The headline in Text A is considerably shorter than the headline in Text B. Comparing this to the length of the article where Text A is longer than Text B. The main reason I believe this is, is because the older text has a sub headline underneath the main headline, whereas the newer text does not have this so puts all the information in the headline.
The key feature of both these texts is proper nouns. An example of this from Text B is, “Tim Henman might”. This is predictable because the text is a newspaper article. The main proper nouns used in the texts are Wimbledon and names of players. Below is a table showing the percentage of the main proper nouns used in my texts.
As you can see proper nouns are widely used in both the texts. This is because the purpose of newspaper reports is to inform readers. So, in order to inform and make the text more factual proper nouns are used.
These newspaper articles I have used for my investigation are formal. One way I can prove this is that both texts uses language that is formal. An example of this from Text A is, “then whom there…” and an example from Text B is “gauge of his…” The use of impersonal pronouns also makes it sound quite formal. E.g. “one thought of that…” and “One reflected that”. The main reason I think for this is that it needs to attract a wide range of audience and keeping the text formal allows this to happen.
Modification is also a key feature of these texts. An example of modification from one of my texts is, “was enormous relief”. This is done in order to make a picture in the readers head as it is a newspaper and has no pictures. The difference between the modification in my texts is that the quality of modification is far greater in Text B then in Text A in terms of there target audience. In text B you could see that the main aim of writing the article was to entertain, you could see this in the type of modifiers used. Whereas, in Text A the main aim seems to be to inform. In order to prove this I have conducted a count on the number of modifiers in the first paragraph of each text. Below is a table of my results.
As you can see modifiers are used very often in both my texts. This is the case for all of the texts and modifiers are used throughout. Some of the modifiers that are used are persuasive and persuade the reader to believe the writers view. E.g. “gorgeous backhand”. Some other examples of modifiers from my texts are, “overwhelming emotion”, “inviolate grass court”, “a very pretty exhibition” and “cheered mightily. The modifiers used are both pre-modifiers and post modifiers.
Statistics are also used in both my texts. Most of these statistics are subject specific to Tennis; this is rather obvious considering it is an article on tennis. An example of this is, “6-0, 7-6, 6-7, 6-3”. A person who had no knowledge of tennis would not have a clue what these numbers represented. Statistics are important as it makes the reader assume that the writer is not exaggerating in what he is writing and it also makes the text more factual.
The texts use metaphors and similes quite often. There is use of a metaphor in the headline of Text B. Some examples of this from my texts are, “steady as a rock”, “stands on top of the world” and “grass court kingdom”. The reason for this is what I said before about writing the text to be more entertaining as well as informing and using metaphors and similes certainly does that.
Another difference between the two texts is that in Text A, alliteration is widely used, whereas in Text B, alliteration is hardly used. For example, “savage serving” and “long, lolled”, “crowd cheered” and “foot-fault” The reason for this is that the feature of alliteration was used more then, than now. Below is a table showing how many times alliteration was used in my texts.
Direct speech is a feature of both my texts. E.g. ““I would just like….”. This is done to show the feelings of the players and to make it seam more realistic. Most of the speech in the text is emotive language and this reflects the way the rest of the text is written. As well as that, Text B also uses rhetorical questions. The best example from the text is”Was this really Nadal…”? This makes the text more informal and also more entertaining. The fact that direct speech is used in my coursework reflects the media and the influence of media on the sport of tennis. Journalists always try to ask questions and are always on the back of tennis players and other sports stars and celebrities. This reflects how media is changing the way we are and the worked we live in and the influence they have upon us.
Also, in Text A, exclamation marks are used quite often. The best example from the text of this is, “for Perry’s steel!” This is done for emphasis and exaggeration. Using this has a sarcastic element to it. Below is a table showing how many exclamation marks and question marks are used in my texts.
As you can see the text which has exclamation marks doesn’t have any question marks and the text which has question marks doesn’t have any exclamation marks. This is just a fact of coincidence. In text A hyperbole is used, this is a way the writer exaggerates his point to convince the reader into the views of the writer. The example from the text is, “artistry so perfect”.
Listing is also present is Text B. This is in the form of asyndeton. The example f this fro the text is, “Ken Rosewell, Fred…” This is done to compare the player with other players to show how successful he is compared to his opposition. This is another from of biasness. Repetitive verbs are a feature of text A. The example is, “he could smash, he could volley”.
The Guardian newspaper is an English newspaper, written in England by English people. Also, one of the two players in both these texts English. Reading the texts I can see that the writer is biased and in favour of the Englishman. This is likely to occur as the readers of the newspaper will also be English and the writer is trying to show that his fellow Englishman is a better tennis player. I suppose that if this newspaper was written in the country of the opposition then they would be biased towards him. An example of this is, “They also gloated on the known…” This is very descriptive and uses lots of posture adjectives when the writer talks about Perry. E.g. “leapt for it”, “uncoiling that lithe body”, “swift in action”. These adjectives show the way Perry’s body is positioned and his posture.
The purpose of newspaper reports is to inform and entertain. I get the feeling that text A is more to inform then to entertain and Text B is the opposite, and is more to entertain then inform. The reason why I think it is this way is that before people had other ways to entertain themselves, but nowadays the main for of entertainment is the media. This we hear all the time nowadays when there is nothing good on the TV or the radio, when people of all ages say “I’m bored”. This I believe is the reason for it.
As I mentioned earlier in my investigation Text A is seventy years older than Text B. Therefore you expect to have old fashioned words in the older text and newer, more modern words in Text B. After investigating the texts I have seen that this is the case with my text. These are some of the words and phrases which I found from Text A which are old Fashioned and rarely used nowadays. “it played true”, “to-day”, “a fine game”, “more deliciously”. The sentence that clearly proves that this text is from the olden days is “Quiet Please” as he would to…” This would no longer happen.
In Text B the phrase “time warp” is used. This is a newly formed word and would not have been present in the 1930’s.
To conclude, I would like to say that I believe my investigation went well and that I fulfilled the aim of my investigation, which was to investigate the change in language of newspaper sport reports over a period of over fifty years. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting many differences between the two texts, well in fact it wasn’t as many as I thought there would be. I also believe that the source material I used was relevant and right for my investigation and found that there are not many differences in the style of newspaper reporting but the differences that are present are quite big, obvious and significant.
Finally, the key differences I found between the texts were that alliteration, modification, similes and metaphors are not used in older texts and that older texts are generally longer then modern ones.
Overall, I think I have fulfilled the aims of my investigation to the best of my ability.