INTRODUCTION TO

TEXT ANALYSIS
Learning a language is not merely learning
grammatical rules and vocabulary, but
understanding how language plays a
fundamental role in building meanings within
texts. Textual analysis involves thinking
critically about how a text works (or doesn’t)
and why.
• Writer: Who is the writer? What is her or his role
or position? What position does the writer take?
What is the author's major claim or thesis? Is the
claim qualified (does the author use hedges)? If
so, how?
• Context: Where is the text situated? What is the
status or role of participants? What are their
aims and expectations?
• Audience: Who is the intended audience? Who
will read the text? What do we know about their
social class, level of education, age, gender,
knowledge of and attitudes towards the topic?
• Purpose: What is the purpose which prompted
the writer to write? What does the writer want to
achieve? Is he/she hoping to provide info or
advice; to persuade the readers; to make them
think about an issue; to entertain them?
• Register: What is the register adopted? Which
is the mode (spoken, written, computer-
mediated); tenor (the way the style or tone
adopted by the writer to the reader and the topic,
reflected in the level of formality/informality); and
field (the language associated with the topic).
• Genre: What is the genre of the text analysed?
What kind of a text do you have? Novelistic,
poetic, bureaucratic, legal? Was it originally
written, or was it delivered orally? What are the
formal features you would expect such a text to
have, which can you spot when you look at it?
• Rhetoric and vocabulary: Genre will tend to
define a particular way of speaking or writing
and to shape the vocabulary, including how
frequently particular words appear.
• Social or psychological circumstances:
Familiarity with the social circumstances
surrounding the creation of the text may
be relevant.
• Historical circumstances: The more you
know about the historical circumstances
under which the text was produced the
better.
• Transitivity is the study of how the
essential elements of a sentence -
participants, processes and circumstances
- interact (who does what to whom – and
how, why, when, etc.) and produce
different interpretations of a text
• Participants are the people and things
(concrete or abstract) involved in processes,
either as agents or actors (the doers) or those
who undergo, receive or suffer an action caused
by someone or something.
• Processes refer to actions, states, and events,
which are normally recognised as verbs which
might involve only one participant, the actor
(non-transactive verbs) or an actor and a
receiver (transactive verbs)
• Circumstances are represented by words
which answer the questions of where?, when?,
how far?, who with? etc., and add further
information to the sentence.
Analyse this clause:
An ex university professor murdered many of her
ex students in the library, at 8 p.m., when they
were studying.
Which are the processes, participants and
circumstances?
•Processes: murdered, were studying
•Participants: ex university professor, ex students,
they.
•Circumstances : in the library (location), at 8 p.m.,
when they were studying (time).
 ACTIVE/PASSIVE
• Active voice: indicates that the subject as
the actor of the verb.
• Passive voice: the subject is the receiver
of the action. It is used if the effects or the
results of the actions are more important
or if the writer/speaker wishes to distance
the agent or actor from the process.
 EVALUATION
Evaluative language expresses
opinions, attitudes, and points of view of a
speaker or writer is called. Every utterance
has – potentially – two dimensions: the
objective dimension and the subjective
dimension – which reveals the writer’s or
speaker’s point of view, positive o negative
 Evaluation – parameters (1)
According to Tompson and Hunston (2000)
there 4 parameters of evaluation:
1. the good-bad (positive-negative)
parameter which depends on value systems,
not necessarily explicit.
e.g. It’s a good movie vs America can
change.
 Evaluation – parameters (2)

2. level of certainty, which involves modality

and hedging
e.g. This might lead to problems
vs
This will lead to problems
 Evaluation – parameters (2)
• Modality is another important aspect of
transitivity and refers to ‘how valid the
information is in terms of probability (how
likely it is to be true) or usuality (how
frequently it is true) (Thompson 2004:57),
usually through the use of modal verbs
(must, may, can, could, etc) and adverbs
such as probably, likely, certainly or
constructions such as it is certain, it is
sure, it is possible that..
 Evaluation – parameters (2)
• Hedging means using less direct
language in order to make your views
more measured and cautious, to distance
yourself to some extent from the claim or
opinion expressed.
e.g. It looks as if an agreement is likely.
Electronic storage helps to reduce costs.
 Evaluation – parameters (3)

3. Expectedness which involves

evaluating the information as obvious
or expected
e.g. of course…, as you know…
 Evaluation – parameters (4)

4. Importance or relevance to direct the

reader or hearer to the main point

e.g. This approach is important

Evaluation can be expressed by using words
which clearly indicate the writer/speaker’s opinions
(explicit evaluation),
•e.g. the devastating results…
•the hopeless situation
•etc.
These adjectives offer the reporter’s opinion and
obviously defy the values of objectivity and
impartiality.
Evaluation may be less direct (implicit
evaluation) even though lexical choices may
reveal a particular stance on the part of the
writer/speaker
e.g.
•Riots have engulfed the suburbs…
•Drug crimes have recently rocketed
 DENOTATION
Word choice can have an effect on the
reader/listener and language can
persuade, inspire, scare, etc.
Denotation is what a word means, the
definition we can find looking up in a
dictionary which is therefore neutral, literal.
e.g. dog: “carnivorous quadruped of the
genus Canis”
 CONNOTATION
Connotations describe all the possible
meanings associated with a word, the
emotional loadings connected with a word
which may be expressed in many ways.
• e.g. dog may connote
loyalty, love
vs
noise, danger
 METAPHOR - definition
• a word or expression used in different
context to the usual and not with its literal
meaning.
e.g. Prices skyrocketed.
Their performance went downhill.

(cf. ‘Green Shoots’: The Trouble with

Economic Metaphors, Time, May 22, 2009)
 METAPHOR - purpose
A tool to create connections between areas of
meaning that have no direct link, but offer a useful
connection or comparison that helps enhance,
clarify, make more vivid, or reinforce existing
ideas. It also represents a subtle means of casting
judgement.

It does not only exist in literature, but in everyday

life (cf. advertising, tabloid newspapers, etc).
 METAPHOR - example
Malta fears it will sink under a growing
tide of migrants from Africa.
Flooding is used as a metaphor for
immigration.
I will not be held to ransom by such a
question
It’s a metaphor for kidnapping, meaning an
attempt to compel someone to accept
demands.
 SEMANTIC FIELDS
A text (spoken or written) may use several words referring
to the same subject matter, activity, experience, or context
(cf. the specialised vocabulary connected to a specialistic
field or domain).
These sets or clusters of related words are called
semantic fields: a group of words related in meaning,
normally as a result of being connected with a particular
context of use.

•e.g. labour, staff, clock-in, white-collar, wage

all belong to the semantic field of work
 REFERENCES
• Hübler A. (1983). Understatements and Hedges in
English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Publishing Company.
• Lakoff G. (1973). “Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria
and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts”, Journal of
Philosophical Logic, 2:458-508.
• Levinson S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in
Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
• Markkanen Raija / Schröder Hartmut (eds.), 1997.
Hedging and Discourse. Approaches to the Analysis of a
Pragmatic Phenomenon in Academic Texts. Berlin/New
York: De Gruyter.
• Thompson G (2004). Introducing Functional Grammar.
Oxford: Oxford U.P.