Process of Stylistic Analysis

Step One: Initial Guidance

1. If you are offered a choice, DO NOT choose to analyse any text that you
really think you don’t understand! Go for something you think you can make
some sense of, even on an initial reading. Do give the author credit for having
thought about the way the text is phrased: assume that it’s unlikely that s/he
simply stuck something down without thinking, though you may feel (and
eventually be able to prove from linguistic evidence) that a particular choice
is not working well.

2. Once you have the text(s) you intend to work on, start thinking and note-
taking as soon as possible, so that if you have a deadline to meet, you don’t
have to rush at your work at the last minute.

3. STRUCTURE YOUR WORK, either along lines indicated to you (if any), or in
any other way that you prefer. But if you create your own structure, make it
explicit by using (sub-)headings. Make sure you cover all the areas you need
to. You could also number your own paragraphs and subparagraphs, to help
you decide if you’ve got things in the best order, but It’s not necessary to
retain the numbers once you are satisfied youVe finished moving things
about.

4. ALWAYS refer to line or sentence numbers in your chosen text, unless you
are referring to longish sections. This avoids confusion and saves time and
space. If however you find you have a very large number of such references
in a short space, consider rephrasing or referring to longer

stretches of the text you are analysing, in order simplify and clarify for the
marker.

/*

5. Follow the normal conventions for general presentation and short

quotations as described in ’General Instructions’ above. In addition,
remember the following layout requirements (which are normal for all
academic work) :

• INDENT any long quotes from the course reading, with the attribution
following aligned to the right-hand margin, and including page numbers: and
always leave a one-line space before and after the quotation;

• SINGLE INVERTED COMMAS are used for short (one-line or less) quotes, and
these are not indented, and can simply follow a colon;

• UNDERLINING (or italicisation) is appropriate for single words or short

phrases quoted as part of your own sentence.
Step Two: Producing material and planning your work

YOU MAY NOW PICK UP A PEN!

1. Allow yourself plenty of time to do the analysing. No matter how long you
allow, it will take longer than that!

2. It’s impossible to start writing an analysis immediately you feel you can
begin to interpret the text, so don’t try it! But DO note down your major
reactions and responses to the text as you

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585

lead, especially any ’impressions’ as to what the more subtle meanings are. A
record of your initial understanding will be essential later on.

3. Next, you are going to SKETCH OUT YOUR ROUGH ANALYTICAL NOTES as
you inalyse. If you do this carefully, it will provide you with much more
material than you can possibly use, so that later you can select the most
pertinent parts to include in your final write-up.

4. START METHODICALLY: decide which bits of your text are foregrounded or

obviously teviant, and then decide what language levels the foregrounding
operates on. This will enable you b decide which language levels to analyse
throughout the text in most detail. If nothing seems bregrounded or deviant,
look at each language level separately, and collect as much information as
jgu reasonably can.

5. DO NOT EXCEED about 12-15 sides of double-spaced A4 in all (i.e.

including lists, ippendices, etc.) for this draft analysis (often referred to in the
trade as ’scribble’ !). More than that md you can be sure you are going into
too much detail, getting bogged down, or stuck on one ipect, or repeating
yourself! On the other hand, you will find you can’t produce less than an
fcolute minimum of 5 sides, even in note form, if you cover all basic aspects.

6. KEEP TO YOUR PLANNED STRUCTURE for analysing : following inspiring

thoughts as ley occur will not produce good stylistic analyses. If such
thoughts intrude, however, don’t lose tern: note them down (on a separate
sheet of A4 kept for that purpose) and «t a later stage, decide (nsciously
whether or not you want to use them.

When you have produced and noted down all the analytical material you
think you could need, ME A BREAK, or leave the work until the next day.

Step Three: Drafting your work

You now need to link up your analytical data and your initial impressions, and,
make them into [coherent ESSAY PLAN.

1. Compare your collection of analytical data with the first impressions. Select
those bits of Wa that support your initial interpretation, and those, if any, that
interestingly contradict it. Specify ibsely all these aspects of the analytical
data, so that you can explain clearly how they relate to

leaning. ,

2. Plan to use only the most salient material in your final submission. (You can
always include Bis, etc., as an Appendix, but don’t put anything significant
there, as your tutor/marker may not pot it.) Be firm - exclude data that only
amounts to a statement of what’s there, and does not link to uterpretation
interestingly. But don’t yet throw away what you think you don’t want to use :
you may hd as you go along that some parts of it come in useful.

3. TAKE YOUR TIME AT THIS STAGE AND KEEP REFERRING BACK AND FORTH
ETWEEN THE DATA AND YOUR INITIAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEXT. It may
be at this tint that looking at the data affects how you have understood the
text. Highlight or otherwise mark By bits of the data that cause this to
happen, and indicate what they made you think.

