Choose a media release from the Premier’s office: https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/
“Victoria’s Big Build On The Hunt For Best And Brightest” 23 February 2023
Formal Linguistic Features
The Media Adviser uses the Victorian Government’s alliterative slogan, “Victoria’s Big Build”, to encourage university graduates register for the “Big Build Graduate Program”. To further reinforce the situational context, the title also establishes an upbeat tone . It consists of personification and superlative adjectives – the “Big Build on The Hunt for Best and Brightest” – to reach out to “Graduates” and to give them the impression that it is a singular and spectacular career move.
Throughout the Media Release and to reinforce the formal register, the Adviser uses a range of compound and complex sentence structures to fulfil the informative and persuasive function of the text. Further, the Adviser uses a string of proper nouns, “Level Crossing Removal Project”; “Major Road Projects Victoria” etc. to give Graduates an appreciation of the depth and breadth of the work. Workplace. This depth is also reinforced by the list of (noun) “job specialities” categories which offer opportunities for employment: “engineering, graphic design, human resources, information systems..”
The use of contractions – “they’ll develop technical skills” – and the second person pronoun address to Graduates – “you” as in “If you have completed a master’s degree” — lowers the social distance in a bid to appeal to a generation of students who are set to embark on their careers.
The Advisor also uses the domain field of employment and employment-related jargon to impart information about the “structured learning and development opportunities”. Adjectival compounds such as “first-hand experience” and “state-shaping projects” also qualify the experience and the nature of the work required, while adverbs, “quickly” and “safely” describe the purpose of the projects.
From a discourse perspective, the adviser uses numerical statistics to refer to the scheme’s popularity in 2022 – “more than 1,600 graduates applied” – which encourages 2023 graduates to be part of next year’s cohort.
The use of the passive voice places emphasis on the deadline, emphasising the urgency of the application – Graduates must be “due to graduate by January 2024”.
Imperative sentence – “find out more about the program” – has an insistent tone and is used to encourage graduates to register for what might be career-defining move.
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