PRACTICE QUESTION

Read the following extract then identify the language strategies used by the writer.
Look at them behind their counters-young, neatly outfitted in their starched fast food uniforms or their linen and polyester clerk suits. They quickly and effortlessly tap the keys on their cash registers and computers, answer phones and look quite efficient, don’t they? They seem as if they can think, don’t they? Don’t let the pressed clothes and technology fool you; many of them can’t. Let there be a glitch or a breakdown and then you’ll see what lies beneath the suits and uniforms and beyond the counters- operators of broken-down cash registers and computers who will fumble to spell and calculate. And you, older than them, will wonder what they spent their primary and secondary years learning.
You can spot them every day, everywhere. Last week, for example, I saw the brain of a young attendant at a fast food outlet shut down the instant his computer crashed. Before the crash, he had appeared capable as he punched the appropriate keys for the orders. But when he was faced with having to write down what his customers wanted, he could only operate in slow motion. I know because, to my misfortune, I was about to order a tuna sandwich and a large orange juice when the system failed. After a minute or two of trying to spell the two items, he scrunched up the piece of paper and started writing afresh on a second sheet. I was not sure I’d get the correct meal.
Two days after this calamity, I encountered one of Mr. Illiteracy’s pals a Miss Innumeracy, in a store downtown when I was trying to pay a bill of $26.05 with two twenty- dollar bills. Because of the mix-up the cash register were closed, and so the young girl had to calculate on paper how much change to give me. After an eternity of scratching her head and calculating on a sheet of paper, she handed me $14.05, but, thanks, to my standard five teacher, I had already calculated in my head that I should receive $13.95. When I told her so, she seemed mentally paralysed. Luckily another suited girl, who looked senior in age and rank, came to her rescue. She whipped out a calculator, pressed a few keys, and presto, gave me the right change, scolding Miss Innumeracy for her bad mathematics.
I left, thinking sadly that there nothing I could do to help them make up for the years they had spent in their classrooms not bothering to learn how to read, write or think.
Adapted from Suzanne Mills,: Between the Lines”,
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, June 2, 2004,p11
CAPE 2006
These are some of the strategies you should have identified.
5. Descriptive words: Adjectives/ adverbs which create visual images for the reader.
6. Rhetorical questions/Repetition: used to influence audience’s response and get them thinking because the writer is suggesting that the people who seem efficient are really the exact opposite.
7. Anecdote: storytelling, sharing personal experience. This gives the audience a real-life picture of how inefficient these people are.
8. Sarcasm: Use of Mr. Illiteracy/ Miss Innumeracy-used to highlight the clerks inefficiency
9. Exclamation marks & commas are used to alert the audience to the inefficiency of the clerks
10. Hyperbole: ‘for an eternity’; mentally paralysed- these phrases are used to emphasize the persona’s impatience and exasperation.
11. Diction: words chosen to evoke a response from the audience, for example “calamity, whipped, crunched up”.
12. Tone: humorous, sarcastic, conversational, conspiratorial, tongue-in cheek ( with ironic or flippant intent)
13. Engaging the reader on her side through evidence from the extract, for example in paragraph 2.
14. Contrast: between the older, more efficient attendant and the younger brainless one, suggesting the ignorance of the younger generation.
15. Narrative voice: first person and very subjective.

Now that we have come to the end I hope you had fun while you were studying and you are now more prepared for your examination.