4. Arrange your material in a coherent way, whether by language level or

otherwise: make me you are not repeating the same conclusions under
different headings (if you are, perhaps you tould organise by
’foregrounded/deviant areas’). You don’t need much of an introduction : If you
But to put one in, just say how the text works overall, and what you think it
means. I would advise hi to plan out any introduction LAST, when you know
what you are ’going’ to say (because you will Iready have said it!).

Now take a break, or leave the final writing up to another day (this will give
you the necessary
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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYLISTICS

perspective on what you finally include/exclude). Step Four: Writing up

TAKE YOUR TIME: BE SURE YOUVE COVERED EVERYTHING NECESSARY

BEFORE you consider writing your work up (especially if for submission)

1. Look again at your ’linking notes’, and number the items you intend to
cover, in the order you intend to cover them in your final presentation. Make
sure that you have in mind the need to produce INTERESTING comments as
well as ACCURATE analysis.

2. Make additional notes of any RELEVANT quotations/citations or

terminological language from the course reading or any other independent
reading that you feel may be useful, keeping them to a minimum, and
ensuring that you ONLY INSERT THEM WHERE THEY RELATE CLOSELY TO
WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY. Try not to include very general definitions or
broad statements from the course reading. Make sure that any individual
organisational plan you have decided to use does not oblige you to write very
long sections: this could mean that you include irrelevant or uninteresting
information, and possibly obscure the ’good bits’! Lists or parts of lists (e.g. of
word functions or sentence structures) MAY be included if you feel that they
will be essential, but beware of taking up good writing time with simply
reproducing lists, tables and the like. You may use footnotes and/or
appendices, and these are not normally included ir word counts.

3. Write up each section as independent from the others. Then look at them
collectively to decide whether or not they are in the best order for you to
draw any conclusions.

4. Remember that this is NOT a literary essay. Any conclusion should relate
very narrowly to what you found through analysis that affected your initial
interpretation in any way.

After all this, it should be more obvious than usual that you are aiming to
produce a specialised piece of academic writing, not an impressionistic or
casual response to the text you are examining

Writing an Analytical Essay

Your purpose in writing an analytical essay is to convey your sense of what

the text is saying, and how the text creates its meaning ~ the use of the
various aspects and devices mentioned in the previous sections. The simplest
way to open your essay is with a statement of what you have decided the
meaning of the text, the most sufficient interpretation, is. The body of your
essay is then a presentation or ’defense’ of your interpretation: you
demonstrate the ways in which the text makes the meaning you believe it to
have. In the conclusion you sum up your findings or recapitulate your
argument briefly, and extend the significance of your reading if you wish -
this is where you comment on the more general, cultural or moral or
technical significances of the theme and techniques of the text. You may
begin you essay in other ways - by stating what the main barriers are to an
interpretation of the poem or what the main difficulties with arriving at an
interpretation are, for instance, and how consequently you intend to deal with
the text, or by stating what sorts of options you have in terms of emphases
and why you have chosen the one(s) you have chosen. It is important to give
the reader a sense of how you are proceeding in the essay and why. There is
no sure-fire formula for essay writing. The form your essay takes will likely
vary with the nature of your evidence (quotations from the text, principally,
or from other sources), with your sense of how the text is structured and
shaped, with your interpretation, and with your sense of what issues are most
relevant. Obviously, you will have to make some organizational decisions. In
writing on a poem, for example, do you go through a poem stanza by stanza
showing how the meaning is developed? If this is your method, be sure you
avoid the pitfalls: mere paraphrase, providing an unselective
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PROCESS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS

587

running commentary, and disorganization of kinds of evidence. An alternative

approach might focus on the poem aspect by aspect (the point of view, the
voice, the setting, and so forth). The pitfalls : are not being able show how
the various aspects tie together to create meaning, and assuming each
aspect deserves equal and exhaustive treatment. Fiction is usually analyzed
by Bnsidering one or more aspects of the work in the categories of theme
(ideas, meanings), and/or of anal techniques (plot, point of view, etc.).
Remember that there are different kinds of literature i each genre, and that
different kinds may rely on different devices. A poem may be narrative; it ay
be a dramatic monologue; it may be a collection of images with no human in
sight; it may lop a logical argument; it may work allusively, analogically,
symbolically and so forth; it may ! a careful stanza-by stanza development or
it may depend on repetitions, images, and so forth, t work of fiction might be
allegorical, il might use magical realism, it might concentrate on the ^effects
of the environment, or it might attempt metaphorically to represent the
interior lives of [characters. Figure out what the main devices and strategies
are, and concentrate on them, adding lesser ones later and not necessarily in
full. Try, if you are not sure of your interpretation, Fstarting with the simplest,
most obvious situation - two lovers are meeting, say - and add other ssible
points of meaning as they seem to extend or illuminate the dramatic situation
- for ice a storm is threatening, the meeting is seen from only one lover’s
point of view, each stanza ; gives a different meaning to what the significance
of physical love might be, and so forth. Always with the ’form’ as well as the
’content’, however, with how the way something is said shapes at it means. ,