Checklist for text analysis

This is a basic starter kit which is designed only in order to enable first steps and first observations to be made. Many features, including some covered in the book, are not included here.

First questions about a text:

  • What do you notice?
  • How does the text affect you?
  • Where did the text come from?
  • What type of text is it? What is the text for?
  • How do you initially interpret the text? What is your first response to it?

Text, texture and image:

  • What is the initial impact made by the shape and texture of text on the page: print size? pictures and images? drawings? type of font? signs and symbols? camera angles? colour? movement? (in the case of video or digital texts).
  • What is in the background/foreground? What is the balance of print to pictures or image?  Are there parallels and patterns in the text? Are patterns broken with and deviated from?
  • What is not in the text that might be expected?

Vocabulary, grammar and discourse:

  • What is the balance of lexical and grammatical words? Are there word families in the text?
  • Are the words and phrases specialised or general? If specialised, what semantic field is being used and why?
  • What connotations are suggested by the words? Are the meanings more literal or more indirect and pragmatic in meaning?
  • What kinds of patterns are created by the words? Are there parallels and repetitions? Are there synonyms and antonyms, metaphors and metonymies? Are any patterns broken?
  • What level of formality is suggested by the lexical choices made?
  • What is the nature of the cohesion (lexical and grammatical) made in the text? What is the role of conjunctions and discourse markers? Are they more formal or more ‘spoken’ and conversational?
  • Are there any expected features of vocabulary that are not in the text?
  • What is the effect of grammatical words? Look first for smaller grammatical words; for example, definite/indefinite articles? Pronouns/personal and possessive pronouns/plural and singular?
  • What kind of deictic expressions are there?  Are they temporal, spatial, social?
  • How many adjectives are used and what point of view do they convey?
  • What kind of nouns are used? Are they mainly abstract or concrete? How complex are the noun phrases?
  • What tenses are used? Is the text mainly in the active or the passive voice? 
  • What kinds of verbs are used - action verbs? verbs of perception and cognition? Are the verbs mainly transitive or intransitive? Are modal verbs and modal expressions used? Are the modal verbs used for control and regulation, for permission, for possibility, for obligation?
  • What kinds of sentences are there in the text? Short or long sentences? Finite or non-finite?
  • Are there mostly statements? Are there any imperatives?  How many questions are there?
  • Does the text mainly consist of main clauses? Are there many subordinate clauses? Is the clause structure more complex or more simple in structure? Is ellipsis common?
  • What level of formality is suggested by the grammatical structures used?
  • Are there any expected features of grammar that are not in the text?
  • To what extent are words, phrases and grammatical structures used to reveal and conceal ideologies?
  • What is the point of view of the text? What beliefs and values are revealed? Do you accept or resist the point of view?
  • Are there any intertextual references? Does the text remind you of other texts that express similar views about the topic?
  • How many speakers are there? What are the speakers using language for? What kind of genre or speech event are the speakers engaged in?
  • Is the talk spontaneous or planned? Is it part of a routine or freely composed? Are the speakers using one language or are they code mixing and switching?
  • Who initiates speaking turns, who holds the floor and for how long? Is the speaker male or female? Who controls the topic?
  • Are there interruptions or overlaps or pauses in the exchanges? Who interrupts?  What terms of address are used?
  • Are there (in video texts) any obvious paralinguistic features and is there any evidence of facial or bodily gestures?
  • What are the most noticeable sound patterns? What are the similar and dissimilar sounds? Is there rhyme and are there patterns such as alliteration and assonance? Do vowel and consonant sounds cluster in particular ways?
  • How is sound represented on the written page? Are accents and dialects represented?
  • Is there anything which is missing or unexpected?

Digital text:

  • What are the affordances and limitations of the communication tool?
  • Is the text interactive and interpersonal, or more of an individual or corporate one-way product? If it is interactive, do both participants have the same tools or different ones?
  • How do the different possible modes of communication relate to each other? Do some characteristics of the text resemble conventional writing and, if so, which?
  • Are there any aspects of the environment that resemble the spoken context and, if so, which?
  • Are there aspects of the text that are nothing like former modes of communication?

Next steps:

Continue by reading, (looking, listening) several more times, increasing observations of the forms, functions and meanings of language and image and developing interpretations of them.