The level of the formality is both formal yet informal at times. I purposely chose not to write the blog in a fixed style as I felt at various times the language needed to relate to the specific age range as ‘Crap’ and ‘Jotting’ is lexis belonging to the socialect of young adults. Therefore I felt by using informal lexis I interacted with my audience through the text as it was language which is not uncommon to them .
In terms of linguistic features, I decided not to change the lexical field of food since I did not want to modify the main objective of the text. However, I chose in order to create an unhealthy food orientated blog I would make reference to junk food such as ‘McDonalds’, ‘Takeaways’ , ‘Ready meals’. These references help to create an in-depth explanation of the type of unhealthy food I am relating to that are available nowadays.
Within the blog I used repetition ‘Junk food’ and ‘Healthy Goddess’ , I purposely decided to use this feature as it created emphasis onto the adjective to describe food prohibiting my audience from being healthy and the type of person they can aspire to be in the long run. Also there are many examples of pre-modifying adjectives ‘fitness regime’, ‘Junk Food’, ‘ Fast food’ each of these adjectives help to describe in detail the type of food and fitness system . Use of alliteration in the blog is shown, ‘fast food’. This helps to highlight that food is unhealthy due to the fast cooking and production.
The structures of the sentences are mostly simple-compound ‘Having a sport or fitness….frame of mind’. Through using these sentences I tried to create a balanced feel to the piece of writing. I specifically used a variation of long and short sentences, however, I tended to commonly use predominately medium lengthen compound utterances to describe what happened all in one without losing the readers’ attention. As this is a blog which can easily be dismissed due to the reader clicking off the page, it was therefore important for me to use an imperative utterance in the opening paragraph ‘8 Ways to stop being a junk food junkie and become a healthy goddess’ , to grab the readers’ attention in order to encourage them to read further. I distinctively chose to use the collocation ‘Junk food’ due to its negative connotation of unhealthy eating which I felt was an easy way to categorise unhealthy food due to the lexis used nowadays amongst the younger generation. It is ironic names as it is used to describe waste yet in some respect it has become a staple in many consumers’ diets.
When writing this piece I had to consider using instructional yet inspirational language to deliberately grab the readers’ attention so they can further there reading. I also had to be cautious of the language and images used within the webblog, in case the reader had any self-consciousness concerns about their body. Hence, I specifically decided not to contain a model image for the goddess but an image of all sizes, shapes and race to not offend the reader. Purposely, I decided I would not feature an image of an overweight person not to discourage readers because I wanted to encourage them that the blog was not only for the likes of those who have a large physique but for anyone who is addicted to unhealthy food, no matter of their face or body size.
The piece is successful in the fact that it incorporates many typical weblog features such as widgets; I felt it was important to include them to create a sense of authencity as it was a predominate feature within other weblogs that I found when analysing electronic texts. Nevertheless due to the popular social trend demand in social networking, I felt it was necessary to include Twitter as a widget to attract my audiences’ attention. If they have an account and want to build up their followers list, I purposely inputted an external link in the form of a hyperlink ‘Follow me on twitter’ which highlights to the reader that they should click here to become a follower simply by pressing on the link. The layout and background I felt was successful in appealing to the reader as it utilised nude feminine colours, although not pink which is stereotypically as a girls’ favourite colour. I purposely chose green and yellow polka dots to therefore not stereotype my female audience but also to represent the current fashion trend. I decided the name of the blog would be ‘Couture Candy Fatale’ due to the associated feminine meaning that can be broken down within it; as couture is often related to fashion, candy being a connotation for sweet and Fatale meaning female independence which I believe fits the blog exceptionally as it can be generalised to have the connotation of a powerful and strong minded women who at times can be sweet yet fashionable.
Difficulties I found whilst creating my weblog was specifically writing for my audience, as I encountered times where it was occasionally too formal which was not appropriate for my age range. Also I wanted to initially include a ‘YouTube’ widget whereby my audience could search for videos; however, I had to omit this idea because I was unable to attain videos specific to junk food.