Analysing Language Features and Stylistic Choices
Analysis is a chain, not a list
Strong analysis names a device, quotes evidence, explains the effect on the reader, and links that effect to the writer's purpose. A list of devices without effect earns little. Always ask: why this choice, for this audience, in this place in the text?
Concepts to master
- Lexical choice and connotation: 'regime' versus 'government'; 'slim' versus 'skinny'; loaded verbs and adjectives.
- Figurative language: metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, irony - and their function (simplifying, heightening emotion, satirising).
- Syntax and rhythm: short sentences for impact, tricolon for memorability, anaphora for momentum, rhetorical questions to position the reader as a co-thinker.
- Modality: modal verbs and adverbs ('must', 'may', 'clearly', 'arguably') reveal certainty and hedging.
- Voice and point of view: first person inclusive 'we' builds solidarity; third person can create distance or authority.
- Sound and cohesion: alliteration, repetition, contrastive pairs, and cohesive ties that build cumulative argument.
- Visual and design choices in multimodal texts: colour symbolism, camera angle, font weight, spatial layout.
Traps in questions
Naming a device and stopping; identifying a device that is not actually present (a 'metaphor' that is literal); ignoring tone (a question may ask about a shift from critical to conciliatory); treating the writer's persona as the writer's sincere belief; and over-claiming reader response as certain rather than probable.
Rule of thumb
Use the formula technique + quotation + effect + purpose, and hedge responses appropriately ('positions the reader to…', 'invites sympathy for…').
Worked example: 'We have waited. We have written. We have marched.' Analysis: anaphora and tricolon of short clauses; the repeated 'We have' foregrounds collective persistence and builds rhythmic momentum; the parallel structure invites the audience to see the group as unified and justified, supporting the writer's purpose of mobilising support.