Sample Language Analysis

[costargh]

I have three differnt articles here on Zoos Victoria's alleged abuse and cruelty against animals; an opinion piece, an editorial and a letter to the editor.
I would appreciate if anyone could help me identify language techniques or generally help me with how to write a coherently constructed piece of prose on all three articles. All articles were published in The Age. Any help with identifying tone would also be appreciated.
I realise that articles are very long so even if it is just a few quick dot points on any number of those articles, your help will be greatly appreciated.

A team passionately dedicated to caring for its charges
Dr Helen McCracken
January 25, 2008

'ABUSE, neglect, cruelty." Those of us who care for the animals at Zoos Victoria are stunned and repulsed by the use of these terms about the lives of animals in our zoos. These are abhorrent terms to be levelled at a group of people who have devoted their lives to the care of animals and to the cause of conservation of all species and their ever-shrinking natural habitats.

For more than 145 years Zoos Victoria has been caring for and protecting wildlife. Today we care for more than 4400 animals, representing 400 species, across the three properties. Nearly 30% of these species require urgent conservation, with classifications ranging from vulnerable to extinct in the wild.

At Zoos Victoria the care and welfare of our animals is paramount. Each of us who works here is entrusted to provide the best of animal care and we are acknowledged as leaders in this field. We have developed this reputation by adopting the philosophy that we can always learn more about the best way to care for animals, and hence we aim constantly to improve this care. Every zoo keeper and veterinarian in our zoos knows that this is our mandate — we all work on developing and enhancing the animal care in our areas of responsibility. It is a fantastically refreshing place to work because everyone is passionate, dedicated and full of ideas about how to go ahead.

I have worked here as a veterinarian for 21 years and there has not been a day when I have not been challenged with a new animal conundrum — this is a complex and ever-evolving science. We have a committed team approach, vets and keepers together, to solving these conundrums because we are all equally committed to getting things right for the animals.

A keeper who sits up night after night with the world's rarest insect, vet nurses who take orphan joeys home for two-hourly feeds throughout the night, keepers who sleep overnight on hay bales in the elephant barn to ensure the new arrivals are settling in, keepers whose ingenuity and determination help us find ways to successfully medicate our diverse and challenging patients — these are my colleagues, and I am proud to work with them.

With this approach to animal care we aim to set standards, not just meet those of others. Our staff regularly present papers at professional conferences, publish our findings, hold conferences at our zoos and exchange knowledge and ideas with our Australian and international zoo colleagues daily.

Our veterinarians are regularly invited to write chapters for leading wildlife medicine textbooks and we provide a post-graduate training program for veterinarians in wildlife health care, in conjunction with Melbourne University. There have been 12 graduates of this two-year residential program — the only qualification of its type in Australia — all now working in zoo and wildlife health care in Australasia.

While we all feel targeted and offended by the accusations published by The Age, it has been devastating to have two of our animal care team specifically maligned. Their actions have been grossly misrepresented by these reports.

I would like to assure everyone that, in spite of the recent accusations, our zoos do not put money before animal welfare. Indeed, revenue raised by Zoos Victoria is ploughed into animal welfare and conservation.

We are a not-for-profit organisation — our profits are the outcomes we achieve in animal care, conservation, and education. We aim to inspire our visitors to join us in our passion for the natural world.

Life in a zoo: creature comforts or distress?
January 19, 2008

THE capture and collection of animals for human entertainment has a long history. Egyptian tombs, dating from 2500BC, have pictures of antelopes with collars on them. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia is known to have been a zookeeper. Before the term "zoo", animals in captivity in Europe were kept in menageries. Zoo came into its own when the Zoological Society of London opened an animal exhibit at Regents Park in 1828. Thirty years later, moves were afoot in Melbourne, a zoo opening at Royal Park in the early 1860s. It is one of the oldest zoos in the world.

In those early days, animals were housed in circus cages. Those cages, quite properly, have long been consigned to the rubbish bin of history, but the circus imagery, and concept, still swirls though management offices like the distant roar of an elephant.

