Abraham Lincoln's speech analysis

Abraham Lincoln could made the decisions he did because he thought he owed everything to his home town, as he says in line 2 of the speech: "To this place (...), I owe everything." in this quote we can see the feeling Lincoln felt that he owed everything to his home town and that being a member of the house of representatives and later being the president of the united states could help him achieve that goal, which could have included his opinion against slavery which maybe helped him take decisions as for example the emancipation proclamation.

Paper 2 preparation

The written texts have always a certain meaning, that tells us something that is not necessarily explicit on the text o could help us to understand what the author wanted to say. Meaning is what the source of sender communicates in their message to the receiver, and what the receiver infers from the current context. But the meaning of a text is fixed and do not change over time? I say no because: the message of a text is received different depending on the reader and the time; the words used in a text could mean something different depending of the time, and the reception of certain elements of a text can be different over time.

First, the message of a text is received differently in different times from where it was written and depending on the reader of the text as for example in page 40 of “To Kill a Mockingbird”: ‘He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers.’ This quote from the book tells us what Scout, the protagonist, referred to as what made her forget she did not have to fight with others. This quote talks about how was society’s reaction when someone defended a “nigger” a term widely used to refer colloquially to African American descendants, mainly in the times where the plot of this book takes place, 1930s decade, when the African American descendants were very discriminated for that, to which a reader from the time the book was written, in 1960, will have a neutral reaction because the fact that in those times the people was used to this and most white people supported it, but if we apply it to a time as the present day, 2014, it could have caused a lot of controversy for the use of the word “nigger” in the context it is used because of the racism implied in it. It also show us how the African American descendants were discriminated as being a reason of mock between the children the fact that Scout’s father was the lawyer defending one, Tom Robinson, which nowadays could be very condemned in the society such expression of racism.

Second, the words used in the text could mean something different depending of the time the story is read as for example in page 41 of “To Kill a Mockingbird”: ‘I’m simply defending a Negro (…)’. In this quote we can see how Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, refers to the fact that he only defends an African American descendant referred by him as a “negro” which, as I said before, was received in the context when the book was written in 1960 because of the great amount of discrimination against African American descendants during this period that was followed with the defence of the rights of the African American descendants with his famous speech “I have a dream” from 1963. Different from that period with the present time is that the word “negro” passed from being a common term for the dark skinned people to be an offensive and racist term for them, coming from white people, so in the present days the use of “negro” could, as I said before, cause a lot of controversy and problems for the author with the society.

Finally the reception of certain elements presented in the text can be changed depending on the time the text is published and also depending on who is the reader as for example in some elements of the book Fatelessness by the Jewish author Imre Kertész, as are the main elements of the holocaust as for example the forced work made by every man and woman from teenager age to old age. This elements can be perceived differently depending on the time that are perceived and in the reader. The element that we can identify in the text of the young György Köves working in very poor conditions moving rocks, loading them into train carts while being abused by the Nazi guards leading to some cases in which he nearly faints. This specific element will be perceived differently depending on the time it is received and who is the reader, as for example, if the reader is a Nazi soldier in mid 1940s he would probably perceive the element in a positive way and probably supported it, but if the reader was an Englishman with an anti-Nazi thinking he could receive the element in a very negative way because of his thinking and the abuse shown inside the text. While if the reader are a German and a British man but in the context of the XXI century they could receive the message in a very different way, being probably the German seeing it as a great fault that should never happened in the history of Deutschland while the British man could only see it as the awful past of the German people.

In conclusion, the meaning of a text is not fixed and changes over time because many parts of a text as are the context and the message can change depending on the time the text is written and/or read because of the changes in how society see some actions and thoughts which make them be more or less condemned, as for example the use of word as “negro”.

888 words

Friday 21st of March

How would you describe the register of the following statements?

• “Honoured guests, members of the board, Superintendent Johnson, and most importantly, graduates of the class of 2012, it is an honour to speak to you on this occasion.” Formal Register
• “While I was pleasantly surprised by the menu selections for dinner service, I was disheartened by the lukewarm eggs at breakfast.” Formal Register
• “Yeah, right” Casual Register
• “I doubt it” Consultative Register
• “I’m tired of your rubbish” Intimate Register 
• “I’m tired” Frozen Register

Paper 1 preparation

I.- Are the following statements factive or non factive?

