Hi James, Could You Let Me Know Language Analysis

This highly informal, written conversation on Facebook messenger is between two cousins, James and Natalie, with the audience being each other. The function of the text is to arrange and discuss Christmas plans and to intend to see one another. The informal register reflects and supports the social purpose to consolidate their relationship and familiarity. The jovial and relaxed tone also shows their close relationship.
The primary function of this text is to inform each other about their personal lives, Christmas and wedding attendance. This is initiated by Natalie when she uses the interrogative ‘Hi James, could you let me know…’ (part 1) to seek information from James so she is able to send her Christmas cards. The use of declaratives throughout the text, such as ‘my address is the same…’ supports the informative function by providing an response to Natalie’s previous message. The secondary function is to express their feelings demonstrated by the declarative sentence ‘merry xmas to you and the crew…’ (part 4) which …show more content…
The author employs the normal conventions of a message, for example ‘hi’, ‘bye’, and ‘cya’, to greet each other and then end with a farewell. The incorporation of inferences support the social purpose by showing their close relationship but also adds to the coherence of the whole. For example, Natalie and James both identify the inference of the proper noun ‘Mackay’ (part 2) to describe where Chantal arrived and demonstrates a common understanding between both interlocutors. Furthermore, the use of the elements from the same semantic field of family and holidays such as ‘chrissy’, ‘boxing day’, ‘merry’, ‘celebrations’ contributes to the text’s cohesion. The use of anaphoric referencing in part 2 where ‘her’ replaces ‘mum’ allows James to avoid unnecessary repetition since it was previously