SPOCA analysis and what it can show
Task B - Our analysis (line 4)
Explanation of fourth line of Nursery Rhyme
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S
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P
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O
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I
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wish
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that man would go away.
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This sentence has a clause (with the internal structure SPA) acting
as an object. This clause presupposes that the man is there, even though
we have been told twice by the same poetic speaker that he is not. So
the nursery rhyme now contradicts itself as well as going against our
assumptions about how the world, and language, works.
Overall, we can notice that the semantic oddities in this poem are produced
because of a clash between the grammar (which is suggesting normal relationships
between sentence parts) and the meaning (which is clearly not normal).
If we then try to arrive at an explanation (i.e. interpretation) of these
oddities in context, we could arrive at (i) a postmodern reading (we could
infer that the text explores the philosophical relationship between presence
and absence) or (ii) a more mundane reading, that the rhyme exemplifies
the way in which young children often have unreasonable fears, including
being afraid of things which do not exist. We leave it up to you to decide
which account you prefer, or to come up with one of your own.
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