Linguistic Text Analysis: Droga & Humphrey’s Framework
The purpose of this exercise is to analyse the main characteristics of a written text, trying to understand its social purpose and the way it was built with lexico-grammatical features. Finally, I will conclude on its characteristics and how meaning was created. This analysis is based on Droga and Humphrey’s linguistic theory.
Foundations of Textual Analysis: Social Purpose
A crucial aspect of text analysis stems from a social view of language: it takes into account the functionality of language, the context of use, and the lexico-grammatical elements that contribute to meaning-making.
Classifying Text Types
- Recount: Tells what happened, documenting a sequence of events.
- Narrative: Constructs a pattern of events.
- Procedure: Tells how to do something.
- Information Report: Presents generalized information about an entire class of things (e.g., snakes, cities).
- Explanation: Tells how and why things occur.
- Exposition: Argues a point of view.
- Discussion: Presents more than one side of an issue.
Grammatical and Lexical Features
Regarding the grammatical features, the text has noun groups incorporating adjectives that present the features of specific objects and *personae*; relating verbs that provide more details; and action verbs that describe activities and behaviors. The adverbial “here” is repeated throughout the text, suggesting that all events occur within the same scenery. Lexical cohesion is achieved through parallel structures and repetitions. Additionally, *affect* and *judgment* vocabulary can be identified, which define the family. In sum, all these strategies are applied to provide a complete picture of the subject.
- Detailed noun groups build descriptions.
- Descriptive and defining verbs are employed.
- Figurative language, such as personifications, is present.
- Adverbials contribute to contextualization.
- Grading vocabulary intensifies descriptions (e.g., immediate, most, universal).
Analyzing Theme and Rheme Concepts
I will analyze the theme and rheme concepts in this fragment, according to Droga and Humphrey (2003).
Experiential Themes
Experiential Themes in the text – nouns, verbs, or adverbials – typically appear at the beginning of the text to highlight names of people, places, things, or concepts.
- “On December 14, 1929” (time adverbial clause)
- “Hoping to surprise his wife” (verb phrase)
When experiential themes are not nouns (as is often the case), the adverbs or verbs used instead foreground the action, a common situation in narratives.
Interpersonal Themes
Interpersonal Themes (e.g., *in my opinion*, *quite*, *frankly*, *thankfully*) are mostly comment adverbials, placed at the beginning of the proposition to convey the storyteller’s position or opinion. No interpersonal themes were identified in the analyzed text.
Textual Themes
Textual themes (connectors and conjunctions) appear at the beginning of a clause to signal relationships between ideas and make connections between parts of a text explicit.
Analyzing Thematic Progression
To conclude the analysis of textual features, it is necessary to consider thematic progression as a prominent aspect. This refers to how ideas within the text are coherently connected in a paragraph.
I found that the “zig-zag” pattern (one theme, different points about the main topic) and “split” pattern (continuous and linear progression) are the main theme patterns found in the text. Nevertheless, some ideas are not interconnected, which may make the text more challenging to read. Since connecting ideas is a basic strategy for producing a coherent and clear text, it can be concluded that there is an inconsistent use of themes.
Concluding Observations on Thematic Progression
To conclude, the theme choices are well organized and effective. There is a clear method of development with coherent connections between sentences, which makes the text easy to understand.
Overall Conclusion
In conclusion, the text is an incomplete narrative that tells a short story, largely respecting the key grammatical features and structures outlined by Droga and Humphrey for classification. While the text possesses rich lexical meaning, the absence of connectives and conjunctions may pose some difficulties for readers. Nevertheless, the text is correctly written as it effectively creates meaning and contains strong thematic outlines.