http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-07/opinions/42792517_1_government-shutdown-house-gop-obamacare
The Editorial Board of the Washington Post takes its position on the government shutdown, and puts most of the blame squarely on Republican shoulders, while also pointing out the ineffectiveness of the strategy used by the GOP. Diction, syntax, and details are all used to effectively relay the message of the writers to the readers of the column.
The main goal of any editorial is to send a message to its readers. The readers of the Washington Post probably have an average intelligence that's above normal, so it only makes sense that the diction in the article is slightly elevated. Bigger words such as "ostensible" are used, as well as politic terms that normal readers may not know, such as "caucus". The reader is also expected to know of various programs and political figures pertaining to the government shutdown. But so as not to lose too many people, the diction as a whole is fairly colloquial, so even readers who get lost on a few words and don't know what the various programs are can still grasp the intent of the article and come away with an understanding of what the Editorial Board is trying to convey.
Syntax is used to focus attention on the consequences of the Republican Party's actions. Questions, followed by short one word sentence answers are used to slow down the reading and make you focus on each individual consequence. All of the three opening paragraphs contain such format: "Damage the livelihood of millions of Americans? Check....Waste billions of taxpayer dollars? Check....Interfere with key government operations? Check." The syntax theme established here is used later to make a different point about how the GOP came away with nothing: "Derail the hated Obamacare? Ch . . . — oh, no, wait a minute." When presenting details and facts about the shutdown, the sentences are longer and read more quickly. But when opinions are stated, the sentences become short and succinct, acting as conclusions that should be drawn from the details presented. If you got lost in the long lines of details, there are short and sweet sentences that tell you what conclusions you should draw. Because you're more likely to remember and retain all of the short sentence as opposed to the longer ones, and the article wants you to come away with their conclusions, not with the information they used to reach those conclusions.
Finally, the details the article presents are naturally going to be the ones that help their case the most. A counterargument is never really addressed, and the only information that is presented is information that supports the overall conclusion of the editorial: the Republican strategy has failed and they've severely hurt the country through their stubbornness. Personally, I agree with most of the conclusions made in the editorial, but it's rather one-sided with the information it presents. But of course, readers are much less likely to disagree with the argument if they're given information they can use to disagree, and with a tricky subject like politics it'd probably be hard to fully refute a counterargument to the point where no reader could come away completely disagreeing with the article. It's just safer to leave that information out. But still, this manipulation is important in creating an effect on readers, and leaving them with the conclusions that the editorial wants them to leave with.
So if you took away the smart use of diction, syntax, and details, what would happen? The shutdown would still be because the Republican strategy failed (and because the House GOP leaders like Boehner suck, but that's just my opinion), but the Washington Post might not as easily convince its readers of that.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteGreat job here analyzing the editorial. Your analysis for how syntax was used was right on and I agree that the short sentences were used to slow the reader down. I also, think that the syntax lent itself to a sarcastic tone but I understand why you didn't mention the tone. One thing I might add is for your argument about details. Your analysis of detail was great but you might want to add a piece of evidence. The argument you make is logical so I see why you didn't find it necessary to add a specific piece of evidence. Personally I liked your tone as the writer with your embedding of your opinion but I think that it should be avoided when your critically analyzing literature. If you wish to add your opinion I think you could have done it in a more subtle and effective way. A way that adds to the analysis such as using your opinion to drive the conclusion you intend your reader to take away from your analysis. (I realize that was a very convoluted sentence.) Also, I may have missed it, but what is the meaning the diction created?
Kevin, your close reading was very good. First off, I really liked how you started off giving an overview of the article and your analyzation, it was a nice was to begin the close reading. Your analysis if the diction used was great, and what you pointed out about there being some elevated diction to attract a certain audience is something I would not have considered! I also thought your analyses of the syntax was also very strong. You used great textual evidence to help back up your claims and make the paragraph more effective, and you showed how the author used different types of sentences depending on what they wanted the audience to feel. The details you discussed I thought were also spot on. The author definitely chose what he added to the piece carefully to try and create a bias with the readers, creating a one sided story with really no mention of the opposite view. Without the diction, syntax, and details that the author used, the meaning and purpose of the article would have been completely different. They could have told the same exact story, but with different literary techniques, and the meaning of the entire article would have changed. Overall I thought this post was easy to understand and made great points!
ReplyDeleteYou opened well with a solid thesis and ended with a more organic and creative conclusion. In between the two, you effectively used the evidence to back your initial claims. On the other hand, your warrants in the third paragraph became a bit confusingly worded, particularly towards the end; reading the section aloud sounds rambling and nonsensical, particularly "no reader could come away completely disagreeing with the article". Rewording this to cut out some of the prior negatives may have made this part less confusing, if slightly less concise. Unfortunately, because this sits against the concluding paragraph, so the reader has to flail to get back to understanding the post before the restated thesis lands. Outside of this last bit, the post was very well written and presented your case in an understandable manner.
ReplyDeleteKevin--In September, you got accused of being a magpie, a bit--but here, you seem to take all evidence into account in a much more "big picture first" kind of way. Nice work on that!
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