Language Power
The text is an extract that was published by Amnesty international aiming to persuade the readers to donate money or join the campaign through signing a card to convey the seriousness of their message.
The text can be divided within two halves, the first half of the text is extremely informative and the producer is conveying the seriousness of the information that is presented through the story of Sonya. Whereas the second half of the text is about what the receiver can do to minimise individuals experiencing the same ordeals as Sonya did.
The use of Sonya's story is extremely helpful in turning the vertical distance between the producer and the receiver into more horizontal distance. This is because the receiver is more likely to empathise with the information if a narrative is used as it allows for an emotional connection. This suggests that the producer was concerned more with social orientation than message orientation in the first half of the text, inferring that the producer cares about their relationship with the receiver.
This text has a lot of influential power as the purpose of the text is to persuade the receiver to join the cause against human trafficking. Emotive lexis such as "suffering", "unacceptable" and "unimaginable" all depicts a picture of those in need in turn persuading you to help however you can. Alongside this the statistics used as well as the specialist lexis such as "trafficked", "exploitation" and "criminals" all fit in to the semantic field of crime, which suggests the seriousness of the information and in turn gives both knowledge and authoritive power to the producer.
The inclusive second person pronoun "you" is very effective and is typical of a text that has a purpose to persuade. If the receiver feels included then they are more likely to act upon what is being asked of them as they feel like they are already involved in the campaign. A powerful aspect of the text is that it is split into two halves suggesting that they want the receiver to gain the knowledge and then they want the receiver to act, and in turn so the receiver does act upon what the producer has informed them on they leave what the receiver is required to do until the last few