COMPONENT 2A - Example paragraphs!!

These paragraph are written about imaginary texts, but I have put them together to show you what is a good balance between evidence, explanation, terms, context and comparison.

Have a look...

A clear convention of an authoritarian tone can be identified in Text A, which demonstrates a significant change compared to the later examples. We can see this from the significant amount of fronted imperative verbs such as 'putte' - which demonstrates a double consonant and superfluous terminal 'e', 'take' and 'cleane' (which shows a terminal 'e'). Coupled with these, we can see through the use of modals that recipes in the 17th century were extremely authoritarian where it says 'you must do this immediately'. here, the modal 'must' and adverb 'immediately' show the haste and precision with which the chef must act. This is dissimilar to Text C where far more choice is given, demonstrating a change in conventions of recipes.

A secondary convention which is clear within Text A is that of presupposing the abilities of the chefs, which is likely due to the fact that in the 17th century, these texts were aimed at professional housekeepers rather than amateur hobbyists. We can see this presupposition where it says, 'take one skullet'. Here, the archaic noun 'skullet', which has fallen out of common usage, denotes a presupposition that the chef will know exactly what is meant in terms of equipment. Secondarily, presupposition is shown through the nouns of quantity 'a bit', 'a pinche' which demonstrates a terminal 'e', and 'a little'. All of these are rather vague amounts which would require previous experience from the chef to understand exactly what it meant. This differs hugely from both Texts B and C which prove that, over time, the convention has become to explain things in more detail, and give precise measurements for ingredients to avoid ruining the recipe.

The audience for this genre has clearly gone through a transition over time, as demonstrated by the adverbial phrase, 'for his lordship', the archaic compound noun 'lordship' denoting that all of these rules are in place to impress the upper classes. Within the declarative statement, 'one must remain gay at all times', the archaic pronoun 'one' coupled with the adjective 'gay' imply that there is pressure on the staff to act properly when around their social superiors. It is worth noting here that the adjective 'gay' which meant 'happy' here, has gone through a process of semantic shift, and is now largely accepted to mean 'homosexual'. This attitude demonstrates a totally different convention to Text C when the focus appears to be on having fun in the kitchen and experimenting with food as a family, not conforming to strict rules.

Do you get the idea??

*Nice and concise.
*Heavily signposted towards the question (remember, this will not always be about conventions so read it carefully)
*Consideration of language change terms, but not to the extent that they get in the way.
*Clear comparisons to other texts.
*Uses terms to focus on KEY WORDS. Does not classify EVERY SINGLE word.

Hope this helps,

Nick