Commentary Text On A Robbery Report English Language Essay

From what have been analysed above it can be seen that the text covers in detailed information a dramatic story of a teenager boy who was robbed of £250 by two impersonal men. It can be seen that the mode of the text is (written text), tenor are (news paper- reader),the field is (news reporting) and the genre of the text is “the popular written genre”

(Eggins, 1994:26).Furthermore, the language used in the text is simple and often used to describe two sides in the event, the teenager boy and the two men. Thus, create the image of good and evil in which it could be easier for the reader to go with the good side. Furthermore, the writer seems to be sympathy with the boy, because he is made to occur as a goal for the two men throughout the text.

SPOCA analysis:

It reveals that the text has a significant degree of pre-modification of head words, post-modification at (qualifier ) and rank shift (R/S) the reason for this, is to provide detailed information and give the opportunity to the reader to think in the event deeply. For instance,

Pre-modification such as, (He had a pale complexion) here the pre-modification is the modifier (a pale) of the head noun (complexion) which consists of [determiner (a) + epithet (pale) ], Post-modification such as, the qualifier (of his neck) in the sentence (the right side of his neck), [the right ( modifier) – side ( head noun) – of his neck ( qualifier)] and the rank shift is found for example, in the sentence [He was wearing dark coloured jeans, on his left hand].( on his left hand) is the rank shift (R/S). Furthermore, it seems clear that the text does not have any nominalisation (grammatical metaphor) except in the sentence (following the robbery), because there is no tendency to hide the information or compress it. In other words, the writer tends to express what happened to the teenager boy in details.

The tense of the text:

It is noted that the text used the past simple and continuous in order to describe what happened and shift to the present simple and continuous when talking of the implications of the incident. A good example for this includes the following:

The 16 years – old was travelling from Shirley to kings Norton.

Detective sergeant Neil Wood said.

The other suspect is Asian.

Police are appealing for help.

On the other hand, there is much use of passivisation. It is worthy noted that the writer began the first sentence in the text with the passive voice so as to make the reader eager to discover the actor (criminal) and complete reading the story. Such as, (A teenager was robbed of £250). Moreover, there is another reason for using the passive, in that the writer maybe needs to avoid the repetition of mention the actor in the sentences. Fore instance, in the sentence (He was made to withdraw the cash at LIoyds TSB in Pershore Road.) here the actor is hidden by the passive, because it is mentioned in the previous sentence (when the men threatened him) through the active at the same time the reason for avoid the repetition in the sentences is employed by the use of ellipsis. As Thompson (1996) indicates Ellipsis functions to avoid the full repetition of a clause or its elements. This is found in the text, for example, in the sentence (He was also wearing red Nike tracksuit bottoms, a black hooded jacket, black trainers, black base ball cap, and was carrying a black satchel bag).

The clauses in the text:

Clauses are varied in the text between the free clause and bound clause. Typically, the free clause is found per paragraph and in most sentences to provide a simple logical meaning. It could be clear in the following:

Bus robbers target teen.

A teenager was robbed of £250.

He was made to withdraw the cash.

On the other hand, bound clause is appeared to have three types. Firstly, bound adding clause which is called elaborated clause such as, in this sentence [A teenager was robbed of £250 after the two men forced him off a bus] here it is ( after the two men forced him off a bus ) and its role to give more information about the free clause which is (A teenager was robbed of £250). Secondly, bound contingent clause which provides reasons for the free clause. For example, in the sentence (Police are appealing for help to trace the two men pictured above). Here the bound contingent clause gives the reason why the police are appealing for help. Thirdly, bound reporting clause which is called projected clause. Such as, in the sentence (Detective sergeant Neil wood, said “This was a traumatic ordeal for the teenager boy.”) Therefore, it should be noted that the technique used by the variety in free and bound clauses in the text is to introduce the event through free clause and then provide more details about it by bound clause and the writer in the text applied it well. For example, the sentence [The first man was white, aged 17 to 20 years old]. The free clause is (the first man was white) and the bound clause is (aged 17 to 20 years old) here the first robber is identified by the free clause and his detailed information is given through the bound clause.

Experiential aspects:

Language in systemic represents external reality by happenings and states, entities and circumstances in which they appear White (2000).These can be seen in three types as processes, participants and circumstances.

5.1. Participants:

At the beginning, it seems that the text has three main participants in the robbery incident which are (the bus robbers, the teenager boy and the cash), but the writer has inserted another participant in the story given him an important position in the text through the description (Detective sergeant) to (Neil Wood), the reason for this to give the reader some sort of suspense and maybe because of his significant position as a police authority in social context.

On the other hand, it is noted that the participant appeared in different kinds based on the kind of process used. It occurs as senser in mental process (Bus robbers target teen), actor in material process (The 16 years old was travelling), sayer in verbal process (Detective sergeant Neil Wood said), behaver in behaviour process ( before being forced to buy the men cigarettes), possessor in relational process (He had a pale complexion) and carrier and identifier also in relational process [ He was wearing red Nike tracksuit Bottoms (here is carrier) ],[The other suspect is Asian (here is identifier)].Furthermore, it could be noted that some participants appeared in the elaborated clause due to the use of passivisation. For instance, [A teenager was robbed of £250 after two men forced him off a bus] (two men) is the actor inside the elaborated clause.

5.2. Processes:

The text varies in its processes in order to express the robbery incident. There is a significant degree of material processes about eight in the text. This is come as a result to provide a description to what happened to the teenager boy, as Thompson(1996:79) points out material process is ” one of the most salient types of processes are those involving physical actions”. So because the event had many of physical actions, the use of material process was required. Also, using the material processes expressed through the passive is to present the boy as a goal and then giving the reader inspiration about the boy as a victim. Such as, a teenager was robbed after two men forced him.

Goal Actor Goal

On the other hand, there is a number of relational and verbal processes. Having the relational process in the text to identify the robbers and the verbal process, because of the subject matter of the text is a robbery so there is a need to provided information from the police authority. For example, (Detective sergeant Neil Wood, said) and (DS.Wood added). Also, it is noted that there is a small number of mental and behavioural processes about one for mental and two for behavioural this is due to the nature of incident deals with the material world by verbs of doing and happening rather than with the internal world of the human mind through verbs of feeling and sensing (White 2000).

5.3. Circumstances:

According to Butt et al (2003) the role of circumstances is to illuminate the process. It may found in the text as a prepositional phrase, adverbial group or even a nominal group (ibid). This is occurring in this text as many of circumstantial clauses are found to clarify the processes used. It is noted that there is a variety in the circumstances used. For example, circumstance of location such as, (they got out at Bordesley Green Road), circumstance of location in time such as, (on Thursday October 7 between 7:40 pm and 8:10 pm), circumstance of manner such as, (with a Birmingham accent) and circumstance of accompaniment such as (with the offenders).The reason for use a significant degree of circumstances in the text to help participants and processes to interact and then provide more details about the event.