The Scholarship Speech and the Slipped Register
A Year 12 EAL/D student, Mei, drafts a 400-word speech for a school scholarship assembly. Her opening reads: 'Good morning everyone. Today I wanna talk about my journey. Honestly, school has been pretty full-on, but I've learnt heaps.' The middle section shifts to formal analysis of a Tim Winton passage, using terms like 'sensory imagery' and 'cumulative syntax'. The closing returns to slang: 'So yeah, that's my story. Catch ya later.' Her teacher notes the audience includes parents, teachers and a local newspaper reporter. Mei argues the informal voice shows 'authenticity' and that the formal middle proves she can 'do analysis'. The speech must persuade the panel she deserves a $5,000 scholarship.
1. Identify the register problem in Mei's draft and explain why her defence is only partly valid.
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The draft mixes three registers without a controlling purpose. The opening and closing use colloquial Australian English ('wanna', 'full-on', 'heaps', 'Catch ya later'), while the middle shifts to academic metalanguage. Mei's claim of 'authenticity' has some force: a personal voice can build rapport with an audience. But register is a strategic choice tied to purpose and audience, not a fixed personality. Here the purpose is persuasion before a panel that includes a newspaper reporter, so the slang reads as unprepared rather than genuine. Her second defence is stronger: showing analytical skill is legitimate evidence. The problem is the seam. A skilled speaker would frame the analysis explicitly ('Let me show you what close reading taught me about my own writing') so the shift feels motivated. Without a bridge, the audience experiences inconsistency, not range. The judgement the exam rewards is that register must be controlled and justified by context, not simply varied.
2. Rewrite the opening two sentences to establish a consistent register while retaining a personal voice. Justify two language choices.
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Model rewrite: 'Good morning. When I arrived in Perth three years ago, I could read a novel but could not follow a conversation in the schoolyard.' Justification one: the contraction-free, complete syntax signals preparedness for a formal occasion while the first-person subject keeps the voice personal. The register is consistent with the middle section, so no seam appears. Justification two: the concrete contrast ('read a novel' versus 'could not follow a conversation') replaces the vague 'journey' with specific evidence. Specificity does persuasive work because it implies measurable progress, which is what a scholarship panel weighs. The student should avoid 'wanna' and 'heaps' not because informal English is inferior but because it clashes with the analytical middle and with the presence of a reporter. Consistency, not formality alone, is the criterion.