Textual analysis: asking questions about texts

There are a huge range of questions we need to ask when we're

approaching a text for study. Most of these questions relate to one of four
areas: Mode, Discourse, Lexis, and Grammar.

The representative discussions of text extracts given below show how

some of these questions can be answered. They don't attempt to deal with
every possible noteworthy feature of the text, but simply to highlight
some of the features worth mentioning. They also don't, on the whole,
give much analysis or discussion of the significance of the highlighted
features. They are intended to guide you through the initial stages of text
analysis, and to show you how you can use sets of questions to extract
information from texts.

Mode
This category covers the physical appearance and presentation of a text as
well as the way in which it is produced.
• Is the text primarily in the written mode, or does it represent the spoken
mode? Is it handwritten or typed?
• Is the text spontaneous (a conversation, a scribbled note, an IM
conversation) or planned (a lecture, an essay)?
• Are written conventions used to represent spoken features?
• Are there unconventional spellings or typographical errors in the text?

Text 1: JPod by Douglas Coupland (London: Bloomsbury, 2006)

Discussion:
This is a written text, which represents speech and separates it from the
main narrative by the use of quotation marks and, on occasions, paragraph
breaks. A bold, sans-serif font is used to represent text displayed on the
screen of a BlackBerry. The use of all-capitals for these words conveys
urgency and highlights the text on the page. Italicisation is used in the first
line to indicate the sarcastic tone in which the word is spoken. In the
penultimate line, Coupland uses quotation marks to show that the words
"accessible" and "fun" are not those chosen by the narrator, but rather are
buzzwords towards which he has a high level of contempt. The final line
uses ASCII (a form of electronic text encoding) to represent the word
"edgy", ostensibly because the word is so horrendous that the narrator
cannot bear even to spell it out. Since only a very small minority of readers
would understand this without consulting some kind of key, this has the
effect of excluding the reader somewhat, whilst marking the narrator as a
member of a particularly technology-based, geeky social group.

Text 2: White bears and other unwanted thoughts by Daniel M.

Wenger (NY: Guildford Press, 1994)

Discussion:
The text is a loose written transcript of someone speaking. Punctuation, in
the form of ellipsis (...) is used to indicate pauses or breaks; "ummm" is
used for the same purpose, the spelling imitative of the sound commonly
made when hesitating during speech. Words in brackets indicate some
non-verbal constituents such as a sigh and a pause. These features
strongly suggest that this is a spontaneous text, unplanned and
unprepared.
Text 3: Ffydd, Gobaith, Cariad by Llwyd Owen (Talybont: Y Lolfa,
2006)

Discussion:
Another written representation of conversation. This time, the author uses
non-standard spelling to indicate the speakers' pronunciations. In some
cases, these pronunciations are themselves relatively standard, for
example "gess", which represents /ges/, the most common pronunciation
in British English of the word "guess". In contrast, the words "what I
heard" are written "wor I urd", indicating the so-called "intrusive-r"
between the first two words, "h-dropping" on the final word, and the
usual South Welsh pronunciation of the vowel in "heard". The sounds
represented are, approximately, , whereas an RP pronunciation
would be more like . The elision of final [t] in the word "that" is
indicated by an apostrophe, whereas in the word "what" it is represented
by a change in spelling - "wo". The author also uses the repeated letter "e"
in the first sentence to indicate that the speaker emphasises the first
syllable of the name "Leanne". The excessive number of "e"s suggests that
the narrator finds this irritating.

Discourse
This category covers the sense-structure of a text, and its context. • Is
there an implied audience for the text? Is the audience immediate or
remote? Is it large or small? Which features of the text construct that
sense of audience?
• Who is the narrator/author/speaker of the text? What are his/her
attitudes and how are they expressed?
• What is the context of the text? Is it public/private, official/informal,
factual/fictional, literary/non-literary, prose/poetry?
• Does it have an obvious function - to instruct, to persuade, to supplicate,
to thank?
• What is the genre of the text? Is it a newspaper article, a letter, a gothic
novel, a romance, a legal report, an instruction manual?
• Does it draw on linguistic features from different genres? Does it subvert
generic expectations?
• How does the text relate to other texts or cultural artefacts? Is it a
parody or an imitation? How does this relationship reveal itself?
• What linguistic register does the text use? Is it archaic, formal, technical,
casual, colloquial? Does it draw on particular social, regional, occupational
dialects?
• Does the text use figurative language such as metaphor, symbolism,
imagery, or rhetorical structuring? Are there examples of lexical or
syntactical patterning?

Text 4: Hansard Reports, House of Lords, Monday, 1 March 2010.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I am not sure that we have much
evidence for that particular assertion. As the noble Countess will
recognise, because I think she was involved in our debates on the Welfare
Reform Bill, there has been a lot of focus on helping people back into and
closer to the labour market-particularly helping lone parents, most of
whom are women-and on supporting them so that they can actually move
into employment. If one looks at all the issues around poverty, one sees
that the thing that makes the difference is people's employment
opportunities.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords-
Lord Davies of Oldham: I am sorry, my Lords, we must move on.

