All three texts are linked by the subject of rivers. Text C is a highly literary autobiography. It is both informative and entertaining. McGrath describes the River Cam's location then describes its sluggish flow. The second half of the extract focuses on an anecdote where he walked along the bank of the Cam with his girlfriend. He saw his first Kingfisher. The audience will be educated, quite sophisticated and cultured. They maybe tourists or know McGrath's work. Like text C, text A presents the River Fleet as a place of beauty. This text is a transcript of spontaneous speech that involves a short series of adjacency pairs between friends. Where speaker A sets the agenda by asking speaker B about his experience of fishing on the Fleet. He uses four interrogative utterances to do this. This text is private. The primary audience are the two speakers. It is informative, persuasive and entertaining. Unlike text A and C text B is fictional. The poem is in the form of a dramatic monologue. The first person narrator is the voice of the river itself. The river is male, unattractive, old but still powerful. Despite describing himself as beautiful the river is unattractive and dangerous. His attitudes towards people are dark and sinister. Its audience may be people who like Stevie Smith's poetry, people who know and love the river Mimram or who like the natural world. Its main purpose is to entertain.
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