Video Games - Amazon Extract and Time Magazine
Wangeci Wanguhu
Mrs. Middleton/ English A HL
April 16th, 2018
Text A and B are both focused on the video game industry, through the use of a review and a magazine article. Text A is a customer review by a gamer whom has firsthand knowledge on the topic of the Xbox 360, and thus describes his experience through his point of view of through the use of Amazon. The writer uses a semantic field when describing the product which shows that the writer is writing for an audience of fellow gamers whom have endured either the same problems or are looking to buy the product. While on the other hand Text B is magazine extract from US Today, which focuses on the role that video games play on the brains of students and their learning. The text says, “Educators” in the title which shows that the audience is directed towards people who work in the education system and show a distinctive bias towards the usage of video games. Though both sources are about the same subject they both look at it from broader perspectives. Thus, though the overall intent of the texts is different, both texts have used audience, stylistic devices, and tone to review the same topic, of video games.
To begin with the audience of both texts are different as one is focused and aimed towards educators as the other focuses on gamers. Text A as stated before is aimed towards gamers who tend to buy the newest models of video games and their consoles. The review is based on the “Xbox 360 E 4GB Console” which if you were not familiar with the different types of Xbox’s this review would be of no use towards you. Another indicator that it is focused towards gamers is the semantic field, which can be seen through the technical jargon. The text mentions, “250 GB hard drive out of the S and put it in the E”, which can be seen as technical jargon within the semantic field of gaming. However, on the other hand in Text B, the audience Is as stated before focused towards educators. The text looks at video games from two perspectives; it focuses on the outlook that parents have on gaming as well as the data that has been collected that has been collected to prove the writers point on video games. The text mentions, “Most people over the age of 35 have little understanding of the operational theory of popular computer games.” The quote describes that adults- including educators- do not understand the theory and technical skills involved in playing video games, thus only leading them to think that they are a waste of time. Whereas the text continues to state that, “We aren’t sufficiently aware of how the games transmit information and hold kids’ attention”. This then causes adults and those working in the education system that video games may not be as detrimental as they presume.
Moreover, Text A and B use a selective number of stylistic devices to portray their message. Since Text A is a review, thus needing to be short and concise. The text uses anaphora to grab the reader’s attention, “I love the new form factor… I love the controller” The constant use of the words “I love” brings the reader’s attention towards the list of good characteristics, which the writer wants the reader to focus on; thus, drawing their attention more towards those sections of the text. Whereas, Text B uses juxtaposition to further explain the point of video games that are seen negatively can include learning principles, “he tries to explain how ‘good’ (including some shooters) computer games use critical learning principles”. Shooter games are commonly seen as being bad and leading children to having violent tendencies. However, Text B has challenged that theory by explaining that even though the video game does include violence the tactics that you are learning help children to maintain focus which can lead to the same amount of focus for educational purposes. This text also uses hypophora, “What do kids learn from that? How to transfer abilities freshly learned…” This technique is used to continuously grab the reader’s attention. It can also be seen as a rhetorical question as the writer isn’t looking for a direct response. However, by giving an answer to the question the writer gives the reader time to think the question over and build a response while giving the exact response they were looking for.