Discussion:
This is an public text, taken from a transcript of proceedings in the British
House of Lords. Its function is to be an official record, consultable by any
interested party. There are, therefore, two implied audiences. The first is
the immediate audience: the members of the House of Lords present at
the time. The second is indirect: any member of the public who is
interested in checking the record. The first audience is addressed by Lord
McKenzie with his opening "My Lords", and this form is echoed by each of
the two subsequent speakers. This suggests that we are dealing with a
formal register, at least as regards the introduction of each new speaker.
The text indicates that turn-taking in this formalised environment is
controlled by a particular speaker, here Lord Davies, and that the opening
"My Lords" is part of a new speaker's signal of his or her intention to take
a turn. The manner in which people are addressed here is formalised, as
we see from Lord McKenzie's reference to "the noble Countess". People
are not addressed or referred to using second- or third-person pronouns,
but indirectly, using their title. The function of Lord McKenzie's speech is
to persuade and instruct, as can be seen from the structure of what he
says. He begins by challenging the statement that preceded his own, and
uses clauses which assume agreement with his own position: "As the
noble Countess will recognise", "If one looks... one sees". There is no use
of colloquialism here, and the use of the pronoun "one", if not archaic, is
considered particular formal in contemporary usage. The language is
largely non-figurative. The only metaphors used are familiar, or "dead"
metaphors: "move into employment", "issues around poverty", "one
sees".

Text 5: an extract from Allen Ginsberg's poem America

America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings

they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.

Discussion:
The text is addressed to America. We can interpret this as an address to
the country as a personified entity, or we can see "America" as
metonymic, using the name of the country as a way to refer to its
inhabitants. The narrative in the first section or paragraph is rambling, akin
to the stream-of-consciousness style. This tone is achieved by the lack of
punctuation or capitalisation. What would, in standard writing, be
separated off as clauses or sentences with commas, full stops, and other
punctuation marks are here allowed to run into each other. Apparently
parenthetical remarks, such as "a ticket costs a nickel", are also
incorporated into the narrative stream without separation. The sentence-
units within this stream of consciousness are themselves generally
syntactically simple, with no grammatical subordination, which adds a
tone of almost childlike simplicity. Through these techniques, the speaker
is made to seem unsophisticated, and perhaps even deranged. The text
demands a certain level of familiarity with the history of mid-century
America in order to be interpreted. The activists Scott Nearing, Mother
Bloor, and Israel Amter are mentioned as though the reader should be
familiar with the names. The tone of the piece is informal and colloquial,
as indicated by the use of the dialect word "mensch", the conversational
"you have no idea" and non-standard grammatical constructions such as
the adverbial use of "plain". This is not a traditional piece of poetry. It
seems to be structured like prose, with no significant use of line breaks or
any of the more traditional features such as rhythm and rhyme.
Nonetheless, there are features that we might identify as poetic. The word
"angelic", for example, is clearly figurative and is placed next to
"sentimental" to create an auditory assonance. Attention to aural features
is again seen in "a handful per a ticket a ticket costs a nickel", with the
repeated /?k/ sound.

Lexis
• Is the lexis formal or informal? Are there technical or subject-specific
lexical sets?
• Are nouns concrete or abstract? Are verbs stative or dynamic?
• To what extent is modification used? Are adverbs and adjectives used
prominently or not?
• What lexical fields are evident? Are they ones you would expect to be
applied to the subject-matter?
• Does the text draw on the ambiguity of word-meanings? Does it include
puns or other ludic uses of language?
• Are any words repeated in the text?
• Are there any swear words or other words usually considered taboo?
Does the text use euphemisms?

Text 6: The Times, Tuesday, Dec 03, 1985

Discussion:
The lexis of this text is relatively colloquial, though not markedly so.
Clichés and colloquialisms like "cautionary tale" and "the pursuit of speed"
create a sense of casual conversation, as do the lack of specificity in noun
phrases such as "a few weeks", "a growing pile", "anything to do with
computers". Subject-specific language is very evident: "computers",
"personal micro", "Apricot pc", "two-disk drive", Wordstar, "word
processing", "back-up disks" all relate to the field of personal computing.
These words make up a large proportion of this extract, effectively
dominating the lexis. There is no use of ambiguity or word play, although
the non-standard placement of "But" is an informal and relatively playful
indicator that some kind of refutation of the preceding text will now occur.
The balance of factual information with emotional interest is indicated by
the range of modification used. Nouns are modified using technical terms
("two-disk drive version", "back-up disks"), and descriptive adjectives
("growing pile", "cautionary tale".) The former examples add to the sense
of dense technical language by using compounds as modifiers, packing a
number of concepts into a single noun phrase. There is some use of
figuration, though it is relatively conventional: the author personifies his
computer, saying that it "had served me well", and goes on to personify
the back-up disks, which "testified" to his computer's performance.
Text 7: an extract from Leonard Nathan's poem Bladder Song
On a piece of toilet paper
Afloat in unflushed piss,
The fully printed lips of a woman.

