Verbal Language Analysis

Name:

Date:

Part 1: Multiple Choice & Matching

WALT: We Are Learning To outline context, identify verbal language features and explain their effect.

Success criteria: I can name the context, select verbal features from short extracts, and match features to examples from the speech.

1. Who is the speaker and what is the context of this speech?

Greta Thunberg at a school assembly

Greta Thunberg addressing the United Nations Global Climate Action Summit, 23/09/2019

An anonymous scientist at a press conference

2. The phrase "How dare you!" functions primarily as:

A calm factual statement

Emotive direct address and accusation

A statistical claim

3. Check all features present in this short extract: "People are suffering. People are dying."

Repetition

Inclusive language

Emotive language

Contrast / juxtaposition

4. Match each verbal feature (left) with the best example from the speech (right). Draw lines between matching items.

A. Repetition

B. Statistics blended with emotion

C. Direct address

D. Strong verbs

1. "How dare you!"

2. "The world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left..."

3. "People are suffering. People are dying."

4. "You are failing us."

Part 2: Short Answer Analysis

WALT: We Are Learning To give specific examples of verbal language, consider characteristics, and explain why and how language is used.

Success criteria: I can quote three examples, explain their characteristics, and justify the effect on the audience. Advanced learners will create a short spoken response using multiple features.

5. Outline the context in one or two sentences: Who is speaking, where and when, and what is the purpose of the speech?

6. Give three specific quotations from the transcript that show different verbal language features. For each quote, name the feature (e.g., emotive language, repetition). IN YOUR RED WORKBOOKS

7. Choose one quote from Q6. Explain (a) the characteristics of the verbal language used and (b) why the speaker uses it in this context (audience, purpose, effect). IN YOUR RED WORKBOOKS

8. The speaker uses statistics (e.g., "50%", "420 gigatons", "less than 350 gigatons"). Explain how statistics are blended with emotion in the speech and why this combination strengthens the social commentary.

9. In one paragraph, write how effective the verbal language is for the intended audience. Include comment on direct address, urgency, and call to action. IN YOUR RED WORKBOOKS

Extension activity (advanced learners): Write a 2–3 line spoken reply a world leader might say in response. Use at least three verbal features from the list (underline or note them).

Greta Thunberg: "How Dare You"

Greta Thunberg — United Nations Global Climate Action Summit, 23/09/2019

This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money, and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you're doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe. The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees (Celsius) and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control. Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us – we who have to live with the consequences. To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on 1/1/2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just "business as usual" and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than eight and a half years. There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not. Thank you.