English A SL Textual analysis LEVEL 7 20/20

Textual analysis-4

High school students demand wars in easier to find countries.

This text is an online satirical article that was originally published on a satire news website. As one of the most unique, yet controversial text types, satire has it own strength in mocking, criticising and even ridiculing a trending phenomenon through its comedic tone. In this text, the author focuses on the fact that there’s an increasing number of American high-schoolers who are in lack of basic understandings of the world. Therefore one of his major purposes is to introduce this social phenomenon to the audiences and thus let them realise this prevailing problem. Moreover, the author does not only point out the problem but he also uses a satirical tone to mock the high schooler's ignorance and self-centered attitude.He also calls up the rest of the society to reflect on the causes of this undesired phenomenon.  As the bottom of the text suggests, the article was created around the early twenty-first century, where one of the hottest topics was American deployment’s military action in the foreign countries. Therefore to a certain extent, this article could be interpreted as the author’s dissentient response to the “invasion” in “obscure countries”, which he tries to convey the audiences that the war will have a negative impact on the teenagers. The potential audiences of the text are majority American internet users who seek for entertainment, and as it suggests, the other notable purpose of the text is to amuse and entertain the readers. 

The author applies a range of stylistic devices to enhance the text’s comedic feature. One of the most prominent techniques in the text is the use of contrast and juxtaposition. From the first look, the layout of this text is similar to common news report format. If the audiences don't know the nature of the publication media, they might treat this text as the normal journalist report from standard news agencies. The author achieves to establish this deceptive look by imitating the minor details of the articles on broadsheets and tabloids. For instance, the author gives a brief introduction of the interviewer’s background right after their words to enhance their occupations and ages, which is also a common feature on the standard news reports. The effect of using the parodic structure is targeted to deceive the audience’s sense temporarily, which misleads them to think that they are reading an actual news report rather than a satire from the first glance. Consequently, they will feel more amused and entertained when they read the absurd content due to the ironic contrast. The purpose of entertaining the audiences is delivered through the vivid use of the parodic structure. 

Juxtaposition is another key technique that is widely applied in the text. The title, for example, parallels the irrelevant term “high school students” and “demand the war” to provoke a sense of irony. This arrangement challenges the audience’s common sense as “demand the war” is a complicated and crucial process that only the leaders of the nation can decide. Moreover, in audience’s stereotype, “high school students” do not show particular interest in politics. Therefore using this title provokes their curiosity and engages their attention, and hence they will show interest in reading the rest of the article. Juxtaposition also delivers a strong sense of devastating humour by joining contradictory objects together, for instance, the phrase “invade Tallahassee (FL)” serves to show the absurdity of the teacher’s solution to the phenomenon. The verb “invade” means to take military actions in foreign land, which is inappropriate to use in front of a domestic city. Moreover, invade has negative connotations and it is commonly used to depict enemy group. The author uses this phrase to show the teacher’s ridiculous perspective to mock the existing education system. Moreover, “teachers” are supposed to be the one who corrects the student’s mistake and misunderstandings, however, in this case, they become the group who supports the student’s preposterous suggestions. The contrary really highlights the comedic effect of the article, and it also leads the audiences to reflect on the possible causes of this ludicrous phenomenon. 

The use of humorous language is also a key feature in the text. The author uses a range of homonyms or geographic terms with similar spellings to show that high schoolers are in lack of basic understandings of the world. One example of this use is in the first paragraph, where the author states that the high school students are not able to distinguish “Australia” and “Austria”. These two countries has similar sound and spelling, but geographically they are totally different. The youngster’s misinterpretation highlights their ignorance of basic knowledge, which allows the author to mock and criticise them. Moreover, the author choose not to specify the high school students in purpose. He addresses them using the term “a delegation” to show the generality, which implies that the phenomenon is a national problem that occurs all across the country. The author intends to use this phrase to reveal the inevitable failure in education, especially in subjects like geography. Apart from underlining the student’s ignorance in basic understandings of the world, the author suggests that they have absurd perspectives. He gives an example of one high schooler mixes up the reality and computer games to show that the upcoming generation fails to interpret and understand the world they are living. It is also ironic that he is able to memorise such a long, tedious and complicated name of a fictional character but not able to know the real countries in the world. The author persuades the audience to recognise the problem caused by advancement in technology among the teenagers, and hence leads them to reflect and come up with practical solutions. 

The author establishes the high school students as self-centred individuals to address their attitude problems. While responding to the person who corrects his misunderstanding, one high schooler uses the phrase “yeah right” to suggest his carefree impatient and even a bit of anger, which in author’s perspective, are common among the high school students all over the country. The author uses the figure he established to represent and exaggerate the bad habits on an average high school student to mock the youngster’s problematic attitude, while exaggeration also adds on comedic elements to the text. Similarly, the line underneath the picture highlights and mocks their self-centred attitude from an alternate perspective. The use of the question mark delivers a strong sense of confrontation to the audiences, which highlights the high school student’s strong desire in deciding where the war are. However, their appeal seems to be contradictory to the audience’s common sense as waging the war is a pivotal decision that can only be done by supreme officials. This irony highlights the student’s misinterpretation of freedom, which also reminds the readers that the existing education system do not perform well on shaping the upcoming generation. 

Overall, the text uses an informal, comical tone to discuss a social phenomenon over that period of time. The tone of the manner creates a relatively casual atmosphere, which facilitates the authors to persuade the readers to recognise and reflect on this undesired trend among the youngsters.

Link to the original article: http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/geography.shtml