Here is a group task report that was submitted earlier, and my assessment of this is that it is highly problematic. One of the most important thing about any kind of written or spoken assignment is that the AIM must be clear. In other words, you need to be able to say what you are trying to prove, or what you are trying to investigate, or what kinds of answer you are trying to get. My problem with this report is that I do not know what this is. Why were these two texts selected? Why two? What were the group members trying to show? The report just presents the texts, introduces them, and describes the grammar and lexis. The analysis tends to be rather shallow, and examples are not always given.
As a reader, if I do not know what you are trying to do, why should I bother reading on?
What could the group have done? The description of the process suggests that they approached the group task in the way recommended. The instructions clearly asked students to:
So, what could the group have done. Ideally,
they should have chosen the texts with an eye on the main aim of their
group task. If, however, the texts have already been decided on, then you
can still sit down seriously to consider how the texts relate to each other,
and what it is you want to say about them. I can imagine, after looking
at these texts below, that you could be interested in how and why same
people try to write as if they are talking informally. I would then introduce
the task this way: this is the puzzle I am trying to solve. Then I will
introduce the texts in this light. The first text describes the dilemma
of an expatratiate in Singapore, and he or she writes to a magazine to
describe his/her experiences; the second also seems to describe the writer's
experience as regards films, and the importance of films to him or her.
They both discuss issues that seem to interest them. (There is some point
of comparison between the two.) Now, how do they do it, and why? (And here,
it makes sense for you to analyse the texts. You want to show HOW they
share their experiences.)
TEXT 1
| 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
|
Six
months ago I’d never heard the word ‘expat’, now I am one. It’s an experience
like no
other. It’s a cultural adventure complete with unfamiliar cuisine, frustrating language barriers and a myriad of etiquette challenges. I had anticipated the awkwardness of exchanging greetings, learning new currency and negotiating prices. But what I could not have foreseen was the emotional and social age regression one undergoes. I’m a grown-up. That means I understand the workings of my environment. I can effect a successful bank transaction, buy groceries and drive a car . . . or so I thought. I departed California as a competent, college educated, adult. However somewhere in transit I have been magically reverted to my wide-eyed, mildly confused, less than confident teen-hood. All interactions are experiences anew. That which was once a simple process is now challenging. I tried to cash a ‘crossed’ cheque (crossed, what’s crossed?). Weigh my own produce at the grocery store? Drive on which side of the road? I find that I am a member of the culturally impaired. We are the newly expatriated. perhaps you have spotted us on the street or in the wet-market. You know us by the alternately dazed and delighted looks on our faces. We may not know what we are looking at but we’re tickled to be looking. Our gestures are inappropriate and we have to ask the locals to repeat themselves because our ears have yet to adjust to the accents. We smile a lot, and speak slowly as we egocentrically assume that everyone else is suffering from the same impairment as ourselves. We pass business cards with one hand, mispronounce simple Mandarin phrases and can’t distinguish given names from surnames. If we’re lucky, we’re amusing. If we’re not, we’re offensive. If we’re smart, we read up. OK, my expectations were a little out of line with reality. Maybe I thought an airline ticket to the Far East would elevate me to the ranks of the worldly and sophisticated. Maybe I was expecting a spontaneous cultural brain infusion as my passport was stamped in Customs. It didn’t happen. Alas, I am a transplanted Californian in Singapore. I can’t say I’m loving every minute. But most of the minutes are in fact, illuminating if not delightful. I’ve yet to click my heels while lamenting ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home . . .’, although I do feel a little like Dorothy, far, far from Kansas. I’ll keep writing about my experiences and hopefully other expats will share their experiences, thoughts and concerns with me. Together maybe we can make our Singapore adventure less harrowing and more like home. [extracted from Living Room Digest]
|
This text is a letter written by an expatriate who sent it to a magazine (Living Room Digest). In the letter, he recounted his experience as a ‘transplanted Californian in Singapore’. Due to the fact that it is a perceptive account, the readers tend to engage easily with it. Furthermore, the simple core words are straight to the point, thus making it easy to understand.
One interesting feature is that the writer tries to present his account in such a way that it is as if he is talking to the readers face to face. The use of descriptive examples allow us to imagine the scenes and consequently spark off our reaction. We might even tend to laugh at the writer or give nods of understanding at his predicament. one brilliant touch is his inclusion of an analogy from The Wizard of Oz which appeals to people who have read the book. Without further ado, we shall go right into the analysis of the text.
Grammar
With regards to [should be ‘with regard to’] the text, it uses both tenses (past and present) such as ‘It’s an experience like no other’ (lines 1–2); ‘I departed California . . .’ (lines 7–8). We also notice the use of the three aspects (simple, perfective and progressive) which gives [should be ‘give’] us the idea that he has experienced the ordeal (perfective) and realises that there might be somebody out there who may be facing the same thing (simple and progressive). For example, ‘I had anticipated the awkwardness . . .’ (line 3). The word order is generally in the form of SVO and there is also a lack of passivisation. The use of I, we, my us, our is predominant here. Furthermore, this extract is more of a paractactical text rather than a hypotactical one. [Awkward: you should say most of the sentences are paratactic in nature, rather than hypotactic] There are more clauses which depend on one another: ‘You know us by the alternately dazed and …’ (line 14). [Not a good example: the and here links two noun phrases, rather than two clauses.]
