Learning objectives
Analyse lexis by naming semantic fields, separating denotation from connotation, and judging the formality created by Latinate against Anglo-Saxon choices, jargon, slang and neologism
Analyse grammar by labelling word classes, clause and sentence types, voice, tense and aspect, modality and pronoun use, and saying what each choice does to the reader
Track cohesion through anaphoric and cataphoric reference, conjunction, ellipsis, substitution and lexical chains, and explain how these hold a text together
Analyse phonological patterning and graphology, and write about both using accurate terminology and short embedded quotations tied to a specific effect
Key definitions
Semantic field
A set of words in a text that belong to one area of meaning. Naming the field is a claim about what the text keeps returning to, not a list of synonyms.
Denotation and connotation
Denotation is the dictionary meaning a word shares with its near-synonyms; connotation is the association it carries on top. Home and residence denote one thing and connote two very different ones.
Modality
The grading of certainty, obligation or possibility through modal verbs (must, may, should, could) and modal adverbs (certainly, perhaps, arguably).
Cohesion
The reference, conjunction, ellipsis, substitution and lexical repetition that make a run of separate sentences read as one continuous text.
Minor sentence
A sentence with no finite verb, such as “Ten years.” It compresses a claim and imitates the rhythm of speech or of a label.
Graphology
The visual organisation of a text: typeface, size and weight, layout, white space, colour, images and captions.
Explanation
Start with lexis, but move past spotting. The first move is to group words rather than list them: ask which semantic field the text keeps returning to, because naming a field names a preoccupation. Take an advertisement written for this note: “Northmoor Boots. Built for the long walk home. Leather that remembers your foot. Ten years. One pair.” The field is endurance over time — “long”, “remembers”, “ten years” — and the lexis is almost entirely Anglo-Saxon and monosyllabic, which reads as plain and unshowy, so the product feels honest rather than luxurious. Now separate denotation from connotation: “home” denotes a dwelling, but here connotes safety reached after effort. A Latinate alternative such as “engineered for extended pedestrian use” denotes the same thing and connotes a laboratory. Formality is carried in the same way by jargon (in-group technical terms), slang (informal and group-marking) and neologism (a newly coined word), each of which narrows or widens the audience a text will admit.
Label the grammar, then say what it does. Name the word class that is doing the work — the dynamic verbs in a report, the pre-modifying adjectives in a brochure, the abstract nouns in an editorial. Then look at structure. A simple sentence has one clause; a compound sentence joins clauses of equal weight with and, but or so; a complex sentence subordinates one clause to another and so ranks its information; a minor sentence has no finite verb at all. “Ten years. One pair.” is two minor sentences, and their effect is to strip the claim to a bare figure, imitating the confidence of a speaker who does not need to argue. Voice comes next: the passive “Built for the long walk home” deletes the agent, so no manufacturer is named and the boot seems to have arrived by itself. Tense and aspect position the reader in time — the present perfect “has lifted” ties a past event to the present moment. Modality grades commitment: “will last” asserts, “should last” hedges, “must” commands. Pronouns build the relationship, since second-person “you” addresses one reader at a time while inclusive “we” folds reader and writer into a single group.
Cohesion holds an argument together. Anaphoric reference points backwards (“Leather that remembers your foot. It softens…”), so the reader must carry the earlier noun forward; cataphoric reference points ahead (“Ask anyone who wears them: Northmoor boots do not give up.”, where “them” is explained only by the noun that follows) and creates a small delay that works like a hook. Conjunctions and connectives signpost the logic — additive (and, moreover), adversative (but, however), causal (so, because), temporal (then, finally) — and the pattern of connectives is often the quickest way to describe how an argument moves. Ellipsis omits recoverable words (“Ten years.” leaves out “they last for”), which speeds the text and makes it sound spoken; substitution swaps a phrase for a pro-form such as “one” or “do so”. A lexical chain of repeated and related words keeps a single idea in view across paragraphs. Naming the device is half the work; explaining what it does for the reader is the other half.
Phonology is not decoration. In a text meant to be heard — a speech, an advertisement, a podcast script — sound patterning organises attention. Alliteration binds a phrase so that it is stored as one unit; sibilance, the repetition of s and sh sounds, can soothe or can hiss, and which it does depends on the semantic field around it; assonance repeats vowel sounds and slows a line; plosive consonants (p, b, t, d, k, g) give an abrupt, percussive edge; onomatopoeia makes a word imitate the noise it names. Rhythm matters too: “Ten years. One pair.” is four stressed syllables in a row, a drumbeat with no unstressed syllable to soften it. Always tie the sound to the sense, because sibilance in a description of a river is doing a different job from sibilance in a description of a threat.
Graphology directs the eye before a word is read. Describe what the reader meets first and in what order: a large bold headline, a strapline in a lighter weight, a block of body copy, a pull quote, a caption beneath an image. Typeface carries connotation, since a serif face suggests tradition and authority while a sans-serif face suggests clarity and a handwritten face suggests intimacy. Size and weight build a hierarchy that tells the reader what matters; white space around a short line makes it read as a verdict rather than as information; colour codes sections or imports a brand identity; images and captions anchor a meaning that the picture alone would leave open. In the boots advertisement, setting “Ten years. One pair.” alone at the foot of the page in small bold capitals would make the reader arrive at it last and take it as a conclusion.
