Text A, And Text B, By Maryam Garba

In a globalized world as the one we leave nowadays, being aware of the cultural diversity is essential. Text A is an essay written by an African girl embedded in an African culture published in 2014, while text B is an article published by the Encyclopedia Britannica during the 21st century. Both texts deals share the theme of Hausa culture, however, text A does it in a more reflective and personal way by explaining her own understanding of identity, while text C is more straightforward and informative about the different aspects of this culture. As mentioned before, text A is an essay embedded on an African blog, written by Maryam Garba who is a Nigerian who studied on Harvard University, which targets mainly at African adults or
This contrasts with the detached and informative tone used in text B through the use of the third person in: “they”, “is aided”, “Hausa society was” and “Hausas economy”, as their aim is only to provide straightforward information. Here is shown how they provide similar information but from different perspectives, one is written by a person who knows the culture, and text B is written from a person from outside in a subjective way, which adds up to the purpose of both texts. Furthermore, probably Garba decided to post this essay on a blog as it is more personal, this tone is also portrayed in the heading “About the writer”. As mentioned previously, text A also shows a reflective tone, which also adds up to the purpose of making the reader think about the meaning of identity, this is emphasized through the rhetorical questions: “Are you…?” or “Do
The dark blue color of the bar line of the web page, suggest trust and sophistication, which adds to the informative tone of the text. Besides, the “cite” square shows the formality of the article. Also, the short headline, “Hausa” is straightforward and anticipates that data will be concise. The different paragraphs explain different aspects of the Hausa culture, adding to that tone too. As the main purpose is to inform, the editor used a semantic field of political facts :”feudal basis”, “ruler(emir)”, “titled office holders”, “records”, “administration” and “bureaucracy”, another of economic facts: “cultivation”, “craft specializations”, “trading”, “markets” and “vendors”. As well as a semantic field of social aspects “population”, “hierarchical”, “ranking”, “social classes” and “dominated”. Text B could be considered an irony of text A, as a person who was born in that place and who have contact with the rest of the world would know much more of the culture than a person who only provides factual information. This idea of “bureaucracy”,“dominated” and “etiquette” is one of the points that the writer wants the audience to reflect on: “questions cause us to feels that we belong to one bounded category and are excluded by another.” The opposition between “etiquette” in text A and “questions about identity and diversity should allow an individual