Comparative Commentary Accumulative

English A2 – Higher Level – Paper 1
Felipe Behlok
Comparative Commentary Accumulative

The two texts, “chapter one: the parent’s part” (text 1a), an extract from Dr Spock’s Baby and Child care written by Benjamin Spock in 1945 and a segment from the novel “The way of all flesh” (text 1b) by Samuel Butler and written in 1888, have both many similarities and differences regarding to the theme, structure, tone and imaginary devices that help both authors communicate their purposes to their audiences.
In regards to the theme, text 1(a) talks about how the man is always ready to have a baby and sometimes just needs to follow he’s own parental instinct. He also suggests not to be “afraid to trust your own common sense” in matters of taking care of the baby. The author of text 1(a) also says that “you know more than you think you do” and that doctors are not always right. The intentions of this text is to inform future parents who might be having trouble with life changing decisions like having a baby and who probably are looking for some help regarding to the arrival of their future sons. Text 1(b) has about the same theme but it’s written in a different style. The extract is about a person who dislikes children ever since “the birth of his son”. He explains that babies should be “born into the world grown up” or if you could buy “ready-made children” from a shop. This text is intended for a young or adult age group, people with certain knowledge about like and with some sort of experience about life. Although this texts main purpose is to entertain people and show the authors point of view about the whole baby thing.
The structure in both texts is different. On the one hand, text 1(a) spins around two arguments that that divides the text in two parts, the first one is called “you know more than you thing you do” and it gives a brief introduction about usual misunderstandings about raising a baby. The second part of the text is called “how to learn to be a parent”. These divisions help the author achieve its purpose that is to inform the audience in a fast and easy way for them to understand and giving it this form of guide step by step text it’s easier to understand, the title says “Trust Yourself”. Also, this text has a title that introduces the text making it much more accurate and straight to the point. On the other hand, text 1(b) uses a novel, monologue style that makes the audience a much more entertaining way of reading but more difficult to understand. The author just goes around the life of one character that is having an inner monologue about babies and how he hates them.
The tone in text 1(a) has a very professional and sophisticated tone that makes the reader feel confident and gives the author some authority that shows the audience he can be trusted. By mixing this with some kind of a familiar/colloquial tone, the author is also making the reader feel comfortable while reading the text because it gives the impression as if you where talking with a friend and not to a doctor or psychologist. The author also talks in first person that gives the text a very conversational atmosphere, also by repeating words such as “you” for example in the title “Trust Yourself” and in many other parts of the text. Text 1(b) has a familiar tone; the author is making a critique as if he was talking to itself, as said before in a monologue kind of way. He uses mainly a sarcastic and cynical tone that give the text some kind of jokey style also because the arguments that he proposes are just absurd, for example having “full grown children”. This tone achieves the purpose of the text that is to entertain people.
Passing on to the diction, text 1(a) uses a very simple, every-day language and that way the author can make the audience understand easier the text and also lowers the intellectual level needed for the audience to understand the text by using words such as “dipper” or “burp” to achieve said purpose. In text 1(b), the author uses almost the same informal language as text 1(a) for the same purpose as last text, although this text is trying to entertain people and not to inform them.
In conclusion, tests A and B have more similarities than differences regarding the theme, structure, tone and diction. But they still have some differences that make both texts very different in style between them. Although babies are the future of the world, some people may find them good and cute, but others can find them as an annoying-crapping-crying diabolical creature that will ruin your like. I guess those people might have a baby someday and completely change their minds.