In terms of intended audience, the text speaks to males in their late teens to mid-20’s, who are still looking for tips and guidance on how to impress their “lady”. The reader sense that the text is intended for this type of audience, due to the levels of low formality, and modern language used. The following quote “Never say, Love, you look like Michael Ball in Hairspray” is about a character in a relatively new film, that the majority of males in the intended audience will have seen. If the text were to be targeted to an older age group, then a different film reference would be used, as they may not have understood the quote, or even seen the film.
The lexis in the text is linked to certain female interests such as “diamond slippers”, which are deliberately exaggerated to add affect, and to suggest that females are both needy and expensive. The discourse structure on the text is the introduction used at the beginning to illustrate the content shown below. This can be seen as being a problem/solution discourse, as the text is covering aspects of what to do when in that type of situation.
The text is extremely stereotypical in numerous amounts of ways. Stereotypes are linked to male interests and topics such as football, implying that all males watch the football, and all males will want to be back in time to watch the football. “You’ll be back in time for the footie results”. The same stereotype is present for woman as well, implying that all woman love shoes, suggested that all woman are interested in shopping for shoes, when in fact this isn’t true.
The sentences used in the text are varied, including simple sentences such as “keep it simple” and compound sentences which are used to explain the advice being given. This ensures that the information is laid out as clearly and correctly as possible, to avoid confusion on the readers behalf.
The use of the second person pronoun directly addresses the male audience, whilst the third person pronoun is used throughout to refer to the audience’s girlfriends. This is present throughout the text, as that’ is what the text is based on The use of addresses such as “she, her” addresses the girlfriends, and refers to a wider audience rather than one individual. However, the use of the first person pronoun and direct address, such as “you”, makes the text seem more personal as if it is addressing each and every person separately that ids reading the text.
by
lawrencesempergmailcom (student)
