2. Syntactics

First of all, the analysis should begin on the sentence level – how the words in the sentence are arranged, whether the author makes use of repetitions, such as enumeration, polysyndeton. The author may use inversions which are semantically and pragmatically significant.

Types of sentences should be analyzed especially if they are stylistically marked, if the author prefers nominative or elliptical sentences, parenthetical clauses and so on. The length of sentences, their structure (simple or complex) can be considered too – compare, for example, the length of sentences in Hemingway’s short stories and S.Maugham’s stories or J.Joyce’s novels. Thirdly, the interpreter should take into account the types of connections of sentences in paragraphs, e.g. such syntactical stylistic devices, as anaphora or epiphora, catch repetitions, parallel constructions. Such repetitions often emphasize the semantically important units.

Fourthly, on the text level it is necessary to analyze the connections between paragraphs, different types of cohesion. The interpreter should also pay attention to the plot, particularly its transformations in expositions and endings, the place of climax, the role of strong positions.

Syntactics also concerns the relation of the given text (if it is fiction or publicistic text) to other texts of the same author or other authors. Different manifestations of intertextuality can be semantically and pragmatically important.

3 Pragmatics

Actually pragmatics is directly connected with semantics. When the interpreter investigates the semantic aspect, she (he) pays attention to the meanings of language units of different levels. Pragmatic aspect should reveal how the author’s attitude to reality, to the text characters, events can be actualized through semantics. Here words with evaluative meaning, different tropes, especially metaphors, similes, epithets must be analyzed.

One of the criteria of revealing pragmatics can be redundancy of certain language units (lexical, semasiological or phonetical), their combinations in stylistic convergence. Stylistic convergence is always an important trigger for the reader as it contains pragmatically important elements and therefore reflects the author’s main ideas.

The effect of defeated expectancy, for instance, in detective novels and stories (the novel by A.Christie “The Murder of Roger Acroyd”) or in humorous text can also have pragmatic significance.

An example for the linguosmiotic analysis can be a poem “On a Tired Housewife”.

Here lies a poor woman who was always tired,

She lived in a house where help wasn’t hired:

Her last words on earth were: “Dear friends, I am going

To where there’s no cooking, or washing, or sewing,

For everything there is exact to my wishes,

For where they don’t eat, there’s no washing of dishes.

I’ll be where loud anthems will always be ringing,

But having no voice I’ll be quit of the singing.

Don’t mourn for me now, don’t mourn for me never,

I am going to do nothing for ever and ever”.

When analyzing the poem we clearly see the semantic importance of the title. If we group the lexical units into semantic fields we can objectively say what is described in the poem. The use of tenses is also important here – Past Simple →Future Simple. The syntactical repetitions underline the main idea, and both semantics and syntactics in the poem reveal the pragmatic aspects – the attitude to her past and future life.

In this way all the three aspects of linguistic analysis are interconnected, pragmatics is well revealed through semantics and syntactics. Such comprehensive analysis can lead to deep understanding of the text.