013

• America’s longest running talk show (1954).
• Viewing figures around 4 million.
• Post watershed.

*The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in the United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children between six and seven years old, as well as six adult staff members.

Purpose:

• To entertain and inform. 

Audience:

• Wide – initially Seidler/actors/the director etc who worked on producing the screenplay as a film, then anyone with a general interest in film; cinema goers; fans of Colin Firth/Geoffrey Rush; those with an interest in the (personal/private history of) members of the Royal Family; those with an interest in George VI; those with an interest in speech impediments and their treatment (or portrayal of). 

Mode:

• A written text intended for performance. 

Context:

• King George VI of England had sought the help of a speech therapist, and had crossed paths with Lionel Logue, an Australian in his early 70s.

• Over the previous quarter of a century, this publican’s son from Adelaide, without a formal qualification to his name, had come to occupy an extraordinary position within the inner circle of King George, father of the present queen, not just as a speech therapist, but also as a friend.

Purpose:

• To entertain. 

Audience:

• The performers and technicians (including the director etc) of the original script.
• Fans/followers of Andrew Viner.
• Those with an interest in Radio 4’s dramas 

Mode:

• A radio drama script intended for performance. 

Context:

• An Emmy-nominated writer based in the UK. He writes comedy, drama, animation and song lyrics for international audiences of all ages, working in TV, radio, film, advertising, theatre, print and online. 

His works include:

• Aarman
• Fireman Sam, Thomas and Friends and the Fimbles.
• BBC 4 (eg. That Mitchell and Webb Sound) and The Guardian.

Purpose:

• To inform.
• To share experiences of a disaster and its aftermath. 

Audience:

• Readers of the National Geographic News.
• Fans/followers of Chris Rainier.
• Those with an interest in travel/world affairs in the context of natural disasters.

Mode:

• A prepared, spoken (read out) piece of reportage published as an article online.

Context:

• Chris Rainier is considered one of the leading documentary photographers working today, he wants to film both the remaining natural wilderness and indigenous cultures & use images to create social change.

• His work has been featured in the  the International Center of Photography in New York and the headquarters of the United Nations.

• Rainier has traveled to all seven continents, his photography has been seen in Time, Life, and the New York Times.

• He is a contributing editor for National Geographic Traveler magazine and contributing photographer for National Geographic Adventure magazine.

• Rainier also heads National Geographic's Enduring Voices Project, which is documenting the world's most endangered languages.

Purpose:

• To inform.
• To offer a critical appraisal.
• To persuade viewers to watch. 

Audience:

• Fans of the TV series.
• Readers of the FT/weekend supplements.
• Fans of crime fiction produced for TV and in general.  

Mode:

• Print newspaper-based review. 
   

Context:

• Scandinavian noir Genre:
• The self-sacrificing detectives in the Northern countries’ hit procedurals—sometimes termed “Nordic noir” or “Scandi noir”—are usually as wildly off-cycle as the weather. They stay awake and out of their family’s lives for days at a time, tacking up mugshots, gruesome crime scene photos, and scribbled-over maps on giant bulletin boards.
• A genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.

Purpose:

• To publically, formally, legally ‘sign in’ the US Executive government – to take office.
• To make a statement of the aims and objectives of the new administration;
• To establish JFK as a leader of America and of the ‘free world’.
• To address and engage a large group of people.

Audience:

Wide – the original writer(s)/drafter(s) and senior advisers/staff around the President of the United States; the original, primary audiences; global audiences of the time and those subsequently via a range of broadcast formats.   

Mode:

• A transcript of a spoken, crafted speech (intended for broadcast). 

Context:

• Kennedy was elected as President of the United States at the height of the Cold War.  Cold War rhetoric had dominated the 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy and rival Nixon both pledged to strengthen American military forces and promised a tough stance against the Soviet Union and international communism. Kennedy warned of the Soviet’s growing arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and pledged to revitalize American nuclear forces. He also criticized the Eisenhower administration for permitting the establishment of a pro-Soviet government in Cuba. Having won the election by one of the smallest popular vote margins in history, Kennedy wanted his address to inspire the nation and send a message abroad signalling the challenges of the Cold War and his hope for peace in the nuclear age.
• How the text has been received, reproduced, evaluated and re-evaluated in the contexts of this moment in history; Kennedy’s part in history and his iconic status.  How the text has achieved an iconic status in itself as a ‘great speech’ and therefore represents a ‘watershed’ moment in modern history and popular consciousness.

Purpose:

• Motivate and justify actions in Iraq.

Audience:

• The Royal Irish Regiment.
• Military and press personnel.
• The public via print and (later) broadcast versions.  

Mode:

• A transcript of a spoken, crafted speech. 

Context:

• This is the eve-of-battle speech made by Colonel Tim Collins to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment in 2003, prior to British troops entering Iraq. 

Context:

• The speech was given at the outset of the Iraq War. This was a conflict which began in 2003 and lasted officially until 2011 – initiated when a coalition of American and European forces entered Iraq with the stated purpose of toppling the rule of Saddam Hussain. 
• Hussain was feared to be developing nuclear weaponry (often referred to in the media as weapons of mass destruction). Hussain has repeatedly denied the UN access to nuclear facilities in Iraq, preventing them from carrying out inspections. This led to an ultimatum from the United States of America which resulted in the invasion of Iraq. 
• Internationally, the conflict was not popular – many questioned whether the United States of America was looking to distract its people from the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11th, 2001. Some felt that America’s accusation that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda (the group responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Centre) to be disingenuous (there was little evidence of a link between Hussain and Al Qaeda). Across Europe and America, there were large-scale protests about the legitimacy of the invasion of Iraq. The conflict did topple Hussain but no evidence of nuclear weapons development was ever discovered. 
• Note: whilst much of this wider context would only be familiar to someone listening to, or reading, the speech today, some of it would resonate with audiences at the time it was made – the debate around whether or not the invasion was legal and justified under the United Nations, the questions over Iraq’s weapons development programmes, and the wider debate around democracy in the Middle East. 

Purpose:

• To inform and entertain.
• To reflect upon, and share, thoughts and impressions of Sardinia and travel.
• To publish the travelogue in serialised magazine form and an eventual collection of travel writing in a book (therefore to write in a literary style suitable for publication).

Audience:

• D.H. Lawrence himself – he is writing a journal of his own travels for himself to read at a later date.
• Readers of his work and those familiar with his travelogues, novels, short stories and poetry.
• Those with a general interest in travel (likely wealthy individuals able to afford travel – Mediterranean travel in 1921 would have been costly – or ‘arm chair’ travellers enjoying the ability to experience other places through the travel writer’s travelogue).  

Mode:

• Travelogue – initially published in 1921, it appeared first in The Dial magazine and was later released in December of that year in a collection of travel writing.

Context:

Lawrence was a school teacher who became a writer of short stories, novels and poetry. He came from a working class background and was not a wealthy man. His writing provided him with some income, and wealthy patrons who liked his work also enabled him to travel and pursue his writing. Lawrence’s juxtaposition of land (as stuck, trapped, clogged) and sea (as representative of freedom) likely references his own experience of being trapped in a teaching job with little money to travel. The spiritual exclamations we see in Sea and Sardinia are effectively Lawrence expressing his sense of release from the constraints of his teaching career. Lawrence used the school holidays to write and travel and to try to establish his writing career. The juxtaposition of land and sea we see in the text may also be an extended metaphor for Lawrence’s school work (land – clogged) and travels / creative writing (sea – freedom).