Online newspaper accounts reporting on tennis player Maria Sharapova’s failed drugs test in early 2016.


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Online newspaper accounts reporting on tennis player Maria Sharapova’s failed drugs test in early 2016.


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Step 1: Reading the texts Read the two texts that are presented at the end of this TMA. The texts are online newspaper accounts reporting on tennis player Maria Sharapova’s failed drugs test in early 2016. One is taken from The Guardian and the other from The Mirror. Your assignment is to write a linguistic comparison of the two texts of 1000 words which evidences and explains the different ways in which the two newspapers represent this event. Note that you do not need to write anything for this step. Step 2: Making initial notes about the texts Make some notes on what you notice about the texts and how they differ in terms of the way in which they represent the same event. This will provide you with a set of questions or hypotheses which you can explore using the corpus data. You will not be assessed on this step and you should not include your notes in your submission. Step 3: Analysing the texts Analyse the texts, focusing on some lexicogrammatical choices relating to field. The clause boundaries have been set out for you in both texts. || indicates a boundary for an independent or dependent clause; [[…]] indicate embedded clause boundaries; and > indicate interrupting clause boundaries. Please note that there is inevitably some variation in how grammarians analyse clauses, so don’t worry if you would have made slightly different choices (for the purposes of this TMA you should follow the clause analysis provided). Below are some suggestions as to what you might want to focus on, but you can look at other features you feel are relevant or significant: process types participant types voice (i.e. passive/active) noun groups choice of lexis circumstance types noun groups …. It will help you demonstrate knowledge and skills in grammatical analysis if you use colour-coding or another kind of annotation system to mark up the texts. Step 4: Writing up your interpretation Drawing on the parts of your analysis that you find most illuminating, write a report in a word document of up to 1000 words (not including the appendix) on what the analysis reveals about the main similarities and differences between the two texts. Relate your discussion where possible to the context of the texts as this relates to the register variable of field (that is, the topic being discussed, how it is being represented, and why). Your interpretations must relate to your analysis. For instance, if you have focused on the choice between active/passive voice and process types, you will discuss the effects of these choices. See the assessment preparation guidance for how to use lexicogrammatical data to construct an argument. You should write up to 1000 words. Step 5: Including data as appendices in your TMA The marked-up texts should be included in appendices at the end of the assignment. The marked-up texts do not count towards the assignment word limit. You should also display your analysis in tables in the appendices. You are limited to including no more than FIVE tables, so you will need to be selective in the data that you include. Make sure that you select the data that relates to and supports your interpretation (Step 3). You should include examples from the appendices in your interpretation to support and evidence the specific points you are making. You should then refer the reader to the relevant appendix (e.g. ‘See Appendix 2’) so that they can see the examples in context. You may also use small tables in the assignment itself to give specific examples from your data, but these should be kept to a minimum. We suggest no more than five. Remember that multiple tables can be difficult to refer to and will need to be numbered in order to avoid confusion. Note that the word count of any tables in the assignment itself counts towards the overall word limit. If you include too much data, this will detract from your ability to put together a clear and convincing interpretation.