Mood

Language is fluid and always changing. It doesn't take much time for something new to be introduced that eventually worms its way into everyone's understanding. One example, which I just learned the other day, is the use of the term "mood" in a conversation. Let's set up the scene.

I work at Menards as a carryout and so as I was walking my way outside after bringing in some carts, two other employees from the Building Materials department stopped me saying, "Hey Tommy, you're an English Major, come over here and help us out." Naturally curious, I walked over to see what's up. They started by asking me what mood is defined as: a noun, an adjective, etc. I claimed that "mood" is a noun because it is a thing that people feel. What type of mood turns into an adjective or descriptor, at least in my opinion. I inquired further about this topic and what brought it up, which the two humans responded with this scenario:

"I've been texting this girl lately and so I sent her a video of me at work saying 'it's a slow day so I may as well watch some fantasy football' which she responds with 'mood.'"

So the issue here was that this Menards human had no idea what mood meant in this context. Was she saying that she was in a mood? Or was there something wrong with the video? The three of us couldn't figure it out until we asked a younger person than us. They informed us of how "mood" is short for saying "I'm in the same mood." For example, if you see an image of a bubble bath and you're in the mood for a bubble bath you would say "mood" to signify that you could go for a bubble bath.

I'm not sure how long this use of the word "mood" has been around, but I find it fascinating on the lengths we will go to shorten an already short phrase into something even shorter. Are we being lazy? Is it really that difficult to extend the phrase out a little bit? Will the future consist of three word sentences with three words being the maximum that you can use? These are the questions that are running through my head now.

dBrand's Use of Language

dBrand is a rising company that has flourished in the new age of phones. With glass becoming a popular material on the back of expensive smart phones, people want to make sure that material doesn't get scratched or become damaged because fixing that is also very expensive. So this company produces skins that are applied to the phone to protect it from scratches that we run into every day. This company has a very interesting tactic, however. 

If you check out dBrand's social media accounts, you'll find many fans. Dig a little deeper and you'll find some posts from dBrand themselves but the content in those posts is slightly less conventional than other companies. Rather than playing nice and being civil on their social media accounts, dBrand can be ruthless. Posts with vulgar language, problematic statements, and other customer throw outs. What's interesting about this tactic is that most people would be horrified at this kind of post, yet there are thousands of followers that love this kind of content and actively support the company for their posts as well as the way they handle customer service.

I think this company is able to continue on because its target audience is younger people who love this kind of reaction from companies. Older generations are used to companies bowing down to every complaint while I believe younger generations tolerate it a little more. The above image is an example of a fan of the company actually asking for this kind of treatment. dBrand does this that are out of the ordinary compared to other companies and for some reason their fan base is large enough where they can get away with such vulgar language.

Audience Paired with Writing

After reading this article and completing the first draft of my self-analysis project, I can definitely attest to the idea that audience influences the way you write. When you look at the purpose of writing, it’s clear that someone will be reading that piece of writing someday. Even if no one does and you’re the one that revisits that piece of writing, you’ve just written something for an audience. So really, there’s no such thing as writing with no audience; even when you journal.

How does audience affect your writing, though? I’m going to use the journal style to try to explain my thinking on that. When I write in my journal, it’s typically about private things that I need to get off of my chest but don’t want to tell anyone about. If that’s the case, then it would seem as if I’m writing without an audience in mind. Yet, when I write in my journal, I find that I am actually formatting my entries to not be too revealing or have something that I wouldn’t want someone else to read later because even though this journal is private and I wouldn’t willingly show it to anyone, the fact is that eventually I will not be around to safe guard it and someone will read it one day. Whether that be future generations of my family, a random stranger, etc., someone will read that journal; hence an audience.

So even my private journal can’t be private because I know that eventually someone will read it. That goes for everything that goes down on paper or onto a document. It might be difficult to find or access, but someone will be reading it. Think of Shakespeare or the even the Bible. Those are two examples of ancient text that still exists today, and people are reading it, interpreting, and revolving their lives around it. An audience extends far further than many might think and so it definitely will affect how you write; whether that be the style of your writing, the content of your writing, or even the quantity of your writing.

This definitely shows in the documents that I analyzed for my project. Each paper had a different audience and you could see that in my tone, length, etc. It also affected how much time I put into each assignment. The website took longer than the essays because it was something many other people might use so I wanted it to be the best that it could be. The essays were for a grade, yet I wanted to impress the professor, so my style and organization changed. Audience has everything to do with writing because that is why we write: for other people to read it.

Academic Discourse

The main point of this article seems to be about how we change the way we communicate based on the environment or context we are placed in. David Bartholomae specifically looked at college entry essays from students who were still in high school and analyzed the way they responded to questions about creativity and what it means to them. Each of the 500+ essays Bartholomae had to analyze had a different approach to answering the question and it went beyond what the answer was specific to how they approached the answer.

Bartholomae discussed one of the essential points of writing for a writer is “building bridges” between their point of view and their readers (Bartholomae, 9). It’s essential because if a writer is to answer a question for someone, the reader must be able to understand what the writer is trying to say. It also helps develop authority for the writer by showing the reader that they know what they are talking about. It’s almost like developing a line of credit for the writer so that the reader doesn’t dismiss the idea all together.

Each bridge has different needs, however. The writers, in these cases, are writing for a broad audience (colleges) and so they have to be able to fit a lot of needs into their writing in order to impress said audience. Bartholomae, for example, wasn’t looking for the typical structure in writing to determine if these students were worthy of college acceptance, rather he “was looking to see what happened when a writer entered into a language to locate himself (a textual self) and his subject,” and he was “looking to see how, once entered, that language made or unmade a writer” (Bartholomae, 12). It’s difficult to know what your audience wants to see in your writing, so most writers have to take a broad stance and try to hit everything at once, which is kind of what these college students were doing in their essays.

After going through this reading, my understanding of academic discourse is that it is how we change our tone in writing to match the academic atmosphere we are in. For example, if I am writing for an English course, I will write my opinion in and discuss it where as a history paper would be strict facts without using the pronoun ‘I’ throughout the paper. My style and tone change based on the audience for which I am writing and think that is what Bartholomae finds in academic discourse.