Interpretation of Extract of Discourse Ten Violent Seconds of Terror - Article Example

Analysis and Interpretation of Extract of Discourse: “Ten Violent Seconds of Terror” Abstract Analysis and interpretation of a discourse has become an integral part of study especially among literature students. This essay presents critical analysis and interpretation of a discourse by Joe Bennet, a witness to the tragic damage of Lyttelton, epicentre of the earthquake. The title of the discourse is; ten violent seconds of terror. To arrive at the basic requirements of any discourse analysis and give Joe Bennet’s text the intended meaning, theory of Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL) will be the guiding principles. For better understandings of the aforementioned theory, the paper will begin by highlighting the basis of the theory. The second part will be Joe Bennet’s antagonising story which will be constructed through critical application of the article feature genre. The third aspect of this paper will be gathering information on appraisal theory. Based on this, the paper analyses Joe Bennet’s attitudes as portrayed in the text, his ability to give his readers the needed alignment and graduate such feelings as explained by (Martin and Rose 2007). Systemic Functional Linguistics Theories To underscore the theory above, it is important to understand how the witness (Joe Bennet) manages to selects, grades and even structures particular lexis in the text so as to make the event palatable to his readers. This is what Hood (2012) regards as Discourse Semantics. According to analysis by Martin and Rose (2007) Systemic Functional Linguistics ascribe to three distinct general functions to language within the sphere of society. These are, ‘to enact relationships, to represent experience, and to organise discourse as meaningful text.’ (p.4). To understand what Joe Bennet will be presenting within the text, it is important to note that the functions Martin and Rose refer to within their analysis are also available in what Joe Bennet writes. These functions are entitled: ‘interpersonal’, ‘ideational’ and ‘textual’, respectively (Martin and Rose 2007, p7). They further argue that their functions are interrelated within a text or discourse but each with specific meaning they describe as ‘discourse systems’ (p. 7). Drawing from the above statement, this paper narrows down to the aspect of interpersonal meaning as communicated within ten violent seconds of terror. In so doing, will be interpreting discourse system of appraisal. Talking of appraisal within the context of ten violent seconds of terror, there are attitudes that the author portrays and such needs to be evaluated. According to Martin and Rose (2007) though, appraisal is looked at critically and even concerns evaluation of the attitudes as communicated within a discourse. They explain appraisal to entail, “the kinds of attitudes that negotiated in a text, the strength of the feelings involved and the ways in which values are sourced and readers aligned” (p. 25). This is the interpretation that will form the basis of analysis and interpretation of the ten violent seconds of terror. It is therefore intended that attitude as explained by Martin and Rose will encompass; Appreciation, Judgement and Affect. All these carry with them an amplification model known as graduation. Ten violent seconds of terror brings significant aspect that needs to be mentioned here; Engagement, though this will not appear in the analysis section, he applies this system to bring to his readers voices that brings hidden meanings to the text. Interpretation of Genre in Ten Violent Seconds of Terror As earlier mentioned, social context is an important point to mention while analysis this text. This is because the author describes an earthquake incidence he witnessed and such is important since it is a social affair touching lives of people directly. Therefore, as it is social in nature, the article describes social process which is staged and goal oriented. When such targets are met through a piece of writing, the definition of genre is summed up (Martin and Rose, 2007). Understanding the text within the context of genre, it is oriented since reading the texts gives people the opportunity to understand massive destruction of Lyttelton. The author also stages events in the text and so are explained from the start, their developments and ends of the earthquake---these apparently qualify the text as genre going by the definition of Martin and Rose (2007). To underscore the above statement, ten violent seconds of terror starts on a high note with the message of the article on its title. The title resonates well with the event and to lure readers, ten seconds causing massive damage to Lyttelton is just difficult to ignore. Words such as ‘suddenly my house is thrown about, flung side-to-side1’ apparently appreciate the title, especially the ten second one. In fact, the flow of the story is procedural and the author wants his readers to understand the story humbly, ‘…sitting in an armchair and eating a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As I eat I idly watch the goats in the sanctuary on the other side of the valley.’ From onset, one can believe, without bothering to find the original source of this article that it must have been one of the tabloids. In as much as this could be true, paragraphs below, especially where the author brings ‘soldiers on the street corners with radios’, the expected readership is betrayed. To better understand the meaning of ‘expected readership betrayed’, analysis and interpretation of ‘Fukushima, a year on’ explains that when an author mixes social relationship with journalism such text betrays its readers. Interestingly, the author succeeds in chronicling events and every stage of the earthquake given unique significance. This begins with the author making his readers believe that it was just as normal as any other day. In fact, he introduces his readers with ‘…eating a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As I eat I idly watch the goats in the sanctuary on the other side of the valley.’ The next event is perhaps traumatising; with kitchen messed up, trembling and speechless dog summing the author’s intention up. At this juncture, the event goes around the effects the earthquake has on people. This is concretised when we meet the neighbour and a woman who stops the author to find where the water main is. The author also succeeds in demonstrating the aspect of, ‘converse of destabilisation’ (Feez et al. 2008, p.3). Ten violent seconds of terror in my opinion therefore qualifies to be hard news story. The last aspect of the genre is its structure that can well be understood based on the principles suggested by Feez et al. (2008) (nucleus-satellite model). The author brings a headline that succinctly makes the reader be within the event. Statements such as ‘a mob of goats streams down the fence line in panic. I am aware of their bleating above the noise of the quake’ makes the headline more relevant. This statement also cements the Engagement process the author intends to achieve. There are sub-genres that can be found in the structure of this story. This event as described by the author is not all about catastrophe of the earthquake that lasted for 10 or 15 seconds, one is also given an opportunity to appreciate societal dilemmas associated with catastrophes that hits people. Appraisal of Ten Violent Seconds of Terror Developments in Systematic Functional theory at a discourse semantic level such as genre appraisal theory argued by Martin and other scholars (Martin and Rose, 2003; Jaffe, 2009; Johnstone, 2009) give the needed framework that necessitate the study and evaluation of various academic texts. The theory further provides basis for evaluation of different aspects such as expression of attitudes, writer’s position regarding such attitudes among others. However, the most recent and even comprehensive accounts of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory are found with Hood (2012) and Martin and Rose (2007). In summary, genre appraisal is a multifaceted area of study incorporating analyses of values---expressed as attitude, maneuvers of degree of values—expressed as graduation and the synthesis of voices to which writers attribute engagement. Martin and White (2005) bring an interesting point suggesting that critical discourse analysis is becoming successful with deconstructing where the world has gone wrong. The proposal they suggest is the re-focus of energy towards positive discourse analysis so that the world is made better. This paper also considers such realignment strategies, focusing on the appraisal resources by author so as to get lexis of evaluation in the story. To realise this, the analysis utilises triangulation of options to uncover patterns of affective and epistemic meaning that are ideologically related with and exist within the genre. As earlier mentioned, critical analysis of a text has been useful when attempting to deconstruct what has gone wrong with the language or the world at large. And indeed failure to do such analysis poses authentic threat and impending fatal injury to genre appraisal. Reading through the text, there are rich interpersonal resources that can be used to create attitudinal meaning and intent. To begin with, the author describes a chilling moment that happened within a short period of time and such begun as he was on an armchair, “eating a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch.” From the onset, actually the first sentence of the text, one can have the link between author’s personal identity, social action and culturally-situated meaning. It is clear that though tragic happened as one reads down, this caught the author unawares. It thus generates authorial stances that are expressed through specific range of lexical and grammatical devices. This thus justifies the first affect. Though affect has been explicitly discussed below, one of such is when the author says “…as I eat I idly watch the goats in the sanctuary on the other side of the valley. Suddenly my house is thrown about, flung side-to-side like a rabbit in a dog’s jaws.” as described by Thompson and Hunston (2000) these are lexical and grammatical resources that have been used by the author to describe how strongly he felt about the sudden wind that blew his house side by side. In fact, the author has used figurative of speech (simile) to liken what happened to the house (flung side-to-side like a rabbit in a dog’s jaws) As is typical of narrative genres, the author construct a range of feelings in the text. This regards the first few lines of the article. He has realised that the situation is getting out of hand. And to his surprise, painting flies from the wall and cartwheels along the sofa. At this juncture, it is becoming apparent that the earthquake is raising havoc. Susan and Cynthia (1999) as cited in Thompson and Hunston (2000) argue that critical discourse analysis should be used to study the identity and in so doing, analyse a given text so that a comparison and a contrast can be made regarding the existing theories. Relating Susan and Cynthia opinion vis-à-vis genre appraisal theory, the affect the author demonstrates when he specifically discusses the situation at his house make contribution to a better understanding of how the wave or rather the earthquake construe and negotiate interpersonal meanings with his readers. In fact, the author conceptualise this by giving his intended audience negative evaluations of the process and the natural phenomenon as exemplified during the event---the appreciation is, “a mob of goats streams down the fence line in panic. I am aware of their bleating above the noise of the quake.” Using the resources of appraisal analysis as argued by (Martin and Rose, 2003; Martin and Rose, 2007), the author further presents discourse analytic interpretations that gives varied meanings. The third paragraph begins with, “ten violent seconds, perhaps 15, and it’s over. When it stops I sit on for a few more, adjusting to a changed world.” This sounds as an event that lasted for shorter period of time but damaged a lot. As far as thematic progression is concerned (Thompson and Hunston, 2000 as cited in Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) the author seems settled and ready to explain what has just transpired. Besides, the author brings the emphasis of the text and describes things that happened. But reading the next paragraph, he begins to integrate the three attitudes (Judgement – assessing people’s character; Appreciation assessing the value of things; Affect – expressing emotion) with an aim of creating prosody that aligns his readers with the events to come. He even goes to the kitchen and finds a complete mess starting from the cupboard to microwave. This is exemplified by the Blue (Blue is the name of the dog missing). “I call Blue, my dog. Nothing” Appraisal theory requires that in the event we interpret the attitudinal meaning from such expression, there is a need to account for the intended meaning of the author (Thompson and Hunston, 2000). Therefore, the above words (I call Blue, my dog. Nothing) is a good example of a