UNIT 3 OUTCOME 1: SECTION C [ESSAY]
(WRITING PRACTICE)
Plan using the template provided and write an essay.
ESSAY 1 2008 VATE
STIMULUS MATERIAL
“A language, especially one like English, which can legitimately make a verb out of any noun
from anywhere in the world, can cope with no end of damage to its vocabulary. What it
cannot survive is assault upon its structure – its grammar and its syntax.” – Enock Powell
“A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with.” – Jill Etherington
“Essentially, slang allows speakers freedom to play and enjoy the language.” – Oxford
Companion to the English Language
“The tradition of Australian swearing shows little signs of atrophying (becoming weaker
through lack of use). In a case of drunken driving heard at the Magistrate’s Court of
Bundaberg, Queensland, the words clown, clot, ratbag, nit and dickhead formed part of the
proceedings, issung from the lips, not of the defendant, but of the Stipendiary (professional)
Magistrate.” – Geoffrey Hughes
TOPIC
‘If we were to use the conventions of Standard English all the time our lives would become
exceedingly dull, colourless and not a little restrictive. Discuss. Consider at least 2 of the
subsytems of language in your answer.
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Write your own essay based on your plan [essay 1: 2008 VATE]:
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FORMAL LANGUAGE
UNIT 3 OUTCOME 2: SECTION A [SHORT ANSWERS]
(WRITING PRACTICE)
Text 1 2014 VATE
Using the list of formal features in the other booklet, highlight the formal language features
used in this text, particularly the use of noun phrases, adverbials, sentence structures,
lexical choices, nominalisation, information flow, abbreviations, etc. Comment on how
these features support the function, setting and context of the speech. Answer the short
answer questions below on some of the formal language features
[This text is a speech by Mr Peter Ryan, Minister for Regional and Rural Development,
which he delivered in the Parliament of Victoria on Thursday 20 February 2014 and which is
recorded in Hansard (official record of parliament). Minister Ryan is reporting to Parliament
about the Hazelwood coal mine fire in the Latrobe Valley and its effects on the local
communities in the area.]
Glossary
House — another word for parliament
Member — an elected representative in the parliament
1
I thank the member for his question. The full economic impact of the fires which
2
continue to burn in Gippsland is yet to be assessed. Accordingly we are unable as a
3
government at this point in time to put numbers around that all-important element
4
of the consequences of the events we are continuing to see unfold.
5
It must be said, though, that there are even more pressing matters that are currently
6
of concern to all of us – to the Parliament at large, I suggest, and certainly to the
7
communities in Gippsland and very particularly in the Latrobe Valley. Smoke from
8
the Yallourn and Hazelwood coalmine fires and the fires throughout the area is
9
affecting air quality in and around the Latrobe Valley in particular and in Gippsland
10
more generally. The fire at the Hazelwood open-cut mine is a complex and very
11
difficult fire. The reality is that it will be some time before it is able to be
12
extinguished. I pay tribute to those who have thus far been engaged in the terrible
13
task of fighting that fire.
14
Nevertheless, the impact on air quality and the potential health risks associated
15
with these events is understandably, and with every justification, causing concern
16
amongst local residents and the community. I commend the local member, the
17
member for Morwell, who has been very active in bringing these matters to the
18
attention of government and advocating on behalf of his community.
19
I can tell the house that a community health assessment centre is being established
20
at the Ambulance Victoria office in Morwell. I am advised by Ambulance
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Victoria that that centre will operate from 8.00 a.m. tomorrow and will run
22
through until 8.00 p.m. on a daily basis. Paramedics and nurses will provide health
23
information to those in attendance and provide advice, as well as an assessment
24
service, for people who are concerned about their health. They will be working of
25
course in conjunction with local general practitioners, who will be the main focus
26
of actual attention which may be required by people who are affected.
27
In addition, the Department of Human Services, together with the Latrobe City
28
Council, has established a community respite centre in Moe for those seeking
29
respite in accordance with the chief health officer’s advice. It will also serve as a
30
hub for various agencies of government origin that people need to seek advice
31
from with regard to the matters pertaining to their needs. It will also include the
32
Red Cross and the Victorian Council of Churches. The Minister for Health visited
33
here yesterday, accompanied by the local member.
34
In addition to all of this, various initiatives are being undertaken with regard to the
35
warnings appropriate to the community at large. The Environment Protection
36
Authority (EPA) has monitoring in place for fine particles to measure the impact
37
of smoke on local air quality. Similar monitoring is being undertaken not only at
38
the mine site but around the town of Morwell and the Department of Health will
39
continue to monitor those health impacts and will continue to liase very closely
40
with local GPs.
