all text copyright Beth Kemp 2004-2010

provided for the purpose of private study only

Mode: Spoken,

Written, Blended

This topic forms half of the exam assessment for Language at AS.  You will have to analyse two texts which will be of different modes.  You are not required to compare them but may well find it easier to analyse them effectively if you do.  At A2, your coursework investigation must focus on language which is spoken or written to be spoken.

 

For Lang-Lit at AS, the spoken mode and its representation is the subject of Unit 2, for which you will be studying a literary text in terms of how it represents speech, together with transcripts and other kinds of text that represent speech (e.g. printed rhetorical speeches or magazine interviews with celebrities).  At A2, you’ll need to be able to tackle transcripts of speech in the exam.  Electronic texts are not analysed for Lang-Lit, but literary texts may use spoken mode features and may therefore show blended aspects..  

 

Please avoid the temptation to declare everything ‘mixed mode’ - remember to visualise mode as a continuum with the most formal written text (legal statutes perhaps) at one end and the most casual conversation at the other.

 

It is useful to think of the concept of mode as a set of paired concepts, opposites on a series of continuums.  You could ask yourself questions like the following:

 

How spontaneous or planned is the text?

 

How known or unknown is the audience?

 

How monologic or interactive is the text?

 

The Interaction page should remind you of the theories to refer to in analysing any text which involves interaction between two or more people.