Topic 10 (session A) - Prose analysis > Methodology checksheet

Methodology checksheet

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This checksheet is based on the 'Checklist of Linguistic and Stylistic Categories' which is in Leech and Short Style in Fiction, on pages 75-82. You will find that this checksheet is somewhat simpler than that list, in that we have included only those elements of each item which are familiar to you at this stage. As you progress, it will become increasingly appropriate to use the Leech an Short checklist than to use this one; but this one will always be enough for basic information.

In this Methodology Checksheet, we give you a series of questions you can ask about the different elements of text. Answering the questions helps you to specify the nature of each element, so that you can then consider the effects of the element on your interpretation of the text. Answering all the questions will involve using all the skills you have so far accumulated; but it is sensible to select which questions are most appropriate for any given text.

We cover four major areas:

I:     Lexis
II:    Grammar
III:   Foregrounded features (including figures of speech)
IV:   Cohesion and Context

I: LEXIS

(1) General Examine the Open Class words in the text. (i) Is the vocabulary simple or complex (i.e. many or few syllables in each word)? Is it descriptive or evaluative? Is it general or specific? (ii) Does the writer make greatest use of referential or denotative (central/core) meanings, or do you have to think about connotations or other emotive senses of the words? (iii) Are there idioms in the text (i.e. non-literal phrases, such as under the weather)? If so, are they associated with a particular register or dialect? (iv) Are there any unusual words - archaic, rare or specialized vocabulary? (v) Do the words fall into groups which form noticeable semantic fields? (2) Specific (i) NOUNS. Are they abstract or concrete? If abstract, do they refer to similar kinds of element, e.g. events, perceptions, processes, moral qualities, social qualities? Are there proper names or collective nouns? (ii) ADJECTIVES. Do they occur frequently? What kinds of attributes do they embody (physical, emotional, visual, colour, etc.)? Do they occur in comparative or superlative forms? Do they occur singly or in groups? (iii) VERBS. How frequently do they occur? Are they linking, transitive or intransitive? Are they stative (referring to states) or dynamic (referring to actions, events)? Do they refer to physical movement, psychological states or activities, perception, etc? Are there more finite (complete-sense) verbs, or more participles (present or past)? (iv) ADVERBS. Do they occur frequently? What kinds of meaning do they have (i.e. do they describe manner, place, direction, frequency, degree, place, etc)? Do they occur in comparative or superlative forms?

II: GRAMMAR

(1) General Are any general types of grammatical construction used to special effect, e.g. comparative or superlative constructions, parallelisms, listing, interjections or other speech-like phenomena? (2) Specific (i) SENTENCES. Are they statements, questions, commands, etc. or are they like speech-type sentences, e.g. without a predicator? Are they simple, compound or complex? How long are they? Are there striking contrasts in sentence length or structure at any point in the text? If the sentences are long, is their length due to embedding, co-ordination, long phrases acting as single SPOCA elements, or other causes? (ii) CLAUSES. What types of clauses are noticeably favoured (e.g. relative, adverbial, noun clauses etc.)? Is there anything special about the clauses, e.g. a frequent and unusual placement of adverbials, or 'fronting' of object or complement? Are there clauses with 'dummy subjects' (i.e. there, it)? (iii) PHRASES (a) NOUN PHRASES: are they simple or complex? If complex, is this due to the frequency of premodifiers (adjectives, noun-modifiers, etc) or is it due to postmodification (prepositional phrases, relative clauses, complement clauses, etc.)? (b) VERB PHRASES: what is the tense? present or past? Are there sections of apparent narration where the tense is other than the simple past tense (e.g. continuous past, present, perfect, or where modal auxiliaries such as can, must, should etc. occur)? (c) OTHER PHRASES: are there any remarkable features about other phrases (i.e. prepositional, adverbial, adjectival)? (iv) WORD CLASSES. Do the Closed Class words (i.e. prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, determiners, auxiliaries, interjections) play any significant role in the text?. Is there frequent or striking use of e.g. the first person pronouns (I, we), negative words (no, not, neither) or the definite or indefinite article (the, a(n))?

III: FOREGROUNDED FEATURES (Figures of speech, etc.)

Figures of speech can be divided up into types related to the language levels and language patterns (parallelism, deviation, foregrounding) we discussed earlier in the course. They are of two major types: Schemes, which are constituted by 'foregrounded repetitions of expression' and Tropes, or 'foregrounded irregularities of content' (see Leech and Short, p.82 and Leech, Linguistic Guide to English Poetry chs. 4 and 5 for fuller discussion). SCHEMES (1) GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL SCHEMES. Is there any formal or structural repetition (anaphora, parallelism) or any 'mirror-image' patterning (chiasmus)? If so, do these schemes bring about effects of antithesis, reinforcement, climax, anticlimax, etc? (2) PHONOLOGICAL SCHEMES. Are there any patterns of sound (rhyme, half-rhyme, alliteration, assonance) or rhythm? Are there noticeably frequent occurrences of the same or similar sound-clusters? Is there sound symbolism or are there musical devices which affect interpretation? TROPES (1) Are there any obvious violations of or departures from the 'normal' linguistic code? (2) Are there neologisms or deviant lexical collocations? (3) If there are deviations on other language levels (semantic, syntactic, phonological, graphological) do they lead you to interpret in terms of such figures of speech as metaphor or irony? Do they lead you to see other features such as personification, concretization, synaesthetic effects etc.? (See A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, p.158.)

IV: CONTEXT AND COHESION

COHESION is the name given to those language features which do the job of 'holding together' a text; these can cover a wide range of linguistic and stylistic devices. CONTEXT can be 'internal' or 'external'. External context might include very broad cultural and historical information about the author, the period of writing, etc. However, for our purposes, external context will, like internal context, be concerned with TEXTUAL RELATIONS, i.e. with the apparent relationships between persons inside and outside the text (e.g. the author and the reader, the author and the characters, one character and another). (1) COHESION (Refer to Style in Fiction, Ch. 7, pop.243-254.) (i) Does the text contain logical or other links between sentences (e.g. and, or, but, and so, then etc.) or does it rely on implicit connections (e.g. juxtaposition, sequence)? (ii) Is there a lot of cross-reference by means of pronouns or ellipsis? Or is there 'elegant variation' - the use of different ways of describing the same thing/person (so as to avoid repetition or to give you an idea of whose view of the thing/person you are getting)? (iii) Are meaning connections made by means of lexical repetition or by the frequent use of words from the same semantic field? (2) CONTEXT (i) Does the writer address the reader directly, or through the words or thoughts of a fictional character? (ii) What language features are there which tell you who is "speaking" (e.g. first person or third person pronouns)? (iii) Can you sense the author's attitude to his subject? Is it revealed explicitly or can you infer it from the way he writes? (iv) If a character's words/thoughts are represented, how is this done: by direct quotation (direct speech) or by some other means (indirect or free indirect speech) (Refer to Style in Fiction, Ch.10, pp. 318-334)? Are there noticeable changes of style according to who is supposed to be speaking/thinking.

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