Bishops Waltham Action Group Leaflet

The primary audience of this text would be residents of Bishops Waltham, as it is their opinion which will be listened to when deciding whether the Sainsbury's should be built. The way this leaflet is written as a letter shows a formal address of the person, for example the letter starts, 'Dear Resident', which will make the reader feel as though the letter/leaflet is aimed just at them. It's purpose, to persuade the residents to vote against the construction of the superstore, is clear from the very first paragraph; the letter is stating why the letter is being written. This immediately makes the reader aware of the situation, and they will play closer attention to the letter, as they want to know why they should vote against it. The letter sustains a high register, as to sound important and professional; if the letter was written using a low register, it would not sound very impressive, therefore a high register will make the reader take the letter seriously.

In the top left of the page, is the logo for Bishops Waltham Action Group. A logo makes the page look well thought out, professional and respectable. Also, the human eye is trained to read from the top left corner of a page, so this is likely to be the first thing that the reader will see, making it more rememberable. This is important because the group will want the reader to contact them or be involved in their cause, and the audience must know their name to do so.

The writer uses a lot of words in the same semantic field as war, to make the problem seem as bad as, if not worse, than war. For example, the use of 'juggernaut' implies that the corporation is big, powerful and impossible to take down. Also, the word 'destroy' is used, saying that a new Sainsbury's will 'destroy' the town. This is obviously exaggerated, but in persuasive texts emotive language is used to make the reader worried about the consequences if they do not follow what the writer wants them to do, in this case they do not want to be held responsible for allowing the store to destroy their town.

This is a leaflet which is written in the style of a letter, and uses features of both. The features of a leaflet used are persuasive text, images and logos. These are used in order to gain the attention of the reader and to get them on board with the cause. An example of persuasive language is in paragraph four, where the text is all about the negative impact the superstore will have on the area. The features of a letter used are the start, where it says 'Dear Resident' as well as where the recipient can reply to. This makes the organisation easy to contact, which is important for an action group as people need to know this if they are to be involved.

This piece uses a lot of modal verbs which are fairly certain. For example, 'the superstore will destroy the vitality or viability of Bishops Waltham'. This implies that there is no doubt that this will definitely happen. This is obviously a bad thing, and the reader cannot assume that anything else will happen, so they do not want to risk this outcome.