Now we will go further into the discussion of lexis.
Lexis
As we have mentioned before, it has more core words than periphery words [should be peripheral words] and it has some inclusion of in-between words too. This usage tends to be able to attract more readers as it is easier to understand. This style of language is considered to be appropriate for a family magazine as everyone has a higher chance of understanding.
TEXT 2
| 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 |
I’ll be honest with you. I’m
dying to be cabled. My place is due to be cabled soon and I just can’t
wait. I can get to watch over 30 channels of great entertainment, music and, my personal favourite, movies. But why am I so crazy over movies, you ask? Because to me, films combine the best traits of books and plays. And thanks to modern technology, there are also the incredible visual effects. Books are brilliant at characterisation but they lack visual impact. No amount of words can capture the beauty of some of today’s special effects (think of the climax in Mission: Impossible). Plays too, have certain limitations. Plays can be transformed into films but not all films can be made into plays. (Can you picture an action movie being remade into a play? I didn’t think so.) Plays also tend to build up to a crescendo, which is why it is often difficult for stage actors to make the transition to celluloid. In films, actors need to be more subtle, whereas on-stage, they need to project themselves much more strongly. Like books and plays, movies present you with characters that you grow up with and come to love. Think of the phenomenon of Star Wars. Who didn’t pretend to be Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo or Princess Leia after watching the film? Or how about particularly memorable snippets of dialogue (Use the force, Luke!) that you secretly repeat to yourself over and over again? An adrenaline-rush of a climax (how will Indiana Jones escape the fiendish death trap?) that leaves you breathless? Tour-de- force performances (Daniel Day-Lewis’s heart-rending portrayal in My Left Foot of painter Christy Brown, who was stricken with cerebral palsy) that live in your memory long after the film has come to a close Movies that are able to capture the imagination of the public will be permanently ingrained into popular culture. Let us go back to Star Wars for a moment. The re-release of The Star Wars: Special Edition Trilogy turned out to be one of the most successful hits of 1997, twenty years after the original films were made. Why? Because they are part of the movie-goers’ subconscious and they wanted to recapture the magical experience once more . . . . [extracted from SCV-Movie Guide]
|
This extract is taken from a movie guide. It is about a person who is always on the go and does not have time to watch the shows that he wanted. The level of understanding for this text is very subjective as it involves a lot of movie jargons and the titles of the shows. Unless the reader himself is a movie freak, [this seems rather too colloquial] he will not really be able to comprehend what is going on. Therefore the size of the readers may be small and restricted.
One of the features that captured our attention is the type of spontaneous and enthusiastic writing that the writer employs. He is able to create the same kind of excitement in the readers. He also seems to be trying his best to engage the readers in his view of reasoning. This makes his letter [this looks more like an article rather than a letter] seem more argumentative and persuasive than informative. He achieves that by asking the readers question and making them think. For example, in lines 8–9, ‘Can you picture an action move being . . .’ We, as the readers are either influenced unconsciously into conforming to his views or have the desire to argue with him. The targeted readers of this article are probably the busy people like the author himself.
Grammar
Like the first text, this article has the usage of both tenses such as ‘I didn’t think so . . .’ (line 9), which he used to compare his previous situation with the present. For this extract, only simple and progressive clauses are being used which further enhances his comparison. Similar to the first text, the word order is mostly in the SVO form, ‘I can get to watch over 30 channels . . .’ (line 2). Another similarity is that this text is more of a paratactical text too. Lack of passivisation is obvious as it is an interactive and personal text.
Lexis
Unlike the previous text, this article has more in-between words than both core and periphery [should be: peripheral] words. This might be due to the use of movie jargons [should be: jargon – no plural]. The language of this text might be appropriate for a movie guide but few people will be able to understand unless they can identify with the writer’s interest in movies.
Comparison
Both texts have more similarities in terms of grammar and lexis. But other than that the styles of writing are somewhat different. The second text is much more formal. They are also different subject matters. [Awkward: better ‘they touch on different subject matters’] Thus the group fo readers and the level of understanding will be different. We also agreed on the fact that the first text is more of a confessional article while the second is more like an argumentative and persuasive extract. Finally, the tones employed are different. The first is more informative and matter-of-fact whereas the second writer uses a style towards an advertising manner which is able to invoke interest in readers.
Ending Comments [??? Better: ‘final comments’ or ‘concluding comments’]
With reference to the contributions of each group members [should be: member], we have outlined the following:
First of all, XXX got the ball rolling by looking up various sources and narrowing the texts to a few for the group to select from. She was also the one who retyped out the chosen texts. YYY helped in looking for the text. In addition she converted the analysis of the two texts from point form into continuous prose form. And ZZZ prepared the materials for the spoken presentation during class. She also finalised and typed the completed assessment of the assignment.
Lastly, the selection and interpretation of the text were finished by the three of us together.
From the start to the completion of the assignment, the main obstacles encountered included the difficulty of reaching a consensus on the texts to be used and fixing a meeting time which was convenient for all three of us.
Other than these, we did not run into any major problems pertaining
[insert: to] the analysis of the texts.
Choose
another sample report
Back
to the Group Task instructions
Comments © 1999 Peter Tan