Text interpretation

WHAT TO COMMENT ON

Every text is different, and so is each of you. Remember an original response may be highly desirable. Start by responding to the text. Don’t comment on features that are missing unless there is a significant comment to make. Don’t try to include everything, comment on the most significant aspects of the text. Read the text carefully, think, brainstorm and decide on the best order for your points. You are aiming for an essay that is well ordered and clear. Is there a sense of your own voice, originality or a personal response? Your essay should not be vague, but firmly rooted in close textual examination. Always include concise quotations as evidence. Show your specialist linguistic and literary terms. Don’t be repetititive.

What is it?

Newspaper, article, diary, advertisement, political manifesto, sermon, short story, poem....Is the word ‘genre’ helpful? Are there recognizable genre conventions, or does the writer break such conventions? Effect? This might be a significant point to make early in your analysis.

Content?

What is it about?

Intention/Purpose

To entertain, persuade, instruct, advise, inform. This might affect the language. For example, if it seeks-to persuade the text may use emotive, connotative language, and make value judgements. If it is informative, concrete nouns and factual adjectives might dominate the text. If it is instructive, imperative verbs are very likely. A story may have intensifiers and the nouns may be heavily modified. An argumentative text

may have tentative modals. ~ Remember that a text may have more than one intention

Audience?

Age, sex, level of education, specialist market? How does the intended audience affect the language. How much knowledge is assumed. What other values/attitudes of the reader are assumed? Register?

Form?

Headlines, fonts, italics, bold, punctuation and deviations from the orthodox. Don’t spend too long on this, this is language, not Media.

Structure?

How is the content organised? Is it chronological? Does it have flashbacks? Is there a logical development of argument (if, so, therefore, thus, because)? Is there a juxtaposition of ideas? How is the text introduced and concluded?

Authorial Voice?

How conscious are you of the author? What is the perspective - first, second or third person? Is the tone conversational, confessional. Does the writer create a persona? Is she/he subjective or objective? What does the author foreground?

Style?

Formal, colloquial, use of dialect, standard, nonstandard. What characterises the lexis (Latinate, verbose, taciturn, field specific, laconic)? What about the syntax, are the sentences simple or complex, or is there an unusual word order? Is there dialogue, monologue or reported speech? Are nouns pre/post modified? Is the tone ironic, humorous, sad angry, patronising? Is the tone consistent or does it shift? Does the text make use of shocking, taboo language? Are there any rhetorical devices? Active or passive voice? Metaphors and other literary techniques?