By Analysing Texts A, B, D and E, Write About the Significance of Linguistic Methodologies and the Contextual Factors Behind Them.

Text A is a transcript of an aerobics session. Therefore the audience at which the speech is aimed at is the people taking the aerobics class. To us, reading the transcript now, what the instructor is saying does not make a lot of sense as the text relies so heavily on the context of the aerobics class and the paralinguistic's of the instructor. There are lots of questions which are asked by the instructor throughout the transcript but are not ended with a question mark. This could suggest that the instructor is not phrasing them like questions but instead as statements. The first line, "OK are we ready" because it is not ended with a question mark suggests that the teacher does not mean it as a literal question but that the aerobics class should infer from this that they are starting the class and should get themselves ready. This is an easy way for the instructor to tell the class to get ready without actually ordering them about which might seem offensive. The instructor asks more rhetorical questions such as, "are we all well this morning" and she does not actually expect the entire class to stop what they are doing to tell her how they are doing but this is a tactic used by the instructor to try to make the class feel more comfortable and to make her seem less strict and to make the atmosphere less formal. Throughout the transcript the instructor is giving instructions to the class and after each instruction there is a pause in which we assume the class is carrying out the instruction. The speech is not fully formed and is just simple instructions without connectives to make a stream of conversation as this is not needed in this situation as the aerobics class would not like the instructor to give overly detailed instructions as this would distract from them trying to carry them out. Her language, for the same reason, is not formal and she uses colloquialisms such as the contraction of "going to" to "gonna." As the setting of this speech is an aerobics class, formal language is not needed as the audience would simply want to understand the teacher as quickly and as simply as possible. Also, the aerobics class could have a wide variety of different people and classes so using overly formal language might not be understood by some in the class.

Text B is also a transcript, this time of an A level English Language lesson focusing on a poem. In this case fairly old teenagers are making up the audience. The subject of this text is analysis of a poem and the class' discussion of it. The tone is fairly formal, as it is a classroom setting, with the teacher and the student, 'Jack' taking on very different tones showing their different statuses. The teacher is the clear leader of the conversation, prompting Jack to give his ideas. As text B is a transcript not all the sentences in it are fully formed and complex. Instead there are stopping of sentences halfway and interruptions just like in normal speech. When Jack explains what a hiatus is the actions of the other members of the class in the italicised brackets give us important contextual information to make the rest of the conversation understandable. The other A Level English students give "sounds of surprise" after Jack gives the right answer making us infer from this that Jack often does not get the right answer and instead often gives the wrong one. The members of the class would know exactly the past history of many of the classes and would understand more the implied meanings behind the words of the teacher when they say "Jack's shining today let him shine the golden Jack" The teacher is making reference to something in the poem about a "golden flood" and giving it a new meaning by saying "golden Jack" as in successful and flourishing Jack. Then the teacher carries this metaphor on by saying "it would be if a few other people came in and become golden Rosies or even golden Hollies. The implied meaning behind this is that she wants other people like Jack, who does not normally speak up a lot, to come in and flourish like he did and become "golden."

Text