Repressive Discourse Strategies Research

Repressive discourse: subtle linguistic strategies to exert power in a text. 
Examples: Waterstones handbook page 1

Text: Online advert for a charity fundraising event
Examples of repressive discourse: 

•   Modal auxilary verb: "You can also download.."
•   Mitigated imperatives
•   Postive lexical features e.g abstract nouns: "passion" "commitment"

Opressive discourse: much stronger and obvious linguistic strategies that exert power in a text
 
Small examples of opressive discourse:

• Imperative sentences: "Order your free event pack now"  

Imperative sentences are much more powerful and demanding. They show a strict command that don't include hedging or are mitigated. Mitigated imperatives and hedging like "please" or "you can/could" make the text repressive as they are subtle and soften the command, making it seem like there is a choice to follow the instruction or not. 

Features you'd expect/could see in both texts. 

•   Synthetic personalisation: "you"
•   Collective pronoun: "we" "us"
•   Jargon/Subject specific lexis "tea" "cuppa" "Christian Aid"