Comparative Systematic Analysis of Menus.

Menu A (Wayfarer Cafe) has a purpose to inform passing Truck drivers of the food available and is written in an elliptical style. Whereas, Menu B (The Ravenscroft Suite Gourmet Dinner Dance) is aimed at upper class adults with an interest in cuisine, because of this, the menu is still informative but also slightly persuasive.

The graphology of both A and B is chronologically sectioned. In A the first section of the menu is dedicated to breakfast meals and continues into main meals, puddings and snacks. Similarly, B is also chronologically listed between starters and main courses, each meal separated by a consigned number of asterisks. The aesthetics of this menu remain consistent throughout. On the other hand, the entirety of A is written in capitals, this gives a less professional aesthetic which would suitably reflect the target audience and context.

Menu A uses a lot of abbreviated language such as “B/FAST”, this connotes the colloquialism of the café, but also the context of the drivers only having a limited amount of time to read the menu and select their food based on the visible key words. As a consequence of this there are also omitted prepositions such as “pot tea” instead of ‘pot of tea’. To further extenuate the informality of the menu, there are many symbols used in the place of words, especially conjunctions. A separate example of this is where the symbol “2” is used in place of ‘two’ to decrease the size of the menu. Generally, only simplified language is used and a lot of high frequency words such as ‘chips’. Other examples of types of lexis include certain dialect, “parkin” and “barm” are words that would only be understood in the Manchester area.

Menu B’s language is much more complex, it features pre-modification and post-modification “An interesting warm salad of smoked bacon, wild mushrooms and duck”. Other lexis used can sometimes appear out of context such as “attentively” would generally not be a word featured on a food menu. There is also a semantic field of French vocabulary used, with six words from throughout fitting into this category. The upper class context of the menu is connoted from the description of the food such as “enrobed in crepinette”. There are also noun phrases used such as “peeled prawns”, which is ensued by post modification, this would make the menu appear more enticing to the audience as by not following a generic sentence structure, any reading rhythm would be lost and subsequently force them to be more attentive of the menu.