Analysis of June 2013 paper

Text I analysis-

Text I uses the Brown and Levinson theory of positive politeness throughout. The headteacher shows a genuine positive face through her speech because of her audience. In this speech she is trying to portray positivity as she wants to persuade the parents that their children will be best off going to her school over others. She also uses Grice's maxim of quantity as she is deliberately trying to give her audience as much information as needed but no more, she wants to persuade her audience but not over-do it. Furthermore, she also uses the maxim of quality, for example 'two hundred and eighty five people applied to us'. This shows that she is trying to be as truthful as possible to give her audience a real idea of the school whilst supporting it with evidence like realistic, truthful numbers. 

Throughout her speech the headteacher uses a range of linguistic features that apply to natural speech. She starts with the formal opening of 'I'd like to welcome you all this evening'. This tries to establish initial power and shows personal authority. As the speech develops the speaker uses less formal language. The fillers 'er' and 'erm' are both used in the text which takes away power as its less formal and shows potential nervousness. Nervousness is also shown in her frequent repetition of words such as 'really'. Furthermore, parallelism is also used with four consecutive sentences starting with 'it's all about'. This is used to make sure her point is being heard and is clear. Finally, alot of subject specific lexis is used such as 'ofsted' and 'local authority' which portrays power as it shows experience and knowledge.