• I thought that today was your birthday. (Non-Factive)
• I forgot that today was your birthday.   (Factive)
• The teacher scolded me for not studying hard enough.   (Non-Factive)
• The teacher acknowledged that I hadn’t really studied.  (Factive)
• The teacher realized the student had cheated.  (Factive)
• The teacher assumed that the student had cheated. (Non-Factive)

II.- Idioms and Ambiguity

• Bite your tongue (It means that you apply pain to yourself but also means that you shut up)
• Pull my leg  (It means that actually pull my leg but could also mean that you play a joke on someone)
• He is my English teacher (It means that he is my english teacher but also could mean that he comes from England)
• I saw the person with a telescope  (It means that I actually saw the person with a telescope but also could mean that I saw a person holding a telescope)
• She doesn’t like short men or women (It means that she actually doesn't like short men or women but also could mean that she doesn't like short men or women in general)

Figurative Language and imagery

p. 203

1.- The Rhyme, the metaphors and the last verse.
2.- The theme, the rhyme and purpose.
3.- "¿What were you trying to say with this poem?"; "¿To whom is this poem adressed?"; "¿What did you feel when you read it?"

p.204
Questions.-
1) -The man is spreading his clothes beneath a woman's feet
-The man is poor, so it only have his dreams for having her
-The man sacrifices his dreams for her
- The man ask thewoman to walk softly because she is walking on his dreams
2) It depends on the reader.
3) Because of it's softness.



Table.-

Sight	Sound	Taste	Touch	Smell
Fat	Fields		Hibiscus	Fields
Black	Sea		Brezeed	Hibiscus
Sun	Riding		Sun	Sea
Lights	Waves		Sea
fields			Hug

"The Kraken" (1830) analysis

The title of this poem gives a sensation of fear because of the legend it refers to as the kraken was a monster in the Nordic culture which talked about a giant monster with the form of an octopus that lived in the deepest parts of the North Sea and sometimes went to the surface to sink and fed of ships and their crew. This poem is about the kraken by itself and it's characteristics, also telling us his atmosphere, how the kraken lives referring to the characteristics of the depths were the kraken is supposed to live and that when it time comes man and angels will see it and then in the surface it will die. The deepest meaning of this poem is that this "monster" lives alienated from the world and this makes it feel the loneliness and in a try of end this solitude and sadness when it goes to the surface it unconsciously creates the chaos for what it is lonely and because of it's lonely living when his time comes it will go to the surface one last time to die, where everybody, angels and men, will see it. The lyric speaker uses a solemn tone which gives the sensation of sadness or the same loneliness. The lyric speaker changes it's mood from the beginning of the poem, when it was more like "epic" to the kraken, to a mood more solemn and sadder in the last half of the poem. The title of this poem it's meant to say about the loneliness and incomprehension of the author using as an example the creature known as "Kraken". The poet is saying the feeling he get of being lonely maybe because of some event that left him like this as it could be the death of a friend or loved one.

Poetry Analysis

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

 1     I do not love you except because I love you;

        I go from loving to not loving you,

        From waiting to not waiting for you

        My heart moves from cold to fire.

5      I love you only because it's you the one I love;

        I hate you deeply, and hating you

        Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you

        Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

        Maybe January light will consume
10    My heart with its cruel

        Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

        In this part of the story I am the one who

        Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,

14    Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

Pablo Neruda

(source: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-do-not-love-you-except-because-i-love-you/)

In this poem there is the repetition of the sound 'I' between stanzas 1 and 2; and the repetition of the sound 'M' in stanza 3 at the beginning of each verse. In verse 1 there is an assonance in the sounds of "do", "you" and "you" with an 'U' sound. In verse 2 there is another assonance now with the 'O' sound between "from", "loving", "not" and "loving". There is an another assonance with the 'O' sound in verse 3 between "from", "not" and "for". In verse 4 there is an alliteration with the repetition of the 'F' sound between "from" and "fire". In verse 5 there is an assonance of the 'O' sound between "love", "only", "one" and "love". In verse 6 there is an alliteration of the 'H' word between "hate" and "hating". In verse 7 there is another alliteration but from the 'M' sound between "measure" and "my". In verse 8 there is an alliteration of the 'B' sound between  "but" and "blindly"and also and assonance of 'A' sound between "I" and "blindly". In verse 9 there is an assonance of the 'U' sound between "January" and "consume". In verse 11 there is an assonance of the 'I' sound between "stealing" and "key". In verse 12 there is an assonance of the 'A' sound between "part" and "am". In verse 13 there is an assonance of the 'A' sound between "dies", "I", "die" and "I. In verse 14 there is an assonance of the 'A' sound between "love" and "blood".

