Characteristics of the text
For you to better understand the article “The boy on the left had no future. The one on the right is a talented star pupil...” by Kamal Ahmed, it is also useful to analyse the way the sender presents his arguments and some characteristics of the text in terms of style and language.
Open & Hidden argumentation
Kamal Ahmed uses a combination of direct (open) and hidden argumentation. In the beginning of the article, the author directly states the main arguments or points of the article. In this way, readers know exactly what to aspect of the cover story: “This story will reignite the controversy about nature versus nurture. It will renew the debate about race and schools. And it will raise serious questions about how schools deal with what on the surface appear to be no-hope pupils.” (p. 142, ll. 1-7)
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Rhetorical devices
Rhetorical devices are techniques employed to engage the audience, to catch readers’ attention and emphasise arguments. Here are some of the rhetorical devices used by Kamal Ahmed in his article:
- Accumulation
- Anaphora
- Analogy
- Colloquial
- Expletive
- Hyperboles/Overstatements
Forms of appeal
Audiences can be appealed through ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos implies the sender supports his ideas and arguments by reference to authority, community and collective values. Logos refers to the use of logical arguments to support a line of reasoning and pathos implies the use of feelings and emotional language to appeal to an audience.
The text mainly relies on ethos and pathos to attract the audience.
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Also, here you can read an useful presentation of three other important characteristics of the text:
- Choice of words
- Neutral language
- Figurative language
