2. • Textual analysis just means analysing or
looking closely at a text to see how the
writer conveys or gets across a message
to you. Writer’s choose every single word
carefully. They use a number of language
techniques, which are the tricks or skills
of the writer’s trade. These techniques
are sometimes also called features or
aspects.
3. You will learn to look carefully at:
• Word choice: the words the writer chooses to
use.
• Structure: the way the writer constructs or
builds up his sentences, or paragraphs, or the
whole poem or story.
4. • Imagery: for example simile, metaphor and
personification in which the writer describes
something by comparing it to something else,
giving you a vivid image or picture in your
mind.
• Alliteration and onomatopoeia: and some
other techniques in which sound of the words
chosen is important.
5. Imagery: figures of speech using
comparison
• Simile: is a figure of speech in which one thing is
compared to another using the words like or as.
This gives a more vivid picture because of the
similarity between the two things compared.
• For example
‘The parrots shriek as if they were on fire…’
This suggests the noise the parrots are making,
which is so loud that it is as if they were in a fire. It
might also suggest that the bright colours of the
parrots, the red and orange, are like the bright
colours of a fire.
6. Now Try This
…’strut like cheap tarts to attract the stroller
with the nut.’
• What image does this suggest in your mind
about the way the parrots walk? Write your
own sentence(s) using the words:
The simile ‘strut like cheap tarts to attract the
stroller with the nut’ suggests…
7. • Metaphor: is another figure of speech in
which one thing is compared to another
because of some point(s) of comparison
between them. This time the words like and as
are not used.
• For example
‘The boa-constrictor’s coil is a fossil.’
The boa-constrictor is a snake that coils itself up in a
spiral shape. A fossil is the imprint in stone of a
creature that has been dead for millions of years.
The most common type of a fossil is shellfish which
are a spiral shape.
8. • Can you see what is suggested here? The
shape of the snake is being compared tot the
shape of the fossil, but it is also suggested that
the snake is so still it looks as if it has been
lying there for millions of years.
• Did you notice that I have used as if to help
explain the metaphor?
9. Now Try This
‘His stride is wilderness of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.’
Each of these lines is a metaphor.
• Choose one of these lines and try to explain the
picture or image suggested by it. Write your own
sentence starting:
– The metaphor (quote) suggests…
10. • Personification: can be thought of as a special
kind of metaphor. In personification, an
inanimate object, non-living object is written
about as if it was a person or a living creature.
• For example
‘Cage after cage… stinks of sleepers from the
breathing straw.’
Straw cannot breath- it is not a living creature. It is
suggested the straw seems alive because of the
smell and breathing of the creature hidden in it.
11. • Onomatopoeia: is when a word sounds like
what it is describing.
• For example:
‘The apes yawn...’
Onomatopoeia is used to make the writing
sound more realistic and dramatic. Yawn makes
the reader slow down because of the long
vowel sounds, and the way you have to open
your mouth wide just to say it. In the poem it
suggests the tiredness or boredom of the
animals in the zoo.
12. Now Try This
‘The parrots shriek…’
How does shriek suggest the sound the
parrots are making? Write your own sentence(s)
starting:
The word ‘shriek’ suggests…
13. • Alliteration: is when letters or sounds are
repeated, usually at the beginning of words.
• For example:
‘By the bang of blood in the brain…’
Sometimes alliteration acts like a tongue-
twister, and forces you to slow down to
pronounce the words properly. This makes you
notice them more and draws your attention to
what the writer is saying. Here, all the stressed
words begin with b and suggest one of those
pounding headaches it’s so difficult to get rid of.
14. Now Try This
• ‘Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.’
What effect does the alliteration in this line
have? What does it make you think of? Write
your own sentence starting:
The alliteration in ‘stinks of sleepers from the
breathing straw’ suggests…