Discussion:
There is a jarring disjunction in the lexis of this stanza. "Afloat" and "fully
printed" are rather formal, while "fully printed lips of a woman" suggest a
romantic lexical field. In contrast "toilet paper" is mundane, and coupled
with "unflushed piss" it creates a field related to bodily functions and a
colloquial, somewhat crude, tone. fact that the noun phrase "a piece of
toilet paper" is a common collocation removes any sense that the post-
modification is at all ornamental, unlike the final line, a noun phrase with
"lips" as its headword, pre-modified by "fully printed" and post-modified
by "of a woman". The grotesquerie of "Afloat in unflushed piss" as
modifier of "a piece of toilet paper" is more ornamental, but in a very
unconventional manner, with the prominence of the taboo word
contrasting with the "lips", a word with which it resonates aurally. The
whole stanza can be interpreted as a single noun phrase, with "lips" as its
headword, and a number of prepositional phrases post-modifying it:
"On..", "Afloat...", "of...". This reading encourages us to see the lips as
directly related to their unpleasant context. Despite being a concrete
noun, "lips" here refers to something ephemeral, presumably a lipstick
mark. The preposition "of" takes on an extra meaning, seeming to
represent the removal of the lips from the woman who originated them as
well as the possessive relationship between woman and lips. There are no
verbs in the passage. Two past participles are used adjectivally,
"unflushed" and "printed", suggesting that we are witnessing a past state,
something that has happened before we arrived and is now suspended in
time.

Grammar
• Is the mood declarative, interrogative or imperative?
• Verbs - is the tense past, present, or a compound tense? Are modal
verbs used?
• What use is made of co-ordination or subordination? What kinds of
subordinate clauses are used, and what role do they play in the sentence?
• Are marked themes or end-focusing used to draw attention to elements
of the clause?
• Is the grammar standard or non-standard?
• How do grammatical structures help to organise the text? Are sentence
adverbials (However, Nevertheless) used to express relationships between
different parts of the text?

Text 8: an extract from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and
meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of
shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the
Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses
of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of
great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog
in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the
firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of
the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes
and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on
the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all
round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty
clouds.

Discussion:
One of the most notable features of this extract is its lack of tensed, finite
verbs. There is no sense of time because the author chooses to write in
minor sentences. The first sentence, "Fog everywhere", is deliberately
simple, the structure suggesting that no more needs to be done than
name the subject, "fog", and give it an adverbial attribute, "everywhere".
This word lexically and grammatically encompasses everything that can be
said about fog, and the following sentences merely elaborate on it. The
subsequent sentences also tend to consist of the noun, "fog", and a series
of adverbials, mostly constructed as prepositional phrases or non-finite
clauses. The author creates parallel structures with his sentences, as
though to provide pairs of categories which encompass the same range as
the initial "everywhere": "on the Essex marshes" / "on the Kentish
heights"; "creeping into the cabooses" / "lying out on the yards". The pairs
tend to complement each other - in and out, up and down. There are
nested phrases and clauses used adverbially, which build up complex
structures that add to the sense of ubiquity and claustrophobia. So we see
"Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing
by the firesides of their wards", where the adverbial element consists of a
compound prepositional phrase whose nouns are complemented by a
second prepositional phrase, whose noun is in turn complemented by a
non-finite clause which is, finally, itself post-modified by a prepositional
phrase.

Text 9: an extract from a CIA memo of Sep 14, 1993.

Discussion:
The text represents two different times in the past: the simple past, "met
with a relative", and a past time relative to that simple past, "had died".
We have a contrast therefore between the use of the simple past tense
and a past perfect construction. The first sentence uses a non-finite clause
("to inform...") acting adverbially, describing the purpose of the KGB
meeting, as well as a number of other adverbial elements. The first,
"several years ago", expresses time, the second, the prepositional phrase
"with a relative...", describes the circumstance of the meeting. There is a
second subordinate clause embedded in the first: "that the diplomat had
died...", which itself contains two prepositional phrases expressing time.
This structure indicates the relative complexity of the information to be
put across by this text, as well as the importance of precise contextual
information. The second sentence is equally densely structured. The
subordinate clause "where he might have been..." is post-modifying a
prepositional phrase which is part of another prepositional phrase which
post-modifies a noun: "too famous a [figure [to put [in a prison camp
[where he might have been recognized]]]]". The complex structure of
these sentences contrasts with the final sentence of this extract, which has
a relatively simple Subject-Verb-Complement structure, although the
subject itself ("the rumor...1960s") does contain a subordinate clause. The
sentence adverbials, "However" and "Therefore" reflect the logical
structure of the text and make its argument plain. The first sentence sets
up the details of the initial situation, the second gives information to
contradict these details, and the third concludes that the initial statement
must be false.

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Prof.Lilia Sánchez