scenario where the author expresses an attitude explicitly. Martin (1997) suggests that in exploring the means by which the author expresses the attitude, there should be an initial distinction made regarding attitude expressed explicitly and directly and one expressed implicitly and indirectly. The above words are therefore explicit instantiation referred to as inscribed attitude (Martin, 2007). This is further compounded by the statement, “I find him in the garden, trembling. He doesn’t come to me. Then the first aftershock hits, sharp as a rifle shot. Up on the hills there’s a great crashing of vegetation. Rocks are cascading. Boulders like small cars canon down a farm track.” It is notable that the lexis of feeling as expressed by the above statement brings to the reader the feeling of insecurity where the author tries to show that indeed such as a traumatising event to animals lacking sense to interpret what an earthquake is all about. It is very interesting how the author manages to calm down nerves anytime an awful statement is made. For instance, he writes, ‘…I find him in the garden, trembling. He doesn’t come to me. Then the first aftershock hits, sharp as a rifle shot. Up on the hills there’s a great crashing of vegetation. Rocks are cascading. Boulders like small cars canon down a farm track…’ this is example of a statement that invokes fear to readers. However, this is quickly neutralized with humour or rather lexical expressions that intend calm the fear: ‘…Come in, love says Mona. She’s laughing. Ivor’s inside with the digital camera photographing a life-time’s worth of trinkets, smashed.’ Similarly, the author constructs lexical expressions denoting Appreciation and such has been well balanced positively and negatively. The table below summarises examples of Appreciations as used by the author. APPRECIATION Negative Positive …thrown about …pick a few things up …crash …cottage seems intact …smashed …repair …shaking …badly …cordoned …exploded …gawping …cruises, ruined Positive composition is it can be seen has been used sparingly as opposed to the negative ones to due to the context of the article. And terms such as ‘cottage seems intact’ and ‘repair’ are quickly washed out with the negative ones or rather, used where the author wants to reinforce the negative aspect. For instance, ‘…they’d just started to repair the Black Cat cruises office after the September quake.’ It is apparent that the term repair as positive Appreciation has been used to reinforce cruises. Furthermore, ten violent seconds of terror invokes Appreciation that significantly remains negative though such range is also variable throughout the text. In paragraph 20, ‘…there is news of mayhem over the hill in Christchurch. I turn it off. I drive slowly be two ruined churches, past people just standing in doorways smoking’, basically invoke negative composition that align well with the event and the title of the article. This article also brings out the aspect of explicit and implicit judgements. A good example is the comment of the strange woman the writer meets. The woman says, ‘…No worries, love, no worries,’ she adds, ‘…we’ll be sweet’ the author further explains that, ‘She smiles with dirty teeth and pats my arm.’ To assess such a character, this is a woman caring or is passionate about well being of others. The author also manages to describe events and people in a way that ultimately brings implicit judgement. For instance, he writes, ‘…soldiers who happened to be on a ship in port. They look about the age of kids I used to teach. They are cheerful.’ This actually does not bring the real aspect of judgement regarding the soldiers but concretises what Iedema et al. (1994) describes as ‘tokenised’ judgement (p.24). Tokenised means that sometimes implicit judgement does not come out clearly but the author uses descriptions which allow the reader to construct such judgements. On graduation, the author succeeds in adding quantifiers purposely to create contrasts. For instance, the destruction caused by the earthquake is so enormous to happen in ‘Ten violent seconds, perhaps 15 and it is over.’ The role of this quantifies (Ten and 15) is to contrast evaluation of these events as enormously destabilising. Also, statement such as, ‘I knock on the door of a couple aged 80 something. “Come in, love” says Mona. She’s laughing’ clearly shows the contrast because ideally, at that age, with the event that has just happened, Mona should not be laughing. Conclusion The author succeeds in concretising his title. Looking at the article in terms of Discourse Semantics, the article manages to reconstruct the event that only took perhaps 15 seconds and within a limited space, such events have been succinctly described. In fact, the witness has performed well in ensuring that there is manipulation of the genre of the feature so that every event in the story automatically guides the reader to understand the tragedy. Just like I have been left feeling, his uses of Appraisal resources amplify the mood and such matches the story leaving his readers with awkward conclusion. References Feez, S., Iedema, R., and White, P., (2008). Reporting Hard News’, Media Literacy , AMES, Sydney, NSW. Hood, S. (2012). Analysing interpersonal meaning in discourse: Appraisal’, Lecture Series Autumn Semester, UTS, NSW. Jaffe, A. (2009) Introduction: the sociolinguistics of stance. In A. Jaffe (ed.) Stance:sociolinguistic perspectives 3–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnstone, B. (2009) Stance, style, and the linguistic individual. In A. Jaffe (ed.) Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives 29–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, J.R., and Rose, D., 2007, Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause, Continuum International Publishing Group, London, UK. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005) The Language of Evaluation: appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003) Working with Discourse: meaning beyond the clause. New York: Continuum. Martin, J.R. (2007) 'Metadiscourse: designing interaction in genre-based literacy programs', in R. Whittaker, M. O'Donnell and A. McCabe (eds) Language and Literacy: Functional approaches (pp. 95-122). London: Continuum. Martin, J.R. (1997) 'Linguistics and the consumcr: theory in practice'. Linguistics and Education 9 (3): 409-46. Thompson, G. and Hunston, S. (2000) Evaluation: an introduction. In S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds) Evaluation in Text: authorial stance and the construction of discourse 1–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More

