Journalist Stuart Wavell wrote an article for the Sunday Times about a pre-battle speech made by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins.
In March 2003, journalist Stuart Wavell wrote an article for the Sunday Times about a pre-battle speech made by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins. The headline was: 'Words that Make Troops Walk Above the Ground' with a subtitle of: 'The Power of Oratory'. The purpose of this article was to entertain and inform readers, and to convince them that Collins is a good orator. Wavell uses various techniques to do this.
When looking at this or any newspaper article, the first things you will notice are the presentational devices. These include the headline, any pictures and their captions. The main picture is of Collins telling his men to: "fight bravely, and show compassion in victory". You can see several of Collins' men standing around Collins, presumably in a circle formation, in this picture. This suggests that Collins is a good orator in the sense that his is not afraid to speak in front of large crowds. The fact that many of Collins' men are in this picture suggests that they all take interest in what Collins has to say. The caption corresponding to this picture is: 'Voice of a Leader: Collins tells his men to fight bravely and show compassion in victory'. The 'fight bravely' part of this caption is a direct quote from Collins' speech. Wavell used this quote because this may well have been what Collins was saying at the time, if not it looks like Collins is saying similar. 'Voice of a Leader' is emotive language because this implies that Collins was destined to be a leader. This is also a metaphor because there isn't a distinctive voice that all people considered as leaders have. The headline to this article is also both emotive language and metaphorical because the idea of the speech making the troops 'walk above the ground' gives readers the implication that the speech was so powerful that the troops were on a very different level to their battle rivals so to speak. The metaphor element comes from the fact that the speech doesn't literally make the troops levitate into battle. This also links to a quote from Professor John Potter in the article.
When looking at this or any newspaper article, the first things you will notice are the presentational devices. These include the headline, any pictures and their captions. The main picture is of Collins telling his men to: "fight bravely, and show compassion in victory". You can see several of Collins' men standing around Collins, presumably in a circle formation, in this picture. This suggests that Collins is a good orator in the sense that his is not afraid to speak in front of large crowds. The fact that many of Collins' men are in this picture suggests that they all take interest in what Collins has to say. The caption corresponding to this picture is: 'Voice of a Leader: Collins tells his men to fight bravely and show compassion in victory'. The 'fight bravely' part of this caption is a direct quote from Collins' speech. Wavell used this quote because this may well have been what Collins was saying at the time, if not it looks like Collins is saying similar. 'Voice of a Leader' is emotive language because this implies that Collins was destined to be a leader. This is also a metaphor because there isn't a distinctive voice that all people considered as leaders have. The headline to this article is also both emotive language and metaphorical because the idea of the speech making the troops 'walk above the ground' gives readers the implication that the speech was so powerful that the troops were on a very different level to their battle rivals so to speak. The metaphor element comes from the fact that the speech doesn't literally make the troops levitate into battle. This also links to a quote from Professor John Potter in the article.
