English 6 - Task 14

Clara Martnez Cervera

#GirlsCount
One is an organisation that ultimately fights against extreme poverty, especially in Africa.
However, in fact they tackle many more global issues such as education, maternal and child
health, infectious diseases... with views of making of the world a better place. In their texts
they constantly use the pronoun "you" and the imperative form so as to appeal directly to the
reader, as if he/she was in a conversation face to face where he/she is urged to act. Besides,
they also make use of the pronoun "we" and insist on the idea of the gathering of forces with
sentences such as "Youve got nearly 8 million ONE members standing behind you, so lets
make it happen" with what they success at emphasizing group power, and make it clear that
the problems they are trying to face would be easily overcome if each one of us joins the fight.

With the aim of making a more specific analysis of the linguistics resources that the
organisation uses to make their initiatives persuasive and pushing, we have decided to focus on
their campaign #GirlsCount with which they intend to make visible all the girls around the
world who are denied an education for several reasons. In order to do so, they intend to create
the longest video of the world with people counting up to 130 million.

We can observe, for example, the use of some words and phrases belonging to the lexical field
of positive aspects of life, which is what these girls are denied, such as: "chance", "decent and
productive life", "potential", "hopes", "dreams" or "fair chance of a future".

They also use contrasting sentences: "Not because they didn't want to, but because they
weren't given the chance" in this case to put the stress on the opposition between those parts
of the world where girls can afford to choose if they want or not to attend school and those
were they simply cannot go. "130 million is a big number. But this isn't about numbers: It's
about real girls" with this sentence they urge people to see the problem not as a cold statistic,
but as something that affects real human beings. They appeal to their emotional sense.

In the text, we can also observe the use of a succession of short sentences:

"One by one.

Out loud.

All the way to 130 million.

One number for every girl denied an education."

These reproduce the idea of accumulation, placing thus the stress on all the girls there are
lacking the opportunity of a decent education, and also reproducing what they are asking
people to do, to gather one by one like short sentences to make a longer and more powerful
text (or video) to denounce the situation.

Finally, we can also notice how they use persuasive sentences with which they try to convince
the reader that the issue the organisation tries to face, does not only affect those girls, but the
entire world, making, thus, the reader both part of the problem and the solution: "the entire
world misses out by not benefiting from their potential; "This is a global crises", "we need to
sound the alarm" "It's up to us"
 English 6 - Task 14
Clara Martnez Cervera

In short, when reading through this organisation web in general and this article, more precisely,
one easily realises that they are well aware of the power of language and words, and put them
to the service of their solidary causes.