41
The EPA will continue to issue smoke advisories when air quality levels require
42
action to be taken by the community. A static information bus has been located
43
outside the Morwell Coles store. It’s open from 9.00 a.m. until 5.00 p.m. today.
44
There are also community officers walking the streets in Morwell providing
45
information. Various other forms of communication mechanisms are being
46
implemented so that people are kept abreast of the current issues. Initiatives are
47
also being undertaken to ensure that schooling is provided in appropriate ways for
48
the students in the area. We are concerned in a primary fashion for the health and
49
welfare of the people of the Latrobe Valley.
Source: pages 505–506
<http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/dailyhansard/Assembly_2014/Asse
mbly_Daily_Extract_Thursday_20_February_2014_from_Book_2.pdf>
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QUESTION 1 (Text 1 2014 VATE):
Comment on how the register supports the purpose of the text.
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QUESTION 2 (Text 1 2014 VATE):
Identify examples of nominalisation and discuss how it contributes to the register.
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QUESTION 3 (Text 1 2014 VATE):
Identify the use of the agentless passive and analyse how it supports the purpose/s of the
text.
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QUESTION 4 (Text 1 2014 VATE):
How is cohesion achieved in this speech?
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UNIT 3 OUTCOME 2: SECTION B
[ANALYTICAL COMMENTARY]
(WRITING PRACTICE — USE THE TEMPLATE PROVIDED TO
IDENTIFY THE FEATURES AND PLAN)
TEXT 1: 2015 VATE
[This speech was given by the French Ambassador to Australia, Christophe Lecourtier, on
26 February 2015 in a ceremony at the French Consulate in St Kilda Road, Melbourne. At
this ceremony, Lecourtier is awarding the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest decoration, to
four Australian World War II veterans]
1
Since Napoleon created the Legion of Honour, a little more than 200 years ago, this
2
award [still] represents for the French the most solemn manner, and perhaps the
3
most moving manner, to pay tribute to remarkable men or women, citizens of
4
France or of the world.
5
Today, this is the case for four remarkable men. And for my country, their names
6
will find their way in the Pantheon of those that deserve the utmost respect of our
7
old nation.
8
They are Ronald Cleaver, James Coulter, Dennis Kelly, Donald McDonald.
9
We also have a special thought for Keith Stevens, who could not be here today.
10
We have chosen to organise such a ceremony at a very special moment for our
11
two countries: a few weeks before the centenary of ANZAC and during the
12
official visit of Air Chief Marshal Mercier, chief of the French air force, who
13
immediately accepted to be with us this morning and who will be part of this
14
ceremony.
15
It is always difficult to address men who did exceptional things. I am impressed
16
by the way you faced your destinies, by your courage and your sense of sacrifice.
17
I am impressed also by the capacity that you have demonstrated to remain stand-
18
up men in spite of the sounds and fury that were surrounding you.
19
It is thus with emotion and much humility that I address you today.
20
Humility upon becoming acquainted with the path you followed.
21
Humility before the courage you demonstrated as you took part in the liberation
22
of France.
23
Humility, also, in the face of your modest assumption that you did nothing but
24
your duty and that the real heroes are your fallen comrades.
25
This is why I wish at this point to spare a thought for your brothers in arms, be
26
they French, British or Australian, who gave their life and their youth.
27
It is sometimes said that war is the business of men. In your case, honourable
28
veterans, it was mainly the business of adolescent youth. When you signed up, on
29
the eve of the Second World War, none of you had reached the age of 20. You
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shipped to Britain as pilots, navigators or radio operators.
31
Then came 1944, a year that brought you to France, in the footsteps of your elders
32
who, 30 years before, had been thrown into the hell of trench warfare. That year
33
also, you entered legend. You became heroes.
34
You were no longer only fighters, you had become liberators, no longer merely
35
men but living symbols of our common value: the spirit of resistance, the spirit of
36
liberty and the spirit of mateship. As Winston Churchill said: “Never in the field
37
of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”6
38
I have come today to tell you, in the name of the French republic, and in front of
39
your families and friends, that we have not forgotten; that we have remained
40
grateful.
41
There are five of you before me, five distinct individual lives and pathways.
42
Individuals but true knights of an epic tale: that of the impressive support that this
43
young – but great – nation of yours has provided to France twice in a century, at
44
the darkest hours of our modern history.
