Shirley Temple's Use Of Obituaries In English

Death is one part of the order of nature. After a falling of one’s life, there will always be a speech to declare his or her death to the decedent’s family and friends. This kind of genre is Obituary. Whether famous or trivial, the departed saints always have the people around who treasure him and cherish the memory of him. The obituary helps those people around to revise the life of the dead. To conduct a more concrete comprehension to obituary, I chose 12 sample obituaries in English for either famous or ordinary people, which also have different patterns in literary expression. The briefly new acquaintance of obituary is that this genre has similarity in construction, but emphasizes different contents, has different word choice and tone

Among the 12 samples, one of the most obvious similarities they have is the construction of the text. After all, the obituary is more oriented to a kind of functional genre shows up in serious occasion. Its arrangement of the parts seems becoming fundamental. The first necessary part is declaring the fact of the death, together with a short but concise sentence that evaluates the life of the dead. There is a typical example, “Shirley Temple, who has died aged 85, was that rare example of a Hollywood child star who, when the cameras stopped rolling, carved out a new career” (“Obituary Shirley Temple”, para1). Whether the obituary is delivered orally or published, the informing of death may establish the solemn and respectful keynote of the whole genre. The confirming of the death is also the information that audiences concern about most. Then, it comes to the review of life of the dead. Schooling, career’s starting, marriage and children bearing are the contents exactly overlap among the samples, which means these essential steps of the life should be all reviewed in the obituary. The final part is various when compares the obituary for the ordinary people and famous people. Because

Among the 5 sample of obituary for ordinary people, there are 2 samples using the same tone as the obituary for celebrities, very objectively stated stories about the dead. Other 3 sample apparently use more sincere language, such as “What a beautiful fall” (Anderson, para1) to show shocking towards one’s death and “She leaves her loving memories to be cherished by…” (Maria, para4) to express the decedents will be memorized by his/her family forever. The tone in each sentence goes like that the writer of the obituary signed with regret, wanted to bless the dead and comfort his/her unfortunate family. Obituaries for ordinary people are often declared orally, more expressive language this time enhances the power of the