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Schule > Englisch > Ausarbeitungen, Interpretationen und Zusammenfassungen > How to analyse a Text? - Textanalyse Englisch

Structure of a text

I. Exposition:

- introduction of the main characters
- the setting (time, place) is given
- the conflict / theme is introduced

II. Central part:

- rising action
- climax / turning point
- falling action

III. Denouement:

- solution

Text Analysis

a) What?

• text form :

- fictional
- non-fictional

• subject / theme; contents → summary

b) How?

• narrator’s perspective :

- 1^st / 3^rd person perspective
- omniscient / limited (=selective) perspective
- subjective / objective (give opinion / neutral)
- observer narrator: 3^rd person; not involved in situation

• stylistic devices :

- alliteration
- allusion
- contrast
- enumeration
- exaggeration / understatement
- imagery: metaphor (without "as”, "like”), simile (with "as”, "like”), symbol, personification
- irony
- onomatopoeia
- repetition: parallelism (similar or identical words, phrases, sentences), anaphora (parallelism at beginning of successive clauses)
- rhetorical question

• technique (dialogue, scream of conscious technique., narrator)
• text types (report, news story, feature story, editorial, letter, interview, speech, advertisement)
• characters / setting

c) Why?

- moral / deeper meaning / message / intention

[b]

Ferrytales

- Opening formula / closing formula
- Exaggeration
- Setting: distant, unreal past + world of myth and magic
- Repetitions
- Rhymes + verses
- Good against bad → good wins
- Princess + giant + witch Þ "flat characters” = stereotypes
- Purpose: for children, should educate them
- End: happy ending

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