Text B - Opening of an article from the BBC News Website
Scientists have used plant samples
collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish
potato famine.
Text C - Advice for young people on how to use Facebook safely
Looking to Login at Facebook.com? Well before you do take a moment to read our advice to help you stay safe on Facebook. There are lots of safety and privacy controls on Facebook so always use them.
Like all social networking websites, Facebook is only as good as the people using it so you might come across things which are upsetting, illegal or offensive in other ways.
If you're under 13 then Facebook's rules say you can't use the site and if you're older, Facebook warns parents they should think about supervision. After all, if you join up then you're inviting total strangers into your home!
My response
I'm grouping Texts A, B and C together because they all have the purpose to inform. Text A is a resignation letter for Burger King, aimed at the management and written by an employee. Because it's a resignation letter, it should be quite formal, and mostly the producer reflects this with the use of high-register lexis such as "tendering" and the use of letter features such as "Dear Management". However, they're obviously quite angry about their time in Burger King and want to inform their employer of how bad their time at the restaurant has been - to do this they choose adjectives such as "brutal" and "nasty" and the use of declaratives such as "I don't need or want one" create quite a confrontational tone. The text is also written in the present tense, perhaps to give a sense of immediacy; this is something shared by all three texts in this group.
Because it's on the BBC News Website, and therefore likely to be read by a wider audience, Text B is going to have a more neutral tone for its audience of mainly adults. Like Text A used the lexical field of employment in its letter, Text B uses many scientific terms to communicate and inform us around of its subject matter, such as "pathogen" and "specimens". However, it is likely that these terms would be familiar to the intended audience here, particularly as they could access the story by clicking on a website link - they have chosen to read it. It also follows the journalistic conventions of giving a clear summary of the main points in the story in that opening sentence, to make it clear for readers what the article is going to be about.
Text C, because it's written to give children information, uses simpler vocabulary such as "lots of" and "total strangers". It's aiming for a lively and informal tone here through its use of rhetorical questions "Looking to login at Facebook.com?". The use of alliteration here also helps to create a lively and entertaining feel to the advice. It uses conditionals to give clear information to its audience of children - "if you're under 13, then Facebook rules say". However, it doesn't want to appear too threatening or frightening with the information it gives, which perhaps explains the "!" at the end of the point about "total strangers".
