English Language Text Analysing techniques.. A mnemonic to remember how to analyse a text in your A-Level English Language exam!

1. PHIL GRUFFALO
ENGLISH LANG

2. PHIL GRUFFALO GROWLS LOUDLY,
SILENCING MANY PROUD DOGS

3. PHIL
Phonology
• The study of phonetics; how sounds are produced and how sounds are articulated
• The way speech sounds
Key words
• Accent and dialect; how the sound of speech can represent different groups of
people
• Use of sounds for effect

4. GRUFFALO
Graphology
• The area of study that focuses on visual aspects
• Font size, type, colour; images
• Why does it look like that?
• How does this relate to audience and purpose?
• What do the images show? What does this represent? How does this work with the
text to create a clear message?
• Are any features typical of the discourse? (e.g. hyperlinks)
• Multi-modal text

5. GROWLS
Grammar
• Word classes; nouns, verbs, adverbs, determiners, adjectives, prepositions
• The functions of different words in a sentence
• Clauses
• Ideas expressed are represented
• Is the text cohesive (does it make sense?)?
• Does the mode affect the grammar?
• Syntax

6. LOUDLY & SILENCING
Lexis and semantics
• The study of words and their meanings and the group they belong to
• Denotations and connotations
• Semantic field
• Register/formality
• Text receiver/producer – actual or implied?
• Does gender affect this? E.g. empty adjectives or locution/illocution/perlocution
• Hypernum/hyopnym
• Slang/colloquial

7. MANY
Morphology
• Morphemes and how they affect the meaning of a sentence
• Relates to grammar
• Pre/post modifier
• Noun phrases
• Verb phrases
• Co-text

8. PROUD
Pragmatics
• The study of how contextual factors influence the use and meaning of language
• Interlocutors if text is spoken
• Implications of certain words, patterns and ideas
• Positive & negative face needs
• How is language used to build relationships? Does the producer want to seem
personal to the reader?
• Embodied knowledge; does this affect status?
• Any shared assumptions?

9. DOGS
Discourse
• How a text is structured as a whole; this includes the genre, mode and context
• “typical discourse of…”
• How do words/phrases/clauses work together to support the purpose and aim of
the text?
• Format – is it question and answer format?
• Any repetitive structures; e.g. lots of bullet points, headings and things