The Age today publishes an investigation into the running of Zoos Victoria's three precincts — Melbourne, Werribee and Healesville. The articles highlight disturbing allegations of animal abuse and neglect, and focus debate on the administration, objectives and wellbeing of the creatures in care. The articles have brought to light a world where animals and humans are pulled by competing forces, where different philosophies are often difficult, and sometimes seemingly impossible, to reconcile. In this respect, the zoos of Melbourne face similar issues as zoos around the world.

One of the most intense debates is that of conservation versus entertainment. Unless a zoo is completely funded by government, which Melbourne's zoos are not, their operation depends on philanthropy, sponsorship and cash from the turnstiles. In fact, of total income, government funding has fallen from 37% in 1991 to 24% last year. The nub of the problem is expressed by former senior curator at Melbourne Zoo, Peter Stroud. "In reality, all the resources go into the human experience at the expense of the animals. That's the dilemma of zoos around the world. They all do it." He calls it the "Disney effect". The zoo's defence is that its vision is to "connect people and wildlife together".

There is no argument the state's zoos have made great advances in animal welfare during the past few decades. If wild animals are to be enclosed outside their habitats, then it is a duty of a zoo to replicate that habitat as closely, and as practically, as possible. The success of open range zoos, such as Werribee, is a good example.

However, critics point to the caged enclosures as the central weak point in what a zoo should stand for in the 21st century. Who benefits from the captivity, the human watching or the creature being watched? There is an argument that zoos are modern-day arks; that in a world where an obscene number of animals are being made extinct each year, the zoo is a haven and a breeding colony. The reality, however, is that despite several laudable successes by Zoos Victoria, few animals breed in captivity.

What then is a zoo's value? To satisfy human curiosity? To educate? To preserve? To entertain? It is all of the above. More than 1.6 million people visited Melbourne's zoos last year to see more than 400 species totalling more than 4000 animals. Zoos Victoria boasts of 61,000 "Friends" and 700 guides and volunteers who give 70,000 hours of their time to help. In last year's annual report, it was noted that the community donated $1.6 million towards the zoos. Clearly, the animals loom large in the lives of people.

However, it is an inescapable fact that an animal in a zoo is an animal out of its natural world, despite the best of intentions in trying to recreate the creature's environment. It is also inescapable that people love being able to see so closely creatures not within their world. Who hasn't laughed at the meerkats? Yet there is a universe of difference from being entertained and being ringside at a circus. It is a question of balance. As to the instances of abuse and neglect, though not systemic, they show that remedial action is needed.

Zoos and values

YOUR editorial and feature (The Age, 19/1), and the letters they provoked (The Age, 21/1), which questioned the validity of zoos, were unhelpful. When universities, their hands forced by Howard-era lack of public funding, cut costs and standards and resort to unglamorous ways of raising cash, your paper doesn't question "the value" of universities. When an abuse scandal breaks in an old-age home, nobody calls for retirees to be given their "freedom".

Zoos have a unique role as biodiversity warehouses. Your assertion that "few" animals breed in captivity is incorrect.

Zoo animal populations are almost all self-sustaining; most are growing. A year ago, Melbourne bred three Sumatran tigers. This animal will almost certainly become extinct in the wild, due partly to illegal logging in Indonesia. Are people seriously arguing the 300 zoo specimens should be "set free" there, or sterilised?

By all means, critique Victoria's zoos, and call for them to be fully government funded. But asking what "the value" of a zoo is, and fretting about denying animals their "freedom", is to dismiss a vital cog in wildlife conservation efforts, succumb to a knee-jerk reaction to an emotive incident, and give undue credence to an anthropomorphic, immature and illogical perspective on zoos.

David Fettling, Eltham

[enwiabe]

You can't ask people to do your homework for you. It's clear that this is some kind of assignment you've been given. Make an attempt at it yourself and then ask others to critique what you've done.