45
Ronald Cleaver, James Coulter, Dennis Kelly, Donald McDonald, Keith Stevens,
46
you are the Australian memory of our liberation.
47
A memory recalled in a thousand stories of remembrance and sometimes pain, but
48
mainly of pride, friendship and gatherings, as is the case today.
49
It is always difficult to know if we may have been one of these heroes or what we
50
would have done in the test of war, as we live today in a time of relative peace,
51
inherited from the courage of our elders.
52
I am unable to answer this question but I can say that I would have wanted to
53
resemble these men.
54
I would have wanted to resemble you, gentlemen.
55
This is why I will conclude with a single word.
56
A word that was posted in all major French cities throughout 2014 as part of the
57
program to commemorate the Great War.
58
A word pronounced by the President of the French republic, François Hollande, at
59
the Australian War Memorial last November on the occasion of the first ever state
60
visit by a French president to this country.
61
A word that I find is not used often enough but which contains a wealth of
62
meaning: gratitude, acknowledgement and friendship of course.
63
This simple word is: “merci”. Thank you.
64
It's time now for ACM Mercier and I to bestow the Legion of Honour on you:
65
Ronald Cleaver, James Coulter, Dennis Kelly, and Donald McDonald.
Used with permission. Source: The Age, ‘French honour Australian WWII vets’, published online 26 February 2015.
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(TEXT 1: 2015 VATE):
This text is a good example of information flow, particularly given information followed by
new information structure. It also constructs information with a lot of end-focus in order for
the speaker to hold the most information till the end. One of the important cohesive ties
used most effectively is cataphoric referencing. Write an analytical commentary of the
features used in this text to achieve a highly formal style, including the stylistic and
discourse features apart from the ones mentioned above.
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SAMPLE RESPONSE (TEXT 1: 2015 VATE)
The formal register of Text 2 is supported by an elevated lexicon that includes rhetorical
language which is often used when talking about war, especially the World Wars. More
formal lexemes include the verb ‘to bestow’ (ln 64), the construction ‘It is thus’ (ln 19), and
the use of words such as ‘solemn’ (ln 2), ‘gentlemen’ (ln 54), ‘capacity’ (ln 17) and ‘destinies’
(ln 16). The formality is supported by the use of the full titles for ‘Air Chief Marshal Mercier,
chief of the French air force’ (ln 12) and ‘the President of the French republic, François
Hollande’ (ln 58) which is appropriate in such an important and prestigious context. As the
topic of Text 2 is war, there is the use of military jargon, including ‘ANZAC’ (ln 11), ‘veterans’
(ln 28), ‘signed up’ (ln 28), ‘trench warfare’ (ln 32), ‘the Great War’ (ln 57), ‘Australian War
Memorial’ (ln 59) which assumes some prior knowledge on the part of the audience. The
lexicon in this speech is also characterized by the use of expressions that have become a
common feature of a particular rhetoric of war. These include ‘stand-up men’ (lns 17–18),
‘fallen comrades’ (ln 24), ‘brothers in arms’ (ln 25), ‘war is the business of men’ (lns 27–28),
‘heroes’ (ln 33), ‘the test of war’ (ln 50), ‘the spirit of resistance’ (ln 35) all of which reinforce
a certain image of war as a necessary rite of passage, and character building for those
involved.
All the sentences in this text are declaratives which supports the descriptive and informative
functions of the text and the wider social purposes of this speech. Many of the sentences are
complex in structure and this also contributes to the formal register and the strong voice of
authority in this text, befitting an ambassador. Examples of complex sentences are lines 811 ‘We have chosen to organize…and who will be part of this ceremony.’ and lines 13-15 ‘I
am impressed also…that were surrounding you.’ There are, however, also simple sentences
throughout the discourse and these help to highlight and emphasise a particularly important
point in the Ambassador’s speech. This can be seen, for example, in line 6 when he names
the award recipients.
Listing is also a distinctive syntactic feature of this text. It is an economical way of adding
detail such as line 20 ‘French, British or Australian’. At times, it is a way of removing
ambiguity, of being exact, as in lines 3–4 ‘to pay tribute to remarkable men or women,
citizens of France or of the world’ and this helps strengthen the voice of authority in the text.
The use of parallelism shows evidence of the careful language choices and editing which
one would expect in a formal speech presented at an important and prestigious occasion
such as this. The repetition of the syntactic structure ‘I am impressed by…’ in lines 12 and
again in 13 helps the speaker fully explain the reasons for his admiration of these men.
(2015 VATE)
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