Student 4

Text 1 is a multimodal text that is advertising a charity called ‘Crisis at Christmas’, that helps the homeless during the Christmas holiday season. The intended purpose of the text is to promote the charity’s good work, and to increase awareness about the homeless situation in the UK and to ask for as much donations as possible to help fund the charity’s services. Thus the intended audience would be any member of the general public who are willing to help by donating to the cause. A context that is important to be aware of, which impacts how the text is read and understood is the context that the Christmas season/winter time is a very harsh and difficult time for the homeless. The significant literary and stylistic features of the text are that through the use of high modality and a semantic field of words a sense of urgency is created also the idea of hardship is conveyed through the text and the text is able to close the gap between the text and the audience by making it more personal. All of these features are in effort to create an appeal to the audience, in order for them to have an inclination to donate to the cause.

A sense of urgency is created by the text at the first glance the audience would take. Just below the main heading are three words in a bold font stating ‘cold weather alert’. By using the word alert, which is usually a term for awarness or creating urgency, this draws importance to the idea that cold weather is detrimental to the homeless and this is the time more than ever that they will need help. In addition in the fourth paragraph of the advert there is a reference to homeless people ‘crammed into bedsits’ (during the Christmas period) and this use of imagery will create an appeal to the audience of the harsh conditions that the homeless are living in and that the faster that the public act the faster this sort of imagery would be removed from the minds of both the audience and those that are suffering the conditions (the homeless). Apart from imagery and font the text also uses words of high modality to create a sense of urgency for donations and help. The text uses words such as ‘we want’ and ‘so crucial’. Theses words obtain high modality. The effect modality creates is one of a definite nature, i.e. that something has to be done and that there are no other options. Another factor that the text is able to utilize to create urgency is a sense of time by giving a deadline of 22^nd December. Thus by using such phrases and words the text is able to convey to the reader how important it is for them to donate and as quickly as possible.

Hardship is one of the worst aspects of a homeless person’s life and this is conveyed through the text to the audience. The text uses a semantic field of words which are related to hardship such as in the first paragraph ‘cold’, ‘hungry’, and ‘alone’. All three of these words have negative connotations within this context. They shows the difficult life of the homeless and they attempt to make the audience realize the difference between their lives and the lives of the homeless people. This would give the impression that in a time of hardship those that are suffering need help from those who are not suffering. The text also uses a personal story of one of the homeless men to show the audience how he has truly suffered a life of hardship. The appeal story not only is heart warming to know that he was saved by the charity ‘Crisis at Christmas’ but also heartbreaking to know of the life initially had. Thus it serves the intended purpose of the text to raise awareness for homeless people.

The text also successfully closely the gap between the text and the audience by the use of the personal pronouns and the appeal story (‘A Place for John’). Throughout the text is the use of personal pronouns such as ‘you’ and ‘your’. This is even in the very first statement that is read by the audience. The title has an retorical question embedded, which states ‘will you?’. By the use of this retorical question, it makes the question more personal to the audience as though it is a one on one conversation, whereby someone is asking for help. This would also increase the inclination of the audience to donate to the cause. The appeal story ‘A Place for John’ also closes the gap between the audience and the text as it is a personal story that is both heart breaking and heart warming. This is especially the case when John refers to himself as a (young) “frightened” boy, as the audience would take a more personal appeal to children. Hence by making the text more personal to the audience it is more likely they will donate to the charity.

The graphology of the text has the effect of making the text more informal but also giving the message to the audience that Christmas is a time of joy and happiness and the homeless should feel that as well. At the beginning of the text there are small images of snowflakes. This is a very popular and common image that is associated with the joys of Christmas time. However it is contrasted with the bold phrase stating ‘COLD WEATHER ALERT’, this contrast allows the audience to be aware of the way they see Christmas as joyfull through the snowflakes but also the way the homeless see Christmas as a time of cold weather and unhappiness. The contrast serves the purpose of making the audience want to read on and find out what the cause is about and how they could help. In addition the use of a very informal style and handwriting to say ‘thank you’ is displayed close to the end of the text. This handwriting is similar to what children would write when they are writing a letter to Santa Claus. By using this type of font to say the words “thank you”, it makes it seem as though the audience is Santa Claus and the children are homeless people who are thanking Santa for all the gifts they would like, which in the case for the homeless people would be food and shelter etc. This final use of graphology is a culmination of making the text more personal, the joys of Christmas and the hardships they go through to which they would be very grateful if someone could help.

Overall, the use of high modality words and time to create a sense of urgency, an appeal that shows the hardships of the homeless, the appeal story that draws the audience closer to the text and the use of graphology to show the joys of Christmas, altogether reinforce the main purpose of the text being the necessity to donate to the cause which is ‘Crisis at Christmas.’ This would also be the most clear dominant reading of the text as this is the most obvious way in which the text could be interpreted by an audience and this is because the goal of the text is to crate an awarness and to collect donationas and not to be interpreted as negative promotion in order to manipulate the audience into giving donations.