The move that earns marks. Write one paragraph per claim, not one per feature. Open with a claim about effect: “The advertisement builds authority by refusing to sell.” Support it with a short embedded quotation of three or four words placed inside your own sentence rather than dropped in on its own. Name the feature precisely — not “uses language” but “the minor sentence” or “the deleted agent of the passive”. Then explain the mechanism: what must the reader do with that choice, and what do they conclude from it? Close by linking back to the writer's purpose. A term named without an effect is feature-spotting; an effect asserted without a term is impressionism. The mark sits in the join between them.
Formulae
Paragraph frame: claim about effect → short embedded quotation → precise term → what the reader must do → link to purpose
Lexis checklist: semantic field · denotation against connotation · Latinate against Anglo-Saxon · jargon, slang, neologism
Grammar checklist: word class · simple, compound, complex, minor · active against passive · tense and aspect · modality · pronouns
Cohesion checklist: anaphoric and cataphoric reference · conjunction · ellipsis · substitution · lexical chain
Graphology checklist: typeface · size and weight · layout and white space · colour · image and caption
Worked examples
q: Analyse the language of this opening to a local newspaper feature, written for this note: “The pool closed in March. Since then the tiles have lifted, the diving board has gone to a scrapyard in Leek, and the changing rooms smell of wet plaster and something older. Nobody has been sacked. Nobody has been told.”
steps: Start from form and purpose. This is the opening of a feature article and its purpose is to build grievance, so look first for choices that imply blame rather than state it.
Lexis: the semantic field is decay — lifted, scrapyard, wet plaster — and the vague noun phrase “something older” refuses to name the smell, inviting the reader to imagine something worse than the writer will commit to in print.
Grammar: sentence one is a bare simple declarative carrying a fact and a date; sentence two is a compound sentence of three coordinated clauses behind the fronted adverbial “Since then”, so the damage accumulates in a single breath.
Voice: the last two sentences are agentless passives, “has been sacked” and “has been told”, so the authority that should have acted is grammatically absent and the reader supplies it.
Sound and structure: those two closing sentences are short, parallel and both begin with the negative pronoun “Nobody”, and the repetition turns description into accusation.
Write it up as one claim per paragraph, each opening with the effect, embedding the quotation inside your own sentence, and closing by linking the choice to the writer's purpose.
In context
Forensic linguists compare lexical habits, sentence length and spelling patterns in a disputed text against known writing samples when advising a court on authorship.
Plain-English campaigns audit contracts and official letters for Latinate lexis, nominalisation and agentless passives, because those three choices reliably hide who is obliged to do what.
Common misconceptions
Students often produce a list of features and call it analysis. In fact a term earns credit only when it is joined to a specific effect on a specific reader.
Students often write that the passive voice is weak. In fact deleting the agent is a choice with consequences — hiding responsibility, generalising a claim, or keeping a scientific report impersonal — and the analysis lies in deciding which one applies.
Students often claim short sentences always create tension. In fact a short sentence takes its force from contrast with what surrounds it, and a whole paragraph of them reads as flat rather than tense.
Students often use connotation to mean anything emotional. In fact connotation is the association a word carries against the denotation it shares with its near-synonyms, so the analysis needs that comparison to exist.
Study tips
Quote three or four words inside your own sentence; a quotation longer than a line usually means the claim has not been narrowed enough.
Name the level you are working at as you move between lexis, grammar, cohesion, phonology and graphology, so the range of your coverage is visible without the examiner hunting for it.
If you cannot say what a feature does, leave it out; there is no credit for a correct label attached to nothing.
Evaluate the idea
A strong reading admits a rival one. The minor sentences in a slogan can be read as imitating confident speech or as imitating the compressed style of a product label, and the better answer says which the graphology supports.
Sibilance is routinely glossed as soothing, but the same pattern reads as menace when the surrounding semantic field is threat, so effect claims must be argued from context rather than recited from a fixed list.
Whether a passive hides an agent or simply keeps attention on the affected thing depends on whether a plausible agent is available in the context; where none is, the concealment reading is weak and should be dropped.
Where two levels point the same way — Anglo-Saxon lexis and minor sentences both producing plainness — the claim is well supported. Where they pull against each other, say so, because a text working in two directions is usually the most interesting thing on the page.
Reasoning
Once the levels of language are secure, the next step is pragmatics and discourse structure, which ask what a text means beyond its words and how it is shaped as a whole.
Summary
Group lexis into semantic fields and test connotation against the denotation a near-synonym would share.
Label clause type, voice, modality and pronoun use, then say what each does to the reader.
Cohesion, phonology and graphology are three more levels, each analysed the same way: term, quotation, effect.
One paragraph carries one claim about effect, supported by a short embedded quotation and linked back to purpose.
Check your understanding
Question 1: In “Leather that remembers your foot”, the most precise analysis of “remembers” is…
1. onomatopoeia, imitating the sound of leather
2. a minor sentence used for emphasis
3. personification, giving the material an agency the buyer can trust
Question 2: Which cohesive device points the reader forwards rather than back?
1. Ellipsis
2. Anaphoric reference
3. Cataphoric reference
Question 3: Naming a semantic field is worth doing because…
1. it shows the examiner that a term has been learnt
2. it states what the text keeps returning to, which is already a claim about meaning
3. it removes the need to quote from the text