Written Task

New Opening

I have already been living with Mrs Reed for some years, but not much I know about my life before. According to some information I got I could know about that part of my life. My mother, sister of Mr Reed, knew a man that wasn’t of much wealth, actually he was of very low wealth, fact that made my mother’s father, my grandfather, angry and making disinherit her and leaving us with nothing. A few months after I was born my father and mother got sick from typhus. My father died first from it, my mother gave me to my uncle, Mr Reed her brother, and asked him to take care of me as one of his own children before she died. Mr Reed was a nice man and took good care of me, he was always attentive to me, punished me when I deserved it but not going to extreme limits. He played with me when he was not busy. But one fateful day my uncle died, all of Gateshead was affected by this and the room where he died, the “Red Room”, remained unused since that day and said to be haunted. 

When my uncle died my aunt, Mrs Reed, took care of me but in a completely different way than my uncle, she was more evil, she had a hate against me. When we all went out for a walk in the nature one day she always kept me apart from the group, always treated me like a servant or even less than one. She always gave preferences to her children John, Georgiana and Elizabeth. At first she didn’t showed this attitude because of the memory of her recently dead husband and because of the sadness she felt because of it, but after this sadness overcame she became the real devil she was, she gave me extreme punishments that in most cases I didn’t deserve in those extreme ways. 

She mostly insisted, when applying those punishments, that I was nothing, that I had nothing, that my family had nothing and in the same way than them I was going to end, also she said that if I don’t behave as I am supposed to I will be locked down inside the red room and be left there for many days. Most of the time she didn’t ate with us on the table and when that happened John and his sisters bullied me so much, mostly with words, strong words that hurt more than a stab in the chest. In other cases they took my food, leaving me with less for me. They forbidden me to take books or anything to read or entertain myself, and showed them to me in a laughing way while Mrs Reed did nothing to help me, but if said anything in my defence she would punish me severely.  When Mr Reed died there was another person who treated me nice and gave me good attention, Mr Lloyd. Mr Lloyd was the apothecary of the family and went only when someone needed medical attention, but when he came he was the nicest to me in all of Gateshead. The other person that treated me nice was Bessie who was a servant. She treated me nice in Gateshead most of the time but the problem with her was that because of being a servant of Gateshead she had to follow orders and be loyal to Mrs Reed so in various cases I received punishments from her because something Bessie told her. In Gateshead there was also another servant, Miss Abbott. She felt the same hate to me as Mrs Reed and in most of the cases she will do anything possible to her to make me feel uncomfortable. One day when we were going for a walk Mrs Reed stopped me.

“You are not coming with us today Jane.” She said.

“Why not?” I replied.

“Because you don’t deserve it because of your bad attitude, so you are going to stay at Gateshead with Bessie and Miss Abbott.”

“But Miss Abbott hates me…”

“If you don’t behave yourself you will be punished for your insolence, do you understand young girl?”

"Yes Mrs Reed.”

When I came inside Bessie noticed I was sad, so she tried to cheer me up, but Miss Abbott had another ideas. Bessie played with me and read when she was not busy, in the moment when Bessie needed to leave for some reason, Miss Abbot came in and started saying awful things to me and destroying my happiness. Because of Bessie needing to be loyal to Mrs Reed did nothing against Miss Abbott for fear of the consequences it could carry.

Later that day I said something wrong by mistake but nobody heard me, except for Bessie said that was going to tell Mrs Reed. It was late at night and she did not wanted to wake up my aunt so she kept it to the next day, I by the other side went to sleep with hope that the next day would be more positive for me.

Words: 849 words.

Rationale

Listening Comprehension “In Search of the Bröntes”

1.- Who is said to have influences the sisters' lives and why?

Their father because he shaped their minds

2.- What tragedy struck the Brönte family?

Half of the brothers died before the age of six years old and the mother died.

3.- What's the Brönte father's background?

Was the son of a poor irish farmer, who put effort for obtaining a scholarship and becoming a clergyman.

4.- How is it said that Emily Brönte coped with homesickness?

With her poetry.

5.- What is Haworth described like in the times the Brönte lived there?

As a romantic village

6.- What is a recurrent theme in Charlotte's writing (based on her experience as a child)?

The lost mother.

7.- How did the Brönte father try to salvage the situation with his family after his wife's death?

Looking for another woman in his life to fill that space left by his wife in him and his family.

Image Analysis

Landscapes
Mountain
Death
Graves
Church
Religion
Nature
Dry
Rocks
Clock tower
Valley

I lived in a very green landscape in west Yorkshire in a valley at the feet of a mountain where it was the presence of the smell of the lavanda in the morning and dry landscapes near a church where the death was present with a great number of graves, although this the religion I have faith on was still present with God to protect us.

