Functional Styles. Афанасьева Н.Р - 36 стр.

            From The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy                             FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY
                                                                                   Choose an entry from an encyclopaedia and make up a story
      By Douglas Adams
                                                                            or a piece of drama based on the entry. Present your work to the
       Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of      class. As a class discuss the differences and the stylistic value of the
the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.    pieces you have written.
       Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is
an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose apedescended life         APPENDICES
forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches
                                                                                            Argumentative vs. Persuasive Writing
are a pretty neat idea.
       This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this:                One should be aware of the differences between argumentative
most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.          and persuasive writing, as they have different spheres of use and em-
Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these           ploy different means, though sometimes they have similar or identical
were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of          goals – usually to convince you that you should change your opinions
paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green          and actions. In argumentative writing, authors try to win readers' as-
pieces of paper that were unhappy.                                          sent or agreement by proving a logical case. In persuasive writing,
       And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and       they try to win that assent by moving readers toward emotional or
most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
                                                                            ethical agreement with their position.
       Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big
                                                                                   Argumentative writing is a very general name used to describe
mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some
                                                                            different texts that have one common feature – the message is con-
said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should
                                                                            veyed to the reader through argumentation.
ever have left the oceans.
                                                                                   With arguments the author attempts to show the certainty or
       And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one
man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be        prove the validity of his claims. He can argue for the validity of his
nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe    assertions, or he can argue against others' claims, but in either situation
in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going          he takes a position and tries to defend it. He tries to build a case that
wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made       seems logically undeniable.
a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no              Whether the author defends his/her own position or attacks an-
one would have to get nailed to anything.                                   other, however, the goal is to convince the readers, not to turn them
       Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone       away. His assertion must be limited or qualified, able to be reasonably
about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost     supported – not sweeping, unlimited generalities that no one will take
forever.                                                                    seriously.
                                                                                   Types of argumentation may include, but are not limited to the
     2. Skim the texts and find all differences in the factual infor-       following:
mation. Which variant is nearer the truth and more informative?                    1. Logical reasoning usually has the form “if p then q”
Why? Which information is more likely to be remembered? Why?

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