Anaylsis of old text A2 English Language

Framework for text anaylsis

* Genre; precisely what type of text. Establish tense- what tense do the verbs indicate?
First/second/third person- use of "first..." person pronouns
Length- just a short extract, or a long peice?
Genre e.g; narrative, descriptive, Expository, Procedual
* Mode; Is it a formal written text? or spoken? or mixed?
How close is the writing to speech-is there reference to the reader.
* Situation of Use; Under what conditions would it have been read(crucial for letters) single/wide/to an audience
* Briefly summarise; use frequent quotations
* Subject matter; What are the main topics covered? consider the whole text
* Representation(closely linked to SM); What impression does the writer give of the topics covered? Negative/positive impressions? What picture emerges. Establish tone-serious/entertaining
* Purposes(very crucial); what are the main aims of the text? What is the writer trying to acheive, examples of this. What effect does it have on the reader.
Even in a diary entry the reader has purposes-perhaps to record an accurate account of their experiences/opinions.
* Impression of writer; what impressions(via topics and style) do you get of the writer? Look at attitude, tone, context(words used from particular semantic field-e.g. semantic field of religion God ect... mention is the writer therefore religious?)
What is their attitude towards the reader
* Impression of reader; Speculative, what can be suggested about the audience? Will they need to be fammiliar with particular people/places to understand the text's contents?
* Language Change; What changes in spelling/punctuation/meanings of words/sentence structures/use of names/layout have occured. Archaisms=
Archaic inflection; "est" on the end of words or residual "e" on "blinde" Archaic preposition "unto" instead of "to" Odd phrases maybe old idioms?
Spelling consistent or varied in same passage- check date of peice in comparison to date of when spelling was standardised.

Anaylsis framework continued

* Impression of writer; what impressions(via topics and style) do you get of the writer? Look at attitude, tone, context(words used from particular semantic field-e.g. semantic field of religion God ect... mention is the writer therefore religious?)
What is their attitude towards the reader
* Impression of reader; Speculative, what can be suggested about the audience? Will they need to be fammiliar with particular people/places to understand the text's contents?
* Language Change; What changes in spelling/punctuation/meanings of words/sentence structures/use of names/layout have occured. Archaisms=
Archaic inflection; "est" on the end of words or residual "e" on "blinde" Archaic preposition "unto" instead of "to" Odd phrases maybe old idioms?
Spelling consistent or varied in same passage- check date of peice in comparison to date of when spelling was standardised.