Essay on The Arc

Submitted By paulscopa101
Words: 765
Pages: 4

This written text was taken from the web site of Aquinas College and is an advertisement regarding the new Resource Centre at the school. The text is intended for an audience that are currently affiliated with the college or for parents looking to send their children to high school. Its function is to inform the audience about the new building, whilst displaying the schools social responsibility and belief towards education. Some informal features are present; however the text maintains a formal register in keeping the text clear and coherent.
Coherence is important as it focuses the reader’s attention on the main ideas of the text. This is most evident in the layout of the text such as consistent and concise paragraphs and headings (THE ARC and Aquinas Resource Centre) which are capitalized and placed at the top of the page to direct the reader’s attention on the topic. The cohesive ties of the text also support its coherence through use of ‘architectural’ jargon such as the lexis “draped colonnade” (L4), “tensile membrane” (L6) and “acoustics” (L29). The writer uses these technical terms to exhibit his knowledge on the context of the article, giving the text a more professional tone. However, the use of architectural jargon can be incoherent for readers that do not understand the language used. This can create social barriers especially through inference such as “central forum” (L3) where only the readers that have inferred knowledge about the ‘central forum’ will be coherent with the text. Anaphoric referencing is present through the personal (objective) pronoun “it’s” in the compound-complex sentence “The ARC is a modern building that blends into the school landscape, borrowing it’s outside finishes from the buildings around it” (L1-2). This use of referencing also supports cohesion in the text by linking separate sentences into paragraphs, creating an efficient flow of information. Another type of referencing in the text is exophoric referencing through the deictic term “that” (L9) which emphasises the “area” (L9) (recreational space) in the text. Another example of deixis in the text is “this” (L16) which refers back to the “change in the building” (L16). The writer’s ability to link different syntactical and lexical structures throughout the text makes it more cohesive and easier to understand. Another example is the use of the conjunctive adverb “then” (L22) and the coordinating conjunction “and” (L11) which are used to connect two independent clauses, forming compound sentence structures.
Throughout the majority of the text, the register is formal. Elevated lexemes “colonnade” (L4), “recreational space” (L9) and “psychologically” (L16) enrich the lexi of the text and display the writers extended use of vocabulary for a more effective conveyance of information to the reader. The use of adjectives “new” (L1) and “different” (L14) as well as the adverbial “slightly” (L7) supports the texts referential function by providing detail/information about the building. The writer has also included the comparative adjective “larger” (L25) to juxtapose between the new and old building. Other lexical choices include the