Education has always been very important for human society and nowadays it is probably more important than ever before. This is why the criteria of good education are very important and it is exactly what is in the focus of attention of Davis Penington. In fact it is hardly possible to disagree with main points of the article and it would be just perfect if the current educational system has undergone the changes according to the basic ideas of Davis Penington.
Actually it is very important to realize the significance of teachers and the role they play in education and in society at large. It seems that the author purposely underlines the extent to which teachers are respected in Eastern cultures and such attitude may be treated as an example to follow.
As for concrete steps on the way for a good education, it is necessary to point out that it should not be narrowly specialized as it is now and it should not be viewed at as a branch of economy, an industry producing some products. On the contrary on educating young people, which are the basis of the prosperity of any society, it is necessary to provide them with wider intellectual, cultural and social capacities that leads to the formation of broadminded personalities able to think independently and respecting humanistic values.
Furthermore, new generation should be able to acquire easily new knowledge and take into account critiques in order to achieve perfection on coping with the points which are criticized. It is also noteworthy that the author pays much attention to cultural education that is currently in decline because of the technological progress and the development of the consumption society and materialistic attitude to reality and surrounding world. Literacy and numeracy skills are also of paramount importance and are basic for normal educational process.
Finally it is necessary to underline the significance of language in the education process for the author is absolutely right when he states that it plays a key role in the educational process and since the beginning of education young people should perfect their language. Moreover, the knowledge of foreign languages are not less important because they provide possibilities to better understand other cultures.
In such a way, improving education the author appeals to return the respect to teaching profession and improve teachers’ training.
Task 2: “Writing as learning: reflections on developing students’ writing strategies” by M.W. Jackson
M.W. Jackson discusses a very important problem, the problem of developing writing skills which are very important for any student in his/her education. In fact the author underlines a very important thing that is often quite typical for contemporary education. He says about attitude to writing as a kind of test and he has obviously reason to state that it is a part of the learning process and not a test by its nature. In his article he basically discusses how students view essays and the main mistakes that are commonly made, among which the author singles out the problem that students are more concerned on the content and not the structure of essays. Than M.W. Jackson discusses the main writing strategies which are divided into strong (effective) and weak (useless or ineffective). But the most important point is that writing should serve as learning, namely the author suggests to teach through writing, and recommends to students to write more drafts and teachers to avoid extensive comments on essays and avoid comments submitted to grade.
The authors recommendations and ideas are quite interesting and often I found that I made what Jackson treats as mistaken approach. For instance, I really did not like to write many drafts I would rather prefer to write carefully one final and perfect draft. Also, willingly or not I perceived writing as a kind of test.
On reading this article, I will be more careful in my attitude to writing as a learning process and some of the strategies, such as brain storming, or free writing seem to be very interesting and helpful since they help me develop writing and creative skill, and they are really effective for intense brain work.
Task 3: Structure of an academic argument
The structure of an academic argument is very important since without a proper structure argument will be ineffective and quite boring. Davis and McKay suggest the following structure of an academic argument.
First of all it is necessary to start with introduction a writer should raise the topic, to put forward propositions, explain some essential terms, to word in the thesis statement, and briefly indicate the main supporting points. Then the body of the argument includes: 1) evidence and support of the thesis statement; 2) transition from one point to another to add validity to the thesis; and finally 3) responding to opposing views, where the viewpoints opposing to the thesis statement are discussed. And naturally the final part of an academic argument is the conclusion which is a reflection summarizing what have been told in the main body of the essay.
In “A one trick mind” the author raises the problem that the government confuses the notion of ‘development’ with the development of property.
In fact the problem basically concerns the intensity of the harbourfront intensity and the opposing positions of the government and population. The officials state that everything is carefully planned and that the development is essential because as they state Tamar and West Kowloon has been undeveloped for a long time. Also a ‘strong anti-development movement’ is named as one of the obstacles to the development of harboufront.
However, the population is extremely worried about the development of harboufront and it is particularly concerned about cultural development. Despite the position of officials that state that the government has already a cultural policy, the real situation is quite different from what officials says. Otherwise there would not be any special report on the West Kowloon where arts venues turn to be in a political and planning vacuum.
In such a way the main contradiction is that officials state that everything is well planned while the population indicates at poor cultural policy and planning.
Obviously officials reasonably attempts to argue stating that everything is done for the comfort of people and technologically it is really so but the main points the followers of the government plans forget is the fact that property development cannot replace cultural progress.
This is why it is possible to conclude that despite technological progress, the development of harbourfront is interpreted quite differently by population which associates development with culture and not property as the government does.
Task 4: Rhetoric
Rhetoric was always important and served as an effective means of persuasion. As a result rhetoric is extremely helpful in the process of argument since it provides the possibilities for wider and deeper presentation of different views on one and the same problem. Along with persuasive power of rhetoric, which may be used in arguments it plays a very important role in the process of communication. Actually rhetoric is a tool permitting not only persuade people but to influence and control their thoughts and actions that is considered as one of the main means of survival. It is also noteworthy that rhetoric needs such skills as desire, understanding and experience.
In fact such interpretation of rhetoric is quite surprising and is a bit unusual for me because its role seems to be a bit exaggerated. Naturally I agree that rhetoric is very important for persuasive speech or argumentation but I would not agree that it is really able to control human thoughts and actions since rhetoric, perfect it is, is just a part of human communication and argumentation and at any rate its influence may be only temporal because there may be a different view, which, being supported by rhetoric, may be not les persuasive and influential than previous and finally it is necessary to remember that there is commonsense and critical attitude to any arguments and speech that may neutralize the effect of rhetoric.
