Mastering Text Analysis: Summaries, Outlines & Linguistic Features

Posted on May 28, 2025 in Social Anthropology

Text Summarization Techniques

To effectively summarize a text, follow these guidelines:

Read the text and highlight key information.
Synthesize important ideas in your own words.
If the text is expository or argumentative, begin with the thesis statement.
The summary should not exceed 30% of the original text.
Avoid copying phrases directly from the text.
Order ideas logically.
Begin directly with the content summary; avoid expressions like: “The author defends…?”
Do not include personal opinions about the text.

When outlining a text, consider the following:

Read the text and highlight key information.
Synthesize important ideas in your own words.
If the text is expository or argumentative, extract the main argument and use it as the outline’s title.
Organize ideas using numbered headings (e.g., 1, 2, 3 and 1.1, 1.2).
Major headings should follow a logical order.
The outline should not exceed 50% of the original text.
Avoid copying phrases directly from the text.
Order ideas logically.
Do not include personal opinions about the text.

The primary functions of language include:

Introduction: Briefly describe the mode of discourse, the text’s central theme, and the author’s attitude (e.g., objective, subjective, ironic, committed).
Analysis: Analyze language functions, relating them to the author’s type and intention, the recipient type, and the language used. Provide reasons and examples from the text to justify each function’s presence.
Conclusion: Identify the dominant function and explain why.

Identify and justify the text’s mode of discourse:

Mode of Discourse: Justify your identification.
Theme and Thesis: Clearly state the central theme and thesis.
Sender, Recipient, and Language Functions: Identify the author and intended audience, and discuss relevant language functions.
Structure: Analyze the text’s organization (e.g., beginning, middle, and conclusion; linear, convergent, scattered, open, and closed) and types of arguments used.
Linguistic Features: Examine the lexical-semantic level (e.g., connotation) and morphosyntactic level (e.g., nouns, adjectives, verbs).
Conclusion: Provide a brief conclusion highlighting key insights.

To analyze the genre of a text, consider:

Text Types: e.g., essay, op-ed.
Theme and Thesis: Identify the central theme and thesis.
Dominant Linguistic Register: e.g., humanistic, scientific, literary, formal, colloquial, vulgar.
Field: e.g., sociology, politics, literature. Determine if it uses a specialized register.
Linguistic Features: Analyze the lexical-semantic level and connotation (e.g., literary devices), and the morphosyntactic level (e.g., nouns, adjectives, verbs, and sentence structures).
Conclusion: Provide a brief conclusion highlighting key insights.

Introduction: Describe the mode of discourse, the text’s central theme, text type, and register, linking them to the presence of cultisms, jargon, or neologisms.
Description: Define cultisms, jargon, or neologisms, including their origin and formation. Specify their relevance to the corresponding register (e.g., humanistic, scientific, literary), the specific area (e.g., social or professional jargon), and the level of language use (e.g., formal, informal, written, spoken).
Stylistic Commentary: Discuss the importance of these lexical phenomena in the text. Does the text conform to its type, the author’s and recipient’s characteristics, the subject, or the intended purpose?
Conclusion: Summarize the most important aspects of the discussion.

Introduction: Describe the mode of discourse, the text’s central theme, text type, and register, linking them to the importance of semantic fields.
Description of Semantic Fields: Extract four semantic fields. Define each with a keyword and list its components, sorted by objects/concepts (nouns), qualities (adjectives), and actions (verbs).
Stylistic Commentary: Discuss the importance of these semantic fields. Relate them to the text’s topic and main ideas. Observe the relationships between different fields (e.g., inclusion, dependence, opposition). Note if a semantic field dominates a specific register (e.g., jargon) or contains words with connotative meaning (e.g., metaphors, symbols).
Conclusion: Summarize the most important aspects of the discussion.