Sociological Portrait of Youth: Thesis and Analysis

The text is taken from a document which makes an analysis. The piece discussed is aimed at a general audience, so it is written in academic language but with simple wording. This informative intention is manifested in the almost total absence of jargon in the text. The text falls into the category of humanistic texts, as it addresses a topic related to society and human life. It presents an expository-argumentative structure: it presents ideas about a topic in an orderly fashion and explains a thesis that supports arguments with examples.

The author of the text takes a sociological portrait of youth. The main thesis is related to their attitude. This attitude manifests itself in certain behaviors.

The text is organized in three parts:

• The first part presents the main thesis.
• In the second part, the author elaborates on the arguments.
• In the third part, the author presents a conclusion: localism and universality, tradition and modernity.

The humanistic text we discussed is characterized by the use of academic language, straightforward and simple, which perfectly fits the intention of informing the public. From the lexical point of view, the text presents some features of humanistic texts. Abstract nouns and adjectives abound, such as uniqueness, comprehensiveness, consistency. There is also a trend toward rated using noun + adjective formations with clear explanatory value, such as sexual uniqueness, disease problems.

From the syntactic point of view, there is the use of third-person objective intention (valued above all). This intent is also reflected in the plural of modesty (we). However, to present the final conclusion, the author turns to personal concerns and examples. This feature shows the true subjective nature of humanistic texts and is also used as a rhetorical device to ask for the reader's indulgence regarding the conclusions that the author presents. Present tenses predominate, both by the nature of the exposition of the text and the subject that it deals with. On the other hand, the referential function that guides the construction of the text explains the abundance of sentential prayers (positive and negative).

The text presents a very topical issue: the attitude of Spanish youth about social patterns affecting us today. The author's conclusions are personal, not scientific. Counterarguments can be found that rebut them.

The openness and timeliness of the subject arouses the interest of many and leads to numerous discussions.