The two texts that I am going to analyze are both exploring the issue of playing football on a Sunday. Although not so much an issue today, traditionally games were not allowed on that day; a tradition was rooted in religion.
Text A is an extract from a diary and Text B is an extract from a book, thus both are deictic representations of the writers’ views and opinions on the subject. In my opinion, on Hudson’s “dependence on context” dimension Text B is more so because it is more descriptive and features a lot of emotionally loaded language that assumes some understanding on reader’s behalf of what a proper noun “Sabaoth” means (assuming that the footnote was not included in the original) and how the whole “argument” connects together. Whilst Text A also refers to things outside itself (proper nouns “Langley Common”, for example) and is briefer, it is more self-contained as an anecdote and can be appreciated outside any particular understanding of religion or other context. It is hard to decide which text is more context-dependent because both of them assume some things and are both written in the context of the times.
Semantically, Philip Stubbes (Text B) is without doubt more impressive in conveying his attitude towards playing games on Sundays. One simply cannot help notice the overpowering lexical field of religious negativity that reveals itself through adjectives “wicked” and “forbidden” and abstract nouns such as “sin”. Second paragraph is full of words from the lexical field of bodily harm such as adjectives “hurt”, “broken” and “malice” and noses that sometimes “gush out with blood”. The writer is so absorbed by his own message that he uses both Latinate (“homicide”) and Anglo-Saxon (“murther” which is today’s “murder”) vocabulary to highlight his point to a degree of a tone closer to that of a caricature than a Sermon or “Anatomy”, as one must bear in mind that he is merely describing football, not a battlefield as it would seem. The author also repeats the word “sometimes” numerous times to list all the downfalls of football in a convincing, self-assured manner.
Whilst the hyperbolic lexis of Text B escalates the effect of violence, some words within it are used to contrast this with the “higher” things in life closely tied in with religion such as a proper noun “Lord”, to whom this text is addressed at the first sentence is actually imperative, and an abstract noun “godliness” or “godlinesse”. The grammar of text B is fairly typical of the text of its time, including numerous archaisms such as “lye” and “waight”, that was written under the influence of the transition from Middle English and Modern English of today. A lack of a standardized system of spelling led to orthographical anomalies such as a change in the spelling of a word throughout one piece of text (The verb “withdraw” and it’s sister “withdrawest” created by adding an inflection “-est”).
On the contrary, Text A is more modern and looks much more like something that could have possibly been written just last year. It is orthographically standard. One giveaway is, however, that the players use a “bladder” as opposed to a football ball to play the game. Lexical fields are also not so powerful and denotative. Whilst the text is commenting on the same religious issue, it is contained within an anecdote. The overall tone suggests that the writer is in a mood that of amused observation, whilst being fairly dispassionate both about the subject of religious opposition to playing games on a Sunday and football in general. He does, however, comment that it was a “great play”, a noun phrase where the adjective “great” denotes enjoyment, and the football would be “flying again” after the incident with the Vicar. A colloquialism “young fellows” is fairly casual for 1873, when the text was written, but that is to be expected as the level of formality usually drops within diary entries, as is also does in Text B, although it also has to be judged within the context of its time.
Also Text A is a descriptive narrative whilst Text B is like a Sermon addressed to the “Lord”. Text B contains many more complicated sentences with numerous clauses and its mode is mixed, as it also contains several rhetoric questions, such as is the last sentence. It involves the reader by addressing and trying to persuade him or her of the author’s rightness. Purposes of Text B include informing, persuasion and eliciting particular responses whilst those of Text A include informing and entertaining.
In my opinion both authors were successful in achieving their “goals” due to the natures of the two texts. Text B is, without doubt, more impressive and creates a bigger impact by using the language it does to convey a certain opinion, whilst Text A potentially simply makes people smile and successfully conveys its opinion in that way, by engaging the audience in the emotion itself. (although its implied audience is unclear as it may have been a private diary that the author did not particularly intend to publish). I mainly used Semantic and Lexical frameworks in order to analyze the two text and found the exploration of lexical fields particularly telling and useful in this analysis.