[costargh]

I haven't asked anyone to do my homework for me. I have asked for people to do some dot points on the language techniques used. If they choose to do that then I am grateful, if they do not wish to do that then that is their own choice.

Btw it is not homework.

At the moment I am identifying language techniques prior to writing up a language analysis. If people choose to "help" me then it I am grateful. Isn't this one of the fundamental aspirations of this site? For people to help others?

I haven't asked anyone to write a language analysis for me.

[bucket]

I need practice with analysis so I analysed one of these samples, can someone look over it and tell me if I did okay, and possibly give me some tips?
I scanned it as an image, it's only 500kb.

thanks to anyone who helps

[enwiabe]

I haven't asked anyone to do my homework for me. I have asked for people to do some dot points on the language techniques used. If they choose to do that then I am grateful, if they do not wish to do that then that is their own choice.

Btw it is not homework.

At the moment I am identifying language techniques prior to writing up a language analysis. If people choose to "help" me then it I am grateful. Isn't this one of the fundamental aspirations of this site? For people to help others?

I haven't asked anyone to write a language analysis for me.

Help others. Not do the work for them. You make an attempt, you try to identify the language techniques, and then we'll tell you if you're on the right track and tell you if there's anything you've missed. But it's NOT fair to give a person 3 articles and say "take a chunk out of your day and do this FOR me". Otherwise you're just being a taker. You've got to give a little first.

[costargh]

I haven't asked anyone to do my homework for me. I have asked for people to do some dot points on the language techniques used. If they choose to do that then I am grateful, if they do not wish to do that then that is their own choice.

Btw it is not homework.


At the moment I am identifying language techniques prior to writing up a language analysis. If people choose to "help" me then it I am grateful. Isn't this one of the fundamental aspirations of this site? For people to help others?

I haven't asked anyone to write a language analysis for me.

Help others. Not do the work for them. You make an attempt, you try to identify the language techniques, and then we'll tell you if you're on the right track and tell you if there's anything you've missed. But it's NOT fair to give a person 3 articles and say "take a chunk out of your day and do this FOR me". Otherwise you're just being a taker. You've got to give a little first.

Dude.

I realise that articles are very long so even if it is just a few quick dot points on any number of those articles, your help will be greatly appreciated.

You are making a false claim that I have asked people to do the work for me and that I am asking people to "take a chunk out of their day and do this FOR me".

I have made an attempt. I am not saying what I have written purely because I don't want peolpe thinking on the same lines as I am (corrupting their pure train of thought). Thus once I get some thoughts, I will start discussing me own ideas.

If you wish to continue this PM me but I won't respond back in here anymore

[enwiabe]

Sigh... More than likely, somebody will feel sorry for you and point you in the right direction. They will essentially spoonfeed you what you need without your having done an iota of work. I'm going to impugn "I am not saying what I have written purely because I don't want peolpe thinking on the same lines as I am (corrupting their pure train of thought). Thus once I get some thoughts, I will start discussing me own ideas." as bs, because it's common knowledge that you only learn through making mistakes. Only through seeing where you're going wrong can you truly be helped.

Consider this: If somebody TELLS you what language techniques they've found without you even trying to find them yourself, how sure are you that you'll be able to spot them when they come up more subtly in another piece? Having someone spot the techniques for you, as well as getting them to do all your work also inhibits your ability to independently learn how to identify said techniques in the future.

Since you won't reply, I'm hoping that the people reading this will not waste their time on these pieces until Costargh shows that he's also made an effort. The point of VCENotes is to help, not to spoonfeed.

[neophyte]

I don't think your focus should be identifying techniques and tone in order to label these things as such, but rather analysing the ways in which language is used to persuade the reader, to affect his/her belief system. This is ideally accomplished by quoting the relevant phrases and extrapolating them in an insightful manner.

If anyone chooses to write an analysis, in the form of a coherently structured piece of prose, I am happy to review it (but not produce it).