At the same time, it is important not to underestimate the role of rhetoric since its significance has been proved historically and makes us now respect it but not make a fetish of it.
Task 5
On analyzing the readings, it is possible to say that they may be addressed to different categories of people but nonetheless what make all of them similar is their value that they bring to a reader. For instance, it is very important for me as a student to learn about some helpful writing strategies as well as about the role of rhetoric and its application to arguments and communication. By the way the latter may be quite interesting for an average citizen as well because often we deal with different means of influence on our views, beliefs and so on this is why, on understanding basic principles of rhetoric, and its use in communication and argumentation it is easy to reveal the entity of what is really or is intended to be said.
Furthermore, the issues concerning writing skills may be also very useful for professionals since they provide different effective strategy that may be used in learning process. At the same time the problem of a good education, being oriented on teachers and government at first glance, in actuality involves the whole society since a good education means good perspectives for social development.
Speaking about communicative acts, for instance rhetoric communication, I would like to emphasize a certain degree of exaggeration and some examples like the example of Daniel Webster are exceptional and cannot characterize it as a general trend.
Task 6: Auberon Waugh and Jim McLelland
On reading both letters, it becomes obvious that their authors stand on opposing grounds and the letter of Jim McLelland is a response to the letter of Auberon Waugh and is provoked by the latter. The reason is that Auberon Waugh rejects the idea of compensation to Australia to clean up Maralinga where nuclear tests took place. In contrast, Jim McLelland indicates that the compensation is essential and, frankly speaking he is more persuasive since obviously at the time when Britain compensated the consequences of the tests British science were more advanced than Australian and the problem of nuclear pollution was not so clearly understood as it is now. Furthermore, the argument of Auberon Waugh that about forty years have passed since tests is not persuasive because it is a well-known scientific fact that consequences of nuclear pollution may last for much longer period of time and McLelland remark about moral compensation is also quite reasonable, especially in the context of German’s compensations to Jews and prisoners of concentration camps after the World War II, which have been paid recently and have not been rejected by public opinion.
In fact both letters reveals the personalities of its authors and if Jim McLelland is quite reasonable and persuasive than Waugh is quite emotional and basically use arguments that cannot be currently applied since they are not morally correct.
Task 7: Just Jeans
The just Jeans advertisement seems to be very pathetic and aiming at provoking strong emotions among the viewers. The creators of the advertisement used a bit stereotyped theme, the theme of family, childhood. In fact they probably attempted to underline the familial idyll where everything perfectly emphasizes the main product that is advertised. It is not a secret that children, especially babies traditionally provoke strong emotions among women in such a way this part of the audience is involved. At the same time, the image of the family presented in the ads involves men for traditionally in western society family is the highest value.
Nowadays pathos is often used in different ads and the main aim of ads is to provoke emotions among the audience, engage people and attract them and emotions play the key role in this process. Furthermore, practically all media and media genres use emotional rhetoric to engage audience because this is exactly what make them popular and popularity is the primary goal of practically all media and media genres. But it should be said that TV for instance has more opportunities to engage audience since it influences more human senses than any other media. As for genres the more formal is the genre the more strict and less emotional and pathetic it will be, for instance a news report cannot be as pathetic as soaps because its main goal is to inform but not to provoke some emotions.
Task 8: Halliday and Hasan
Halliday and Hasan single out three basic terms which serve to understand social context of a text and social environment in which the social exchange of meanings takes place. They are the field of discourse, the tenor of discourse and the mode of discourse. The tenor of discourse may be briefly defined as what is the contextual situation where the participants are involved in. The tenor of discourse may be defined as the personality of the participants, their social status, relations and all that is related to personality of the participants is involved. The mode of discourse reveals the role of the language in the current context.
All of three elements are particularly important for they help to understand that text is a social exchange of meaning since they reveal the basic points concerning participants involved in the text, the general situation that surround them and the role of the language in this situation, how it can influence the participants and shape their opinion.
Task 9: Culture
Culture is quite a complicated notion that involves a definite set of values accepted in a social group and in fact it involves all members of the social group. At the same time culture is permanently changing and often influenced by political and socio-economic factors. As a result the set of values and traditions that are perceived as culture may be treated as a product of current socio-economic relations and political situation in the society.
However, on reading Kress the notion of ‘culture’ acquires new significance. According to the author culture involves human activity at large and actually it absorbs not only all members of a social group but alls spheres of its activity. At the same time it is also important to underline the role of communication, which is treated by Kress as the domain of cultural agents. As a result communication and culture are closely interlinked and full of meaning and culture develops through communication.
Task 10
Traditionally, there was used a typical scheme of communication where there is a sender (S) of a message (M) to a receiver (R). As a rule such scheme simplifies the communication process since there is no contestation between a sender and a receiver. At this respect, Kress’s view seems to be very particular since he argues that the traditional scheme S>M>R should be transformed into S>M<R. By this scheme he implies that both a sender and a receiver are culturally formed and they both may have similar cultural and social experiences but, at the same time, communication is not a one-direction process S>M>R but it may be contested by a receiver as a result the traditional scheme is transformed in S>M<R.
At this respect, the rhetoric of Jean Shrimpton’s dress is particularly noteworthy for it may be viewed as a good example illustrating the rightness of Kress because the photographer probably intended to convey to the audience the recent fashion trends of that time and probably the photographer attempted to emphasize positive aspect of this trend. However, the receiver, i.e. the audience, could not full accept this trend immediately and naturally this photo rather provoked a negative reaction at of the audience, or least its part, to this fashion trend. As a result the views of a sender and a receiver come into clashes over the message. However, gradually the views may evaluate and change and eventually the opinion of a sender-photograph, may coincide with the opinion of a receiver-audience.
