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Write an analysis on one of the following texts.

Include comments on the significance of


context, audience, purpose and formal and stylistic features.

Comment on the way the author combines the scientific and the literary

In what ways would the author’s structure and style appeal to the target audience?

This text shows the emotional aspect of science. The author, Gavin Francis, tries to link both
medical practices and music. He has done this through the London Review of Books magazine
the 6th of March 2014. The London Review of Books is a literary magazine that contains book
reviews and topical articles on specific topics like politics, history, science and the arts. In this
way, they are able to reach people with very different tastes that are interested in learning.
The target audience for this magazine are British educated people of all ages and the article
has been therefore selected to appeal to their interests. The article covers a range of subjects
like history, science, the arts (music) and emotion. Through the use of ethos, polysemy and
music-related semantic field, we see that Francis uses language to combine both the scientific
and the literary and appeal to the target audience.

The article starts by making a reference to the past setting the audience into historical context
to introduce the topic, he does this by describing the way in which physicians used to listen the
heart “before stethoscopes were invented”, he explains this in great detail including emotions.
The next paragraph begins to have a more technical scientific description, in it, he uses
extended metaphors like “just as a river flooding through a narrow canyon can be deafening,
turbulence within the heart generates noise”. He uses these techniques to appeal to the
audience to make it easier to understand and therefore reach more readers. Then, it zooms
into the heart noises and explains how it works in a scientific manner. To conclude, he uses a
personal anecdote about a pregnant woman that came to his clinic to connect more with the
audience

Francis uses ethos in order to represent credibility and be more persuasive. He does this
various times in the article by making sure everyone knows he is a doctor and referring to his
“clinic” making it obvious he is a professional and making sure he is taken seriously even if
some may think he is contradicting himself by talking about emotions in science. This also
connects him more to the audience since some of them might be students studying medicine.
Seeing he talks about emotions and personal experience might make those students want to
become a doctor even more making the persuasion a success.

In the article, he also uses the polysemic noun “heart” that is a symbol of emotion and feelings
as well as an important organ that is keeping us alive. The fact that the article is centred on the
heart makes the point stronger by showing the emotions that interact with all subjects and
that not everything is automatic and cold. This also shows that he is trying to express what he
feels when working and how important his job is for him because he personally enjoys the
natural beauty of science.

Finally, he uses words in the semantic field of music like “an allegro played over an adagio” as
well as using them in similes to make sure the audience can relate to something they are
familiar with or know about, an example of this is “like an old-fashioned ear trumpet

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