Language Analysis

Language Analysis
David James' article 'Mobile Concerns' sheds a light on the current situation of mobile phone use in vehicles, and the impact it has had on the death toll on the roads. Initially James makes it relatively clear that he is arguing against the idea of banning mobile phones and that it is responsible for majority of the accidents on our roads, it becomes increasingly more apparent towards the latter of this article how strongly James' views are through his blunt consideration of the potential law. Although this is a persuasive piece of writing, the article appears to be quite evenly weighted, assessing both sides to the controversial issue of whether or not to ban mobile phone use in vehicles all together. However, there is a slight undertone of mocking and sarcasm in the way James writes, the way he challenges the notion of banning mobile phones by posing the question 'looking at a GPS, talking to passenger, taking a sip of water or singing to a song on the radio. Are we going to ban these perfectly normal activities too?' The rhetorical question enables James to have a dig at the concept of banning mobile phones by incorporating a list of seemingly mindless activities. James' anecdote of the injured daughter and the mother caught in traffic further promote his view that it is unnecessary to completely ban mobile phone use, as he is appealing to the emotional side of the readers, making the reader question themselves and ponder on what they would do in such a situation. The use of an easily manipulated personal anecdote encourages the reader to agree with James' point of view as they have now become involved in the article in some way. Statistics are very useful when writing a persuasive piece because they are straight forward facts, no opinions are expressed through numbers. The small amount of 8-10% of accidents caused by mobile phone use are used to show that 90% of accidents are caused by other factors and that these are uncontrollable, much like mobile phones. James' appeal to the hard work of the police force saying that 'the police have a hard enough job as it is without requiring them to enforce a rule that looks simple in theory, but would be complicated in practise' also endorses his view that the concept of banning mobile technology is unnecessary and would not be accepted by society and is simultaneously able to condemn the APG by making it apparent that they would not be the ones controlling this situation, the police would be. Through a variety of literary techniques and through the use of strong emotive language James is able to finish off an article that had started out being an exploration of mobile technology in vehicles, to an article almost mocking the entire idea of banning technology.