Text Analysis and Interpretation - Report Example

Running head: TEXT ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Text analysis and interpretation [Writer’s name] [Institution’s name] Text analysis and interpretation This paper is based demonstrates your ability to analyze texts and draw on this analysis to deepen your interpretation of the texts and, later use this to help you prepare teaching activities for a unit of work in English. It requires the student to Choose five texts related to one another along one or more dimensions (e.g. by genre or field of discourse) and contrasting along some other dimensions (e.g. tenor and mode). Along with this Choose a corpus of texts related to some area of teaching in English (or another subject like History or Geography). The student also has to make sure at least one of your texts is visual or multimodal. If the texts are very long, choose a few pages for purposes of analysis of structure. Identify the text type (or types if the text mixes elements of two texts). Then annotate each text, marking key stages and their rhetorical purpose. Second, by means of the selected passages, it discusses the cohesive function of lexical repetition. To conclude, it highlights application to English language teaching by means of analyzing two passages from a text. This paper may be considered as a complete guide to grammatical analysis Analysis Lexical repetition within one sentence means one lexical unit appears more than once in the same sentence. Let's look at the first part of a short poem “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.” (G. M. Hopkins, 128) In this short poem, "have trod" has been repeated three times in the fifth line. The lexical repetition here shows the poet's strong resentment towards human being's trample of nature. Cohesive Function between Sentences Lexical repetition between sentences means the same lexical unit appears in different sentences, which could be either from the same speaker or from different speakers. Different cohesive functions are discussed as follows Emphasizing the Above-Mentioned Word Emphatic function is no doubt the most important function of lexical repetition. It is a powerful method to emphasize some word or words which have been mentioned before through lexical repetition. "You ask, what is our aimI can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs -victory in spite of all terror--victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival" (W. Churchill, 204). The speech "Blood, Toil, Sweat and Tears" delivered by Winston Churchill at May 13, 1940 has become an all-time famous speech, his enormous faith that the country is doomed to win was conveyed through the repetition of the word "victory". People could be easily infected by speaker's profound emotions. b. Showing Agreement with other's Words This function of lexical repetition is often used in conversations. For instance: "Let me get four fresh ones." "One," the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises. "Two," the boy said. "Two," the old man agreed. "You didn't steal them?" "I would," said the boy. "But I bought these." (Ernest Hemingway, 5) The conversation is between an old man and a boy. The aim of the repetition of another one's words is to show agreement with his words or opinions. At the same time, an active attitude of "I am listening" is conveyed. Compared with the use of repetition to show agreement, the use of interjection such as yeah, hmmm could not produce this special effect. c. Asking Someone to Confirm His Words In a conversation, it is a common phenomenon that one person repeat a part of the other person's word in order to ask the other person to confirm his words. "This St. John, then, is your cousin?" "Yes." "You have spoken of him often: do you like him?" "He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him." "A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?" "St John was only twenty-nine, sir." (Charlotte Bronte: 424) Jane says that her cousin St.John is "a very good man", and Mr. Rochester repeats her words not because he doesn't listen clearly but he is jealous and wishes Jane had made a mistake about describing St.John as a good man. C. Cohesive Function in Text he following excerpt is cited from President Bush's address to a joint session of Congress in Sept. 20, 2001: Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people. We have seen it in the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. We have seen the state of our union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of union, and it is strong. This speech is delivered just nine days after the September 11 attack. Instead of simply saying American people are brave people, Present Bush used the same expression "we have seen..." four times to emphasize the courage and the fearlessness of the ordinary American people. The central meaning of the speech is conveyed through the use of lexical repetition, which leaves the readers and listeners with much stronger impression. Lexical repetition of the same lexical unit may also appears both at the end of one paragraph and at the beginning of the next paragraph. Another example is listed as follows: .Similarly, the same oversimplification or falsification is the basic characteristic of the dishonest theme. The dishonest theme is almost always stereotyped; it is the product not of a writer's observations of and thoughts about life, but of mass opinion and prejudice. (Virgil Scott and David Madden, 126) The repetition of the same lexical repetition "the dishonest theme" joins the meaning of the two paragraphs successfully. The repetition here has the same cohesive function as the repetition of "We have seen..." in the above-mentioned text. IV. Application to Language Teaching Reading and writing plays a very important role in English teaching and much concern has been given to researches of teaching method. Traditionally, students are warned not to repeat themselves just because students do not have a large enough vocabulary and teachers worry that they will repeat the same word again and again awkwardly. However, effective lexical repetition has many text-organizing functions. Consequently, it is a necessity to have repetition in text. A. Application to Reading Teaching Reading comprehension may be considered a process during which readers, based on their acquired knowledge, whether