Essay

WTO Comparative Commentary The two Internet articles, the World Trade Organization's Building Trade Capacity (Text A) and War on Want's Trade and the WTO both discuss the WTO's involvement in developing countries´ economic activities. However, they show opposite views on this issue. As such, even though both texts are divided into three sections, their use of stylistic devices is contrastingly different. Text A uses an informative tone, concrete diction, scarce imagery, and hyperlinks to fulfill its purpose of describing the WTO's efforts to build trade capacity and conclude that building trade capacity leads to economic growth. Text B makes use of melancholic, aggressive and assertive tones, emotional language, vivid imagery and quotes from experts to convince readers that the WTO's free trade model is actually hurting underdeveloped countries. The purpose of text A is explicitly shown explicitly at the beginning of the article by stating that "This page describes the efforts made by WTO to meet their special needs by building ´trade capacity´ to enable them to trade more effectively." From the content of the text, its descriptions on how the WTO is helping countries progress through building trade capacity, the theme can be inferred to be that building trade capacity leads to economic growth. The text's informative nature makes it suitable for general audiences. Contrastingly, text B does not explicitly state its purpose, though it is easily discernible from the very beginning in the sentence "The WTO’s 'free trade' model poses a deadly threat to poor communities in developing countries": to convince readers that the WTO is actually hurting developing countries. Through this, the text's theme can be deduced to be that free trade expands poverty in underdeveloped countries. Also, unlike text A, this article emphasizes on the UK: phrases such as "The UK is working hard with its EU partners…" and "In the UK, War on Want is an active member of the Trade Justice Movement…" clearly show this geographical point of view. Thus, the intended audience of text B is a British one. Text A is divided into three sections, each with its own heading and content. "Introduction" explains why and how the WTO is helping developing countries. "Why is building trade capacity important'" explains the importance and types of trade capacity. "The mandate" shows how the WTO's helping build trade capacity has been made mandatory. The tone is mostly the same in each section, informative, with the purpose of describing and explaining in mind. Text B also has three sections, but unlike the other article, each section has its own theme. "The ´free trade´ threat" uses a melancholic tone to generate compassion towards developing countries. "Turning up the heat" shows an aggressive tone in order to convey the negative aspects of rich countries. "Resistance" employs an assertive tone to emphasize the importance of War on Want's work. This mixture of tones aids in effectively conveying the text's purpose. The language of text A is appropriate in that it complies with the informative purpose of the text. The diction used is concrete; this makes the text very easy to understand, as shown in sentences like "Helping developing countries participate more fully in the global trading system is one of the WTO's most important activities." The use of bold text such as in "…building trade capacity is an essential complement to the DDA" helps emphasize key ideas. Strong imagery, however, is scarce; mostly, images in the text are optimistic visions of how the WTO is helping build trade capacity, such as in "Broader and more effective dissemination of such knowledge has facilitated the participation of developing country trade officials in the Doha round and in other WTO activities", which contribute to the theme of the text. Text B differs significantly in that it uses very emotional language in conjunction with vivid imagery. Each section of the text shows a different set of images. "The ´free trade´ threat" uses a startling image of suffering in "…hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs, and millions of families are thrown into desperate poverty." "Turning up the heat" shockingly conveys rich countries' selfishness by stating that "Rich countries will stop at nothing to promote their business interests at the WTO." "Resistance" employs a resonant image of optimism in "International trade rules must work for poor people, not against them, if we really want to make poverty history." All these images give support to the text's theme and purpose. Another distinct stylistic device Text A employs is its use of hyperlinks. These links point to other sources of information to help reader learn more on the topic, this way extending its purpose of informing. Text B also uses external sources to help fulfill its purpose, but in a radically different manner. The text quotes Tony Blair, a renowned politician, to make the article more credible by adding the words of an expert on the topic, and this way giving even more support to its purpose of convincing readers. Both texts used the appropriate stylistic devices which best helped the authors achieve their purposes and convey their themes. With its use of an informative tone, concrete diction, scarce imagery, and hyperlinks, Text A manages to accurately inform the reader of how the WTO is helping to build trade capacity, thus explaining the reader the benefits of having a well-built trade capacity. Text B employs melancholic, aggressive and assertive tones, emotional language, vivid imagery and quotes from experts to convince mainly British readers the WTO's free trade model is harmful for underdeveloped countries and therefore communicating the dangers of free trade, mainly that it expands poverty in underdeveloped countries. In conclusion, even though the topics of both texts are similar, they had contrasting themes, and in this manner they used contrasting stylistic devices.