STUDY
NOTES
,ENG2602 PERSONAL NOTES STUDY GUIDE SUMMARY 2022
GENRES FOR ENG2602
PROSE / PERSUASIVE TEXTS / POETRY / DRAMA / CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS ‘REAL LIFE’ DIALOGUE
INTRODUCTION
● Have a dictionary or use on line ones (good online ones are merriam-webster and www.dictionary.com) look up any terms that
you do not understand. Make sure you have a journal when going through the study guide.
● Become familiar with the features of all four genres
● Understanding and applying the various ways of reading them
● Working through all the activities; in this way the module will become more interactive
● Reading all the drama and poetry texts in the Reader on myUnisa
● Being able to use the appropriate critical vocabulary and concepts in the Toolkit (Found at the back of Tutorial letter 101)
● Make sure you understand the devices
●
● How ‘language’ contributes to any writing, whether this is ‘literature’ or another kind of text.
Studying the prescribed book by Goatly, concentrating particularly on
● Chapter 1 (organisation; the clause and sentence; the paragraph)
● Chapter 2 (language as a tool for thinking; ideology and vocabulary)
● Chapter 3 (all sections are useful for understanding drama and conversation)
● Chapter 4 (metaphor and irony; adverts, association and inference)
1
,ENG2602 PERSONAL NOTES STUDY GUIDE SUMMARY 2022
● Chapter 5 (all sections, especially how texts position the reader)
● Chapter 7 (this relates to persuasive writing)
● Chapter 8 (fiction and feminism in general, especially narrative structure, vocabulary and ideology; metaphor, irony and
inferences)
● Chapter 9 (this deals with the media as a genre)
WE ARE CONCERNED WITH QUESTIONS SUCH AS:
1. ‘What genre is this text?’ This helps the reader to become aware of appropriate ways of reading it. She should read a poem differently
from an advertisement, or a drama, or a study guide, such as this one.
2. ‘What is its purpose?’ No piece of writing is ever neutral: amongst other purposes (such as the writer’s desire to express herself, to
explore something in writing) it is always intended to place the reader in a particular position and create a specific response. Think about
this for a moment.
3. ‘How is this purpose being achieved?’ What kinds of language features (or linguistic devices) is the writer using to address, influence,
entertain, challenge, inform, even manipulate, the reader?
OUTCOMES
● Outcome 1: students (in other words, ourselves and yourselves) identify the typical English language attributes of prose, poetry
and drama. We should ask ourselves, ‘what are the common features of these kinds of writing?’Also, ‘in what ways do they
differ?’
● Outcome 2: students discuss the use of figurative language in a variety of texts. We need to be sure in our minds what figurative
language is, and what it does. Why is it being used?
2
, ENG2602 PERSONAL NOTES STUDY GUIDE SUMMARY 2022
● Outcome 3: students read literary language as a means of positioning the reader in order to elicit a particular response. One
could ask: ‘how does the text create a response in me, the reader?’
● Outcome 4: students discuss the creative choices made in literary texts. We might enquire: ‘why does the writer use this
particular word instead of another, or place the words in this specific order, not another?’
UNIT 1
CRITICALLY READING A TEXT AND WRITING ABOUT IT
guides us through a practical method of reading and discussing a text, by osing the questions what, why and how
POINTS
● a text is an interwoven entity, weaving together many facets of language, and
● that no text is neutral, not even an item of news in a newspaper or on the radio, TV or internet.
BASIC FORM OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS WE TAKE NOTE OF:
WE ARE DEALING WITH THE WHAT, WHY AND HOW OF A TEXT.
●● pragmatics, roughly who the speaker or writer is and in what context she is speaking
●● the linguistic information which the text holds – for instance, lexis (vocabulary), syntax (sentence structure), and phonology (sounds)
●● the intended and actual audience of the text
●● its purpose, which might be to share something with the audience; to persuade; to convey or create a certain motion/mood/response;
3