linguistically or culturally, and author's clues, deduce author's intentions. Lexical cohesion is closely related to text coherence. Lexical chain can determine text's topic and infer the purpose of a text. The conscious analysis of lexical cohesion can help understand author's intention and enhance students' initiative as well as creativity, thus developing reading comprehension capability. Let's look at a short passage taken from USA Today: A: There are more than 26000 patients on the national waiting list for transplants, in increase of 10000 patients over the last three years. B: More than 2000 patients are dying annually while waiting for transplants, mostly patients waiting for hearts, kidneys and livers. C: The shortage of organs is so acute thatlast month, in an unprecedented proceduresurgeons at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania transplanted a baboon liver into a 35 year-old man dying of liver failure USA Today, 2005 Lexical items contribute much to the coherence of text. The simple repetition of "dying" in sentence B and C; "patients" in sentence A and B; "transplants" in sentence A and B; "liver" in sentence B and C and "waiting for" in sentence B conform themselves to the topic of the text; the complex repetition of "transplants" (n.) in sentence A and "transplanted" (v.) in sentence C; the complex paraphrase of "patients" and "surgeons" in sentence C; the hyponymic repetition of "hearts, kidneys and livers" and "organs" in sentence B and C; The interaction of these lexical repetitions reveals the central meaning of "many dying patients waiting for organs transplants". Lexical repetition could help English learners better understand the text structure and appreciate the style of original works. According to Hoey, "Sentence" is an independent information unit and the basis of text structure. In reading texts, readers can feel not only the cohesive function of lexical chain, but the cohesive relations between sentences as independent information units. The relation between sentences is achieved through repetition of lexical items in sentences. It can help students reconstruct the content of the text into a hierarchical structure and form a coherent frame concerning the text structure, which helps students withdraw the relevant information from short-term memory to answer comprehension questions, because the main purpose of reading is to communicate and get information. B. Application to Writing Teaching Writing is an act of expressing one's thoughts, emotions and ideas. Jonathan Swift, a famous writer, defines writing as "proper words in proper places", which means proper words are linked in proper manner so that thoughts, views or artistic conceptions are in coherent form. The teaching of writing in English requires priority be placed on text with a view to developing students' communication ability in written form. Therefore, the composed articles are to be outstanding in central idea and coherent in linguistic meaning. Through using various forms of cohesive devices such as lexical repetition, students are taught to develop their writing smoothly, in other words, the coherence of text could be achieved by applying lexical repetition to text. Let's look at the following passage: There are about 50,000 entries in a Chinese dictionary not counting the compounds. In order to be literate, a Chinese must learn 6000. An English-speaking child, having to conquer only a twenty-six-letter alphabet, has usually learned to read by the time he begins the third grade. A Chinese child needs at least five more years of elementary learning; in the seventh grade; he can barely read a Chinese newspaper. (21st Century,2005) In this passage, there are two types of lexical repetition. One is the hyponymic repetition of "Chinese, Chinese child", another is the simple paraphrase of "to be literate, learn, and conquer." For text to be readable, lexical repetition can be properly applied to our writing to produce a variety of sentences, which is featured on vivid words and exact description. Grammar exercise It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.” (G. M. Hopkins, 128) Sentences used in this text are compound sentences Second passage You ask, what is our aimI can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs -victory in spite of all terror--victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival" (W. Churchill, 204). Sentences used here are complex Third passage Let me get four fresh ones." "One," the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises. "Two," the boy said. "Two," the old man agreed. "You didn't steal them?" "I would," said the boy. "But I bought these." (Ernest Hemingway, 5) Sentences used are complex ones Third passage This St. John, then, is your cousin?" "Yes." "You have spoken of him often: do you like him?" "He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him." "A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?" "St John was only twenty-nine, sir." (Charlotte Bronte: 424) Sentences used are complex as well as simple ones Fourth passage Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people. We have seen it in the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. We have seen the state of our union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of union, and it is strong. Simple and complex sentences are used in this verse Fifth passage There are more than 26000 patients on the national waiting list for transplants, in increase of 10000 patients over the last three years. B: More than 2000 patients are dying annually while waiting for transplants, mostly patients waiting for hearts, kidneys and livers. C: The shortage of organs is so acute that last month, in an unprecedented procedure surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania transplanted a baboon liver into a 35 year-old man dying of liver failure USA Today, 2005 The sentences used here mostly complex Conclusion This paper is based on grammatical analysis of paragraphs for this purpose even the lexical analysis is used. The paper provides a complete grammatical analysis of the five selected paragraphs. Thus, as mentioned before this paper is based demonstrates your ability to analyze texts and draw on this analysis to deepen your interpretation of the texts and, later use this to help you prepare teaching activities for a unit of work in English. Read More