Interpretation of Genre in Ten Violent Seconds of Terror As earlier mentioned, social context is an important point to mention while analysis this text. This is because the author describes an earthquake incidence he witnessed and such is important since it is a social affair touching lives of people directly. Therefore, as it is social in nature, the article describes social process which is staged and goal oriented. When such targets are met through a piece of writing, the definition of genre is summed up (Martin and Rose, 2007).

Understanding the text within the context of genre, it is oriented since reading the texts gives people the opportunity to understand massive destruction of Lyttelton. The author also stages events in the text and so are explained from the start, their developments and ends of the earthquake---these apparently qualify the text as genre going by the definition of Martin and Rose (2007). To underscore the above statement, ten violent seconds of terror starts on a high note with the message of the article on its title.

The title resonates well with the event and to lure readers, ten seconds causing massive damage to Lyttelton is just difficult to ignore. Words such as ‘suddenly my house is thrown about, flung side-to-side1’ apparently appreciate the title, especially the ten second one. In fact, the flow of the story is procedural and the author wants his readers to understand the story humbly, ‘…sitting in an armchair and eating a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As I eat I idly watch the goats in the sanctuary on the other side of the valley.

’ From onset, one can believe, without bothering to find the original source of this article that it must have been one of the tabloids. In as much as this could be true, paragraphs below, especially where the author brings ‘soldiers on the street corners with radios’, the expected readership is betrayed. To better understand the meaning of ‘expected readership betrayed’, analysis and interpretation of ‘Fukushima, a year on’ explains that when an author mixes social relationship with journalism such text betrays its readers.

Interestingly, the author succeeds in chronicling events and every stage of the earthquake given unique significance. This begins with the author making his readers believe that it was just as normal as any other day. In fact, he introduces his readers with ‘…eating a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As I eat I idly watch the goats in the sanctuary on the other side of the valley.’ The next event is perhaps traumatising; with kitchen messed up, trembling and speechless dog summing the author’s intention up.

At this juncture, the event goes around the effects the earthquake has on people. This is concretised when we meet the neighbour and a woman who stops the author to find where the water main is. The author also succeeds in demonstrating the aspect of, ‘converse of destabilisation’ (Feez et al. 2008, p.3). Ten violent seconds of terror in my opinion therefore qualifies to be hard news story. The last aspect of the genre is its structure that can well be understood based on the principles suggested by Feez et al. (2008) (nucleus-satellite model).

The author brings a headline that succinctly makes the reader be within the event. Statements such as ‘a mob of goats streams down the fence line in panic. I am aware of their bleating above the noise of the quake’ makes the headline more relevant. This statement also cements the Engagement process the author intends to achieve. There are sub-genres that can be found in the structure of this story. This event as described by the author is not all about catastrophe of the earthquake that lasted for 10 or 15 seconds, one is also given an opportunity to appreciate societal dilemmas associated with catastrophes that hits people.

Appraisal of Ten Violent Seconds of Terror Developments in Systematic Functional theory at a discourse semantic level such as genre appraisal theory argued by Martin and other scholars (Martin and Rose, 2003; Jaffe, 2009; Johnstone, 2009) give the needed framework that necessitate the study and evaluation of various academic texts.

Read More