Analyse how Text B uses language to create meanings and representations.
Text B is an opinion article taken from the Daily Mail, a British daily tabloid newspaper which argues against the left wing influencing their audience, British residents, in accepting more migrants into the country. This is first made clear through the bold heading 'Sorry, but the Left can't browbeat the British people into accepting yet more migrants'. The mitigating device 'Sorry' at the beginning of this sentence is being used as a cloaked imperative and creates an immediate informal tone to the reader. The writer then uses a transitive verb 'browbeat' to not only introduce a feeling of intimidation, but to suggest that the left wing does not abide by British values. The 'yet more' in this sentence also conveys that the newspaper has a problem with migrants, as they say it as if the increasing number of them is a reoccurring issue. An affordance of this text is firstly that the article begins with a rhetorical question, which again makes it personal to the majority of British people, their intended audience, and grabs the readers attention by making them think. But a constraint could definitely be the constant prejudice the article portrays against the left wing, as it uses broadcasters such as the BBC to support their argument, as they are highlighted to also have an apparent left wing bias. Although some mentions of the newspaper being against them in certain aspects could make their story unreliable, despite the consistent use of facts and statistics the text uses to back up their argument.
Additionally, the newspaper's target audience is further exposed to be British adult's specifically as it doesn't mind mentioning graphic evidence such as 'the photograph of the dead three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach' and the noun 'hysteria' which evokes negative and extreme connotations. Although the repetitive mention of the 'public opinion' or 'public mood' that hasn't been counteracted or changed shows the extent to which the newspaper cares about their audience's opinion, and maybe by discussing this issue deeper and using humorous language such as the comedic word 'hullabaloo', it will appeal to the reader more. Another use of a rhetorical question 'was I wrong?' pressures the audience to think, and strengthens the relationship writer to reader despite it being a text taken from one of the biggest British newspapers.
Furthermore, text A uses stats a significant amount throughout the text such as 'tens of thousands of migrants' which is an example of hyperbolic language. Hyperbolic language is used to not only create humour, but it also gets the point across in a more relatable way. Although this quote makes the problem seem bigger and much more of a widespread issue than it actually could be, but the media like to twist their stories to gain recognition. More statistics used also refer to polls, for example 'some 57 per cent either think there should be fewer refugees or that the new figure of 20,000 over five years is about right'. An advantage of this is that they're most likely to be from a truthful source, but also shows the public opinion is unclear.
The writer continues to add to the negative tone portrayed throughout the entirety of the article through the pessimistic language they use. The adjectives 'harrowing' and 'disturbing' used to describe the pictures and footage of immigrants broadcasted on the news show the narrowmindedness of the newspaper as they blame the BBC for it's 'ubiquity' and 'manipulative reports', yet they're only broadcasting the terror of what is actually occuring in the world right now which people like the daily mail are choosing to ignore as they don't agree with migrants. They are yet to understand these are people too and the issue is only going to continue to grow if change doesn't take place.
Finally, the ending statement of the article 'British people are sure of their own minds, and can't be crudely browbeaten into changing their beliefs' creates an overall representation that people need to face the facts and face the reality that despite the power influenced on individuals from the media, such as from the authority from the prime minister 'Mr Cameron' and the BBC, public opinion will be difficult to shift as people living in Britain come from all different types of ethnicities and cultures, therefore people are going to have to accept that not everyone will hold the same values and beliefs, and that is okay.
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