SCHEMES FOR ANALYZING TEXTS. Year 4

SCHEME FOR ANALYZING POETRY

1. Genre

2. Theme

3. Key words, supporting the theme

4. Concept(s)

5. Composition (structure, foot, theme)

6. Imagery: symbols, figures of speech (expressive means and stylistic devices)

7. Tone

8. Message/idea

9. Interpretation

SCHEME FOR SCIENTIFIC STYLE TEXT ANALYSIS

1. The type of the text: the sciences, the humanities, the natural sciences

2. Genre of the text: article, dissertation, treatise, thesis, manual, review, etc.

3. The theme/subject/topic of the text

4. Compositional form/pattern/design:

• the title

• the introductory paragraph

• the body paragraphs (chronological, thematic)

• the closure

• quotations (complete and fragmentary), references

• foot-notes (digressive in character)

5. Compositional types of narration:

• description (static and dynamic)

• reasoning/argumentation (proof and conclusion – theoretical, empirical or mixed).

6. Language peculiarities:

   1. lexical:

• bookish words

• terminological nomenclature (general and specific)

• lexical expressiveness (quantitative, sometimes in the humanities - figurative)

1. syntactic:

• the word order

• types and kinds of sentences

• sentence patterns (postulatory, argumentative, formulative)

• passive constructions

• impersonal forms

• constructions with ‘one’ and ‘that of’, ‘those of’, ‘that + Participle’

• types and kinds of attributes

• syntactic complexes; prepositional phrases

• conjunctions and conjunctive words

1. morphological:

• the prevalence of nouns/ noun phrases, groups

• pronouns ‘we’ and ‘I’

• adverbs.

7. Objectivity, precision of the text

8. Emotiveness and subjective modality

SCHEME FOR PUBLICISTIC STYLE TEXT ANALYSIS

1. The type of the text: the arts, politics, economy, morality, law, religion, etc.

2. Genre of the text: oratories, speeches, articles, commentaries, letter, essay, etc.

3. The theme/subject/topic of the text

4. Compositional form/pattern/design:

• the beginning, conventional patterns

• the end

• paragraphs.

5. Language peculiarities:

   1. syntactic:

• sentence-patterns, their length

• types and kinds of sentences

• emphatic constructions

• an expanded use of connectives

1. lexical:

• bookish and high-flown words

• colloquialisms

• abundance of emotive words.

1. morphological

• pronouns ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘you’, one’

6. Stylistic means:

• traditional and genuine

• lexical (simile, sustained metaphor, irony, allusion, metonymy, epithets, etc.)

• syntactic (repetition, parallel constructions, antithesis, suspense, rhetorical questions, etc.)

7. Emotiveness and subjective modality

SCHEME FOR OFFICIAL STYLE TEXT ANALYSIS

1. The type of the text: governmental, juridical, diplomatic, commercial, military, etc.

2. Genre of the text: contract, pact, statute, treaty, authoritative directive, regulation, procedures act, instruction, etc.

3. The theme/subject/topic of the text

4. Compositional form/pattern/design:

• strict model/forms of structuring

• introductory sentences

• stereotypical features

• the peculiarities of the paragraphs

5. Language peculiarities:

   1. lexical:

• neutral and bookish words

• borrowings

• archaisms

• terminology, words of special nomenclature

• key-words, special lexis

• set expressions

• contractions, abbreviations

• conventional symbols.

1. syntactical:

• syntactical complexes (participial, gerundial, infinitival)

• complex and compound sentences with coordination and subordination

• participles 1 and 2

• passive constructions

• objects, attributes and adverbial modifiers

• parenthesis, their character

• long prepositional phrases.

6. Objectivity, clarity of the text.

7. Emotiveness and subjective modality.

SCHEME FOR NEWSPAPER WRITING ANALYSIS

1. Define the genre of the given sample of newspaper writing and speak on its general distinctive features:

• a hard news article

• a feature story

• a profile

• an editorial

• an op-ed article (an op-ed essay, a column)

• a business article

• a science / health article

• a sports article

• a review.

2. Name the author of the article and its dateline.

3. Define the theme of the article. Provide the background information to reinforce / justify interest in the topic.

4. Comment on the format of the article.

5. Define the type of the headline and explain if it helps predict the contents and viewpoint of the article.

6. Name the purpose of the article and speak on linguistic and stylistic presentation of information:

• key words;

• figurative language; sentence and paragraph structure

• the tone/slant of the article.

7. Reader-response strategy: speak on your emotional reaction to the story.

8. Define the message of the newspaper writing under analysis.