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The Commentary
For my coursework investigation, I
was interested in exploring how English is used differently in the
representation of a single event by two different modes of writing. I
chose to write about a fictional attempted assassination, firstly in the
form of a short story, showing events as they happened. Then secondly in
the form of a broadsheet newspaper report from the following day, as
these offered two vastly different styles to comment on. The purpose of the first piece is to entertain the reader and immerse them in the story. The situation lends itself to the Thriller genre, and suspense is therefore a prominent feature of my writing. However, the genre also often involves a sense of equilibrium and calm before a perilous situation is introduced. My story reflects this by having an uneventful opening, which is followed by a heightening of anticipation and its subsequent climax. This cycle is repeated. The audience for my short story is intended to be predominantly male. The subjects and events portrayed in the piece, particularly guns, action and violence are classically male interests (whereas a stereotypical female readership would favour relationships and emotional scenes, which are absent from my piece). Similarly the graphic descriptions of some of the more violent events, such as the climatic fight ("a scream silenced only by a second shot to the head"), make the piece unsuitable for younger audiences. I have tried to avoid alienating female readers completely, because audiences are always diverse and gender is insufficient in defining exactly what people enjoy. The field of some words in the story also fit the demographic. In my later drafts, I named the car that the candidate drives as a "swanky Chrysler Sebring", because I felt that my audience would be interested in such a fact, and would probably be able to relate with Kaufax’s opinion of it. The use of "GPS" rather than "Global positioning system" was a similar choice, as Men are stereotypically interested in and knowledgeable about such gadgets. Because my audience is well defined by the subject matter, I intended Marc Kaufax to be a character that they could relate to, and therefore enjoy more. The character is also intended to be likeable and casual yet intelligent and successful. This is a role that many aspire to and it is therefore one they easily relate to. To establish this character, I felt that it was particularly important to manipulate the register of the piece. Primarily the manner of the narration and dialogue is informal, because I decided to write the story from the protagonist’s point of view. My intention is that the narration speaks directly to the audience, with a level of formality associated with a conversation between very close friends. The uneventful first paragraph establishes the main character and the equilibrium that is to be inevitably destroyed. The very first sentence contains very informal features. The lexis utilised, particularly "crap" is very informal, as is the loose sentence structure and the general irrelevance of the topics discussed. Because the story is written from the protagonist’s point of view, I heavily utilised first person pronouns such as "I" "my" and "me" in the narrative and second person pronouns such as "you" in dialogue. A similar technique was employed by J.D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye as Holden uses second person address: "The first thing you’ll probably want to know". In my piece the effect is subtler, but a sentence like "It was Forester" still directly addresses the audience. The protagonist talks and narrates in an informal fashion. In particular his accent is hinted at. I have done this because prominent accents are often seen as "friendlier" than those closer to Received Pronunciation. Other informal features of Kaufax’s speech are the humour, for instance "joked that he’d died farting in his Jacuzzi" and the use of clichés, such as "sick of my job" and "wild goose-chase". Informality is dispensed with when tension appears. My intention is that the reader recognises that the character is affected, and that they should therefore have a corresponding emotional response. "The gloved hand on the trigger was attached to a tall man in the middle of his twenties" lacks a single informal feature, offering a simple construction that states simple facts. "attached" also gives the man an inhuman quality that is intentionally menacing. As loose complex sentences are used for the casual, relaxed periods of the story ("Apart from feeling that I was their last resort, I did at least find myself relieved that I’d been handed the chance to try my hand at something mildly more exciting than playing nanny."), a simpler sentence style is utilised to create tense periods ("He was wearing gloves. I wasn’t.") When the protagonist searches the building, believing that he is alone, his sporadic thoughts are represented by a succession of simple sentences in the form of questions and statements ("Before Forester? No, before then.") This helps the reader empathise with the character, and provides a sense of confusion that results in tension through sensory deprivation: they are only occasionally told about the present world that has been so important during the last few paragraphs. The
audience for my front-page broadsheet report is a stereotypical
broadsheet audience, composed of mature, well educated, middle to upper
class people of both genders. Like my first piece, the audience is
specific, though it is education and social class that has dictated the
style of English, rather than gender. The language of broadsheet journalism is far more restrained than literature or tabloid journalism. Whereas my aim in the first piece was to entertain the reader, and instil an emotional response in them, in a broadsheet it is primarily to inform. There is still a secondary need to report the news with a degree of excitement, as the event is significant, but I have otherwise adopted a standard broadsheet style, offering little or no partiality or emotion. The headline ("Attempted Assassination shocks America") states facts but doesn’t suggest whether the reader should be similarly shocked. The headline doesn’t rely on journalese, informality or humour as a Tabloid headline would, and the use of the polysyllabic "assassination" reflects the assumption of an educated audience. A tabloid alternative would be "Marksman Misses Mark", because it employs less complex lexis, and uses humorous devices such as repetition and alliteration. The use of more complex and sophisticated lexis continues throughout the article. The individuals in the article are also referred to in a typically formal broadsheet style, with "Mr Diego" used as opposed to the familiar "Harold" that a tabloid may well have adopted. The sentence structure I have used emulates typical broadsheet constructions. Compared to tabloid journalism, broadsheets utilise longer, more complex sentences that make more demands on the reader. A quote from the Guardian (May 7th 2002) shows a typical broadsheet sentence: "Europe's political landscape was shaken again last night when the rightwing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated days before a general election in which immigration and race are central issues." It is also a similar construction to my own opening sentence, and I utilise similarly complex sentences throughout my report. Compared to my short story, the constructions in the article are far more focussed, avoiding the effective but uninformative loose sentences that characterised the slower paced sections. The article is restrained in its tone and bias. For example, the sentence "The assassin’s round exploded into the curb, spraying onlookers with debris" fails to reveal any reaction to this event. The use of the modifier "exploded" is informative rather than emotive. If I was writing a tabloid piece, the explosion could have been "dangerous" and the onlookers "terrified", thus prioritising emotive lexis over factual. Similarly, the only humour in the article is in the form of a quote, so rather than flouting broadsheet conventions, it simply "informs".
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