Assignments for Text Analysis in Terms of Textlinguistic Categories
3.1. The Category of Informativity
Present the text taking into account its genre, the form of narration, the general emotional tinge, the place where the scene is laid and the main characters.
Formulate the main concern of the text.
Divide the factual information of the extract into logically connected / complete parts. Briefly summarize each of them, making up an outline, the items of which serving as key points of each part.
Formulate the conceptual information of the text explicating the author’s artistic message.
Find the facts of socio-historic or philological character (if any) relevant in terms of the category of presupposition commenting on the background information underlying them. Explain how they enlarge the volume of the factual and conceptual information conveyed.
3.2. The Category of Implication
Formulate the conceptual information of the text.
Into what and how many conceptual cores can the artistic message of the extract be compressed? Justify your opinion.
In what emotional key is the extract written?
What are, in your opinion, the dominating stylistic devices used in the extract? Which parts of the text are abundant in them? Comment on their stylistic functions.
What epithets reveal the author’s perception of the colour in the early morning?
What epithets characterize the sea sounds in the early morning? What phonetic stylistic means of natural sound imitation does the author resort to?
What stylistic devices and expressive means create the image of wetness accompanying the beginning of the day and what stylistic function do they perform?
What stylistic devices and expressive means endow the image of the sea with features of a living being?
What poetic visual associations are connected with the description of the sea movement in the darkness?
How does the portrayal of the sea changes differ at the beginning and at the end of the description?
What fills the description of the flock of sheep with dynamism and vitality?
Comment on the description of the shepherd’s appearance and behaviour. Are the poetic details of his attire and appearance suggestive of his personality?
Is the stylistic device of metaphor widely used in the passage? What kinds of metaphors do we observe and what implications do they create? Take into account various metaphorical images rendered not only through the stylistic device of metaphor as such but through simile, personification, metaphorical epithet, as well.
13a. What metaphorical images can be treated as the integrating images of the description?
With the help of which stylistic device(s) is the gradual disappearance of mist depicted? What adds to the vivid and picturesque portrayal of the final stage of this phenomenon?
Find instances where the author makes the reader look at the nature and hear it with her own eyes.
What stylistically relevant means in the dog’s portrayal endow it with qualities typical of a human being?
How is the idea of the dog’s being old strengthened? Do you feel a ring of humour in the description of the dog’s behaviour?
With the help of what stylistic device(s) is the eucalyptus tree depicted?
How does the syntax of the extract affect the expressivity of the description? Comment on the following stylistically relevant language means and their stylistic function.
syntactic parallelism
alternation of simple and composite sentences (in the first paragraph)
different homogeneous parts of a sentence
asyndeton, syndeton
rhetorical questions
inverted word-order and unusual (emphatic) word-order
the use of dashes
What imparts the description in the first logical part a certain rhythm?
What syntactic means contribute to the detailed description of the natural surrounding in the second physical paragraph?
And now that you have examined the stylistic devices and expressive means employed in the extract as a whole, dwell on the most conspicuous of them and comment on the author’s implications in each conceptual core.
. The Category of Cohesion
What words can be treated as the main key-words holding together the logical-semantic and artistic wholeness of the extract under consideration? Explain your choice. In what way does their recurrence contribute to the integrity of the text? What integrating images are these key-words closely associated with?
What words are logically connected with the key-word “the sea” and form the thematic group united by the common notion “water”?
Distinguish other thematic groups of words and word-combinations which make a noticeable contribution to the logico-semantic unity of the text.
What is the cohesive potential of the key-word “the sun” supported by?
Comment on the role synonyms proper play in the lexical cohesion of the extract.
What contextual synonyms and logically associated words implicitly pertain to the notion of “mist”?
How does antonymy (both antonyms proper and contextual ones) favour the artistic integrity of the description?
What lexico-semantic groups of words are conducive to the semantic and artistic wholeness of the extract?
What word-building means reinforce the lexical cohesion of the extract?
Through what associative-semantic strings of words and word-combinations is the lexical cohesion of the text also achieved?
Compose and write a coherent essay summing up your observations on the linguostylistic and textlinguistic peculiarities of the belles-lettres text “At the Bay” by K. Mansfield.
Unit
2