How to Write a Language Analysis

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How to write a language analysis. The language analysis is a task that you will be faced with both during the year and (for Victorian students) during the English exam. A lot of people find language analysis tasks to be difficult things to write, mainly because schools don’t really teach a simple way of writing them. However, the good news is that a simple way does exist, and we’ve outlined it below: Language Analysis? The language analysis task is basically designed to force English students to read ‘critically’, which basically means that when you read piece that is trying to persuade you to think a certain way, you are able to pick up on the author’s intent to do this, and make a more informed decision about whether to agree with the author or not. Why does this matter to us? Because you need to keep this point of a language analysis in mind as you’re writing: you are trying to show the examiner that you recognise persuasive techniques and how they might affect the reader. The Golden Rule: There is only one rule to follow when writing a language analysis, and that is: Identification → Example → Explanation Basically, what this means is that throughout the essay you need to name the technique that the author is trying to use (eg. “rhetorical question”), give an example of that technique (eg. “Does this sound right to you?”), and an explanation of how the technique impacts upon the reader (eg. “This compels the reader to consider their position on the issue, and plants doubt in their mind as to the correctness of the opposing contention”). The only hard part about this is generally the “explanation”, and this is the part of the essay that will separate a poor essay from a good one. The secret is not to think about how this technique works on some anonymous reader, but instead to think, “How does this technique seek to cause ME to change my opinion?”

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