Summary
Highlights
The speaker emphasizes that vocabulary choice is primarily determined by understanding the primary and secondary audiences. It's crucial to identify the text's purpose and primary audience before analyzing vocabulary, as language choices are tailored to audience expectations. Examples like a lawyer speaking to other lawyers or a chef to their audience illustrate this point.
The core question for analysis is: 'Is the vocabulary effective, given the primary audience and their expectations?' To answer this, the speaker needs to first articulate who the primary audience for 'The Herbivorous Butcher' Kickstarter project is, as the project's purpose is to gain backers and visibility.
The speaker argues that the primary audience is not just existing vegans but also herbivores, omnivores, and even self-proclaimed carnivores. The marketing uses terms familiar to meat-eaters (e.g., 'deli bologna') while highlighting health benefits, appealing to those unfamiliar with meat-free options but persuadable to try them. The claim is that the primary audience consists of 'those who might not be informed about the benefits of their meat-free meat and yet could be persuaded to give their product a try.'
The speaker provides a template for constructing a vocabulary claim: 'Given that the primary audience is comprised of [description of primary audience], the vocabulary is effective in that it [describes what the vocabulary achieves].' This structure re-emphasizes the audience and links it directly to the vocabulary's efficacy.
The speaker then searches the Kickstarter project for evidence that supports the claim about educating reluctant consumers. Key phrases include descriptions of 'complex and flavorful products' that satisfy all types of eaters and the founder's background in creating 'deliciously deceiving meat-free meats' coming from a meat-rich culture. This vocabulary is designed to persuade those who might be skeptical.
The selected evidence is integrated into the paragraph, demonstrating how specific phrases from the project serve to educate and attract the identified primary audience. The speaker shows how to weave quoted text into the analysis, explaining that the focus is on the language itself, not its visual presentation (like bullet points), unless the presentation is also relevant to the analysis. The process concludes with the importance of explanation and a closing statement, following standard analytical writing structure.