How does the choice of lexis in Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s article help the writer to fulfil the text’s purpose and connect with her audience.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's choice of lexis helps to both fulfil the text's purpose and connect with the audience in a variety of different ways. She breaks the article down into approximately 10 subsections ranging from the comparison between high powered MPs and children from the Channel 4 series 'Educating Yorkshire' to how differences in opinion sabotaged Welfare Reform earlier in the year.
She balances the formal subject of the text with extremely informal language, which allows her to connect with a variety of different audiences including incredibly busy businessmen and those who just happen to glance upon the article when flicking through the paper itself. In the opening column, she uses phrases such as 'Oi, you' and 'eh?'. The use of these phrases connotes simplicity and a certain 'common-ness' about the reader, implying that this could be the type of language used by the reader. As well as this, the informal use of adjectives such as massive and bloody have a negative effect on the audience - she uses informal words from this category to portray the negativity that the text is trying to express regarding the dealings of particular situations by the Director General and the Trust Chair.
By initially comparing them to children and stating outright that Men in Power will lie. She uses the comparison of the Members of Parliament to Yorkshire Children, before making a brief statement about the integrity of leaders. She refers to leaders, those who take responsibility, as 'Real Men'. This appeals to the Pathos of men, who do not want to be referred to as below the level of 'real men', this would be an insult to their own masculinity and therefore furthers the Yasmin's initial point, the point she clearly states in the title of the article: 'Real Men Take Responsibility'.
Something that is constant throughout the first three columns of the article is the use of various words with negative connotations. Her choice to use both harsh looking and harsh sounding verbs like scrapping and snarling in these columns is an evident example of the
