Purpose and tone

WHEN THE FAMILY REUNION IS VIA REMOTE

Red-clue words


-South Korean Kim Yong-hun, 71, left, and a family member wipe their tears as they talk to their North Korean relatives through a screen during a video family reunion session at the video conferencing room of Red Cross in Daejeon, south of Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March ,27

Purpose: To describe the sorrow mood.
Tone: Sad
Reason: the writer describe how the family members wipetheir tears, showing the feeling of sadness or sentimental moment.

-The gray, bare-walled room, the size of a prison cell, is more funereal than celebratory considering three people in it were there for a family reunion. Byun Kiljae, 53, runs his hands up and down his face as if he were trying to remove grime from his already clean skin. He's flanked by two relatives — his wife and younger brother, who has just rested a large black wooden framed photo of their late father on an empty chair. All three family members gaze at a 60-inch flat screen four feet in front of them. In a few minutes, the brothers will meet their half-sister and nephew for the first time ever — or more accurately, lay eyes on and speak to their kin in North Korea for the first time, via a fiber optic video cable, installed as part of a video family reunion program between the two Koreas this week.

Purpose: To inform and describe the moment and its surrounding.
Tone:Relax yet formal.
Reason: The words in red is the clues of informative and descriptive phrase. The writer describe the room, people in the room, things that they were doing or holding in hands. The writer also describe the emotion and anxiety of the family members while they were waiting.

-Byun rises from his seat when the video feed begins and when his half sister and nephew suddenly appear on the screen. He introduces his side of the family, who take deep bows, then reaches to his left for the photo of his recently departed 88-year-old father.

Purpose: To describe
Tone:Somber but still relax and formal.
Reason: The writer had used descriptive words to describe the situation (words in red).But he had instill the somber mood from the beginning of the article and continuously effective in this paragraph too. I can feel the nervous, anxiety, and sadness.


-"Our father died only ten days ago," he says, holding up the frame in front a camera perched on top of the screen. "When he learned he was finally going to meet you, his heart and mind couldn't handle the excitement."

Purpose: To inform
Tone: Sad and mournful.
Reason: The writer inform by using the dialogue telling readers that the father died ten days ago after he had learnt that he was finally going to meet the other family members.The tone is sad because Byun was telling that his father had past away and he regret that his father didn't get the chance to meet the other family members.


-Fighting back tears, his half sister dabs her eyes with a white handkerchief while her nephew's eyes redden after hearing the heart-rending news.

Purpose:To describe
Tone:sad and full of sorrow
Reason:All the words in red shows how the writer actually describe the sadness of the family members. The writer also describe the news as heart-rending.


-For the next two hours, the Byun clan hold up photos to each other, chat about the family tree and promise to work toward unification so they can meet again.

Purpose: To describe and inform.
Tone:Relax,formal and with sense of hope for good things in future.
Reason:There's a bit description when Byun clan hold up photos to each other. Than the author just inform how Byun promise to work towards unification so they'll meet again.

-"It will take at least ten years for everyone to see their relatives at this rate," predicts Young Woon Choi, head of the Inter-Korean Cooperation Team

Purpose: to inform and persuade.
Tone: Informative blend with persuasive.
Reason: They'll never no the accurate time for them to gather again.The dialogue sounds more as an opinion and stand.so it could be informative but more to persuasive.

-Other family encounters don't go off without a hitch. "Why did you leave my mother in the North when you went to the South?" a young North Korean man asks his obviously frail 93-year-old South Korean grandmother.

Purpose: To inform points that may lead readers to be curious about cause and effects.
Tone:Curious
Reason:Because the question itself shows curiosity.