Topic 6 (session A) - Style and Style variation > Authorial and text style > Task D

Authorial and Text Style

Task D - Lexical analysis

Clearly, part of the analysis of style must involve statistical comparisons. This is the only way you can sensibly display style tendencies which one writer has, compared with others, over his or her writing as a whole. But it is also important to look at the qualitative aspects of the writing and, indeed, this is particularly important when we want to reveal text style, with its local meanings and effects, rather than authorial style. So from this task onwards we look at qualitative as well as quantitative aspects.

Now look in more detail at the lexis of each passage and compare what you find with (a) your initial impressions gathered in Task A, and (b) what we say for each passage. We suggest that you look at the following:

1. Is the vocabulary composed mainly of basic, common-core terms (e.g. table, tree, eye) or more abstract, learned or specialised terms (e.g. faith, metaphor, neutron)?
2. What areas of our vocabulary (semantic fields) do the words relate to (e.g. the body, education, science, morality)? Remember that the semantic fields you notice may sometimes be general (e.g. vegetation) and sometimes more specific (e.g. trees).
3. What words, if any, are repeated, and how often?
4. How complex is the lexis (the complexity of words can be measured by counting the number of syllables in each word)?

Look at each of the passages in turn, considering all of the above aspects of lexis. Then compare your findings with ours before moving on to the next extract.

View our analysis of:

Steinbeck Passage   Jane Austen Passage   Lawrence Passage

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