Written task

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Business magnate couldn’t take more

The owner from the recently closed tobacco company was found dead in house with a gun.

Today in the morning was found dead William Eberhard inside his house with a gun in his hand and a bullet hole in his head. The founder and owner of “Alps Tobacco, Inc.” was recently left unemployed after some reports from the news broadcast made his company to be shut down. The news broadcast made a report, an incredibly rude news report where it accused the company to be throwing the toxic waste from the industry near a guarded area for the nature; these reports lead the company to a lot of legal problems and with the ecologists in many countries from the European Union and some not being part of that union as for example Switzerland and Norway. These problems resulted in a millionaire pay from the company to the many organisms for the ecology and as compensation t the different states involved in this issue.

William Eberhard was born in the 28^th of July of 1965, son of the manager of a paint company where he discovered his love for the business world. He studied in the Saint Gallen University the career of business management and economy. He graduated in this career in the year 1988 where he got his first job helping his father in the paint company. In the year 1993 he founded his own company of tobacco named “Eberhard & Henning Tobacco”, with his partner Karl Henning. After the death of Henning on 1994 he changed the name of the company to “Alps Tobacco, Inc.”, name it took until its shut down the past month. During the first years the company found problems with many ecologists which were complaining that the company was affecting the wildlife from the top of the Matterhorn, issue that was dismissed in a few weeks.

The family didn’t make many declarations but that they will take legal actions against the ecologists and the news broadcast for the result it reached. His son personally said: “My father was no monster as said by that news reports, he was a family man and a good father. He always cared about the one beside him no matter what ethnic he was or what economic level he was in.”

The police declared that: “The individual was found sitting on a couch with no life and a bullet hole in the side of his head, also with a gun type Colt 1911.45 in his hand, which suggests that he took away his own life because of the pressure he received from the ecologists after the news report from a few months ago. According to our forensic psychologist he entered in a very deep depression when his company was shut down as he, as declared by his own family to us, didn’t want to eat and was hours locked inside his personal studio, where we found the body. We believe it was a suicide, but in the case of the adverse situation we are gonna make everything we can to capture the killer."

His son also said: "My father helped us to survive in the life, all the earnings to maintain our families came from that company; cousins, uncles, aunts, etc were working in that company, including myself. But now, we got nothing left, the money we gained in that company is going away fast, and soon we will be with not enough money to live."

The city's municipality decided to commemorate the businessman with a funeral held in the town's principal plaza and let everyone interested in going and honour the fallen man to be free to do so, but with police guarding it in case any incident could happened.

The widow of mr. Eberhard declared her gratefulness telling us: "I feel so happy for the gestures and love they show to my dead husband and his memory, I'd like to ask the media and other similar organisms to stop accusing my husband of false actions and stop disturbing my family for respect to him." This declaration ignited the fires of fury in the ecologists whom answered: "We only do what is good for the nature and wildlife, what happened with that 'businessman' is what he deserved for doing such awful actions to the nature. We are happy that such a murderer and monster will never again disturb the peace and balance of the nature with his toxic industrial waste and the smokes of his fabric." This also woke up suspicions in the police departments, as said by the police general Wilhelm Steiner: "The declarations of the ecologists are very suspicious to us because as seen in the own industry and in the documentation of this industry, it doesn't produce toxic industrial waste neither smoke that could damage the biology. The industry was all natural and green friendly which is the issue that makes us doubt, the principal factory was located in the industrial district of München also producing a minimum  amount of smokes that were very low compared to the other companies in that sector, with also the difference that Alps Tobacco was the only one producing non lethal and eco friendly smoke."  

Rationale 

I chose this type of text to make more conscience in the people because it can describe a “real” situation, what will impact people for this issue and make them realise what the truth behind the media is. This task is related to the course section when we talked about media and, included in it, the biased media which was the media inclined to one specific side and giving only one point of view. The nature of this task is principally to show the people what can happened with the biased media and that it can be in some cases very dangerous as shown in the text: “(…) which suggests that he took away his own life because of the pressure he received from the ecologists after the news report from a few months ago.” This is an evidence of the effect the biased media produced in this example person, the effect could be as bad as making an individual to commit suicide or to make another individual to commit murder.

The audience intended for this news report is basically the general public, like the normal or average people. This people is more frequently unaware of the issues that corporations of media such as news broadcast networks can make us to do with their “mind games”.

News report: 870 words

Rationale: 217 words

Total: 1087 words