ANALYSING A WRITER’S METHODS
How to analyse language, form and structure - part 1
This is the first of a series of guides on how to analyse the language, form and structure methods that writers use. This is the skill that will get you the most marks at GCSE. (For brevity’s sake, we will refer to this as ‘analysing methods’ going forward.) This guide will take you through what it means to analyse a method and what it means to explain the effect of a method, with a short example at the end. The second part will explain where to include this kind of analysis in your paragraph structure, and offer more examples of explaining the effect of methods. The thid part will provide some pro-tips for really mastering this skill.
This guide is part of the Analysing a writer’s methods series:
How to analyse language, form and structure - part 1
Contents of this guide
The next guide will take you through where to put methods analysis in a PEA paragraph. It will also explain which methods are the best ones to analyse, as well as providing several more examples.
What analysing methods means and why it’s important
One of the key attributes of the most able students in English is that they are sensitive to the nuance of language. This means they are able to identify the ways that small changes to the language used by a writer can change the meaning of the text. This is important both for fully understanding the words you are reading or hearing, and also for using language appropriately and effectively yourself. Showing that you are sensitive to the nuance of language is at the heart of this particular skill.
What this means in practical terms
There are two different ways you can think about a literary text like a novel or play:
[1] What happens in the text
[2] The language that is used to express what happens
In practice, it is impossible to entirely separate these two things, but there is an important conceptual difference that you need to try to get your head round, and it’s one that we’ll keep returning to in this part of the guide, as well as in part 2 . For this reason, try your best to commit it to memory before you proceed.
Roughly speaking, you might think of [1] as what you would see/hear in a film of the story, and [2] as the language that is used to create that story in your imagination:
From [1] you make inferences
From [2] you analyse language, form and structure methods
That’s the key difference. To clarify this, let’s look at an example using a very short extract from Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk, in which the narrator is called Annabelle:
I stopped when I was still ten feet away from her. “Hey, Betty,” I said.
“What kind of a name is Annabelle?” She had a deep voice, almost boyish. She looked at me steadily, her head down like a dog’s when he’s thinking about whether or not to bite. She was half smiling, her arms limp at her sides. She cocked her head to one side.
We can think about this extract in the following two, fairly distinct ways:
[1] What happens in the text
Annabelle keeps her distance from Betty
Annabelle is friendly, but Betty ignores that completely and says something deliberately confrontational
Betty looks at Annabelle steadily, half smiling
From these things you could make inferences, which you could explain in your analysis (e.g. that Annabelle is frightened of Betty; that Annabelle is unnervingly self-confident; etc). These are inferences that you could also make by watching a film of these events and hearing the words/seeing the body language.
[2] How language is used to express what happens in the text
Direct speech is used to convey the exact words the characters say
A simile is used to compare Betty’s head to that of a dog
The imagery which describes Betty is quite animal-like (“dog” in the simile, “cocked her head to one side”)
These things only exist because this is a piece of writing: you could not analyse these items in a film. But they all help to create the meaning of the text – e.g. the way you imagine it in your mind. For instance, the simile comparing Betty to a dog about to bite changes your understanding of her as a person. Analysing methods is about showing that you understand these effects. These are the nuances of language.
To write effective, sophisticated analysis, you need to be able to write about both of these things. You need to show that you understand what happens in the text, and what this means, but you also need to understand the effect that the language used has on the reader’s understanding of what happens. That is what this skill is all about.
What it means to explain the effect of a method
When you analyse a method, you have to explain its effect. This means you have to explain the effect the method has on the meaning of the text. Analysing methods is all about meaning – e.g. the ideas and images that appear in our mind when we read the text.
To help you understand this, let’s look at some examples. In each of the following sentences, the same thing is happening: a man is killing a polar bear with a spade (eek!). In terms of the two ways of looking at a literary text that we discussed earlier, [1] is essentially the same for all the examples (e.g. the same thing is happening in each example). It is only [2] (the language used to express what’s happening) that changes.
This first example will form the baseline for the discussion:
With the third blow, he pierced the bear’s heart and blood poured from its wound as it twitched into death.
It is, already, a fairly horrific image, but by using a few more words, the writer can make it even worse:
With the third blow, he pierced the bear’s heart and blood poured from its wound as it twitched and writhed and squealed into death.
In this second example, the writer has used a list of three verbs, all separated by ‘and’, instead of just one verb. This changes the meaning of the sentence slightly. The visual image is different – twitching (very small movements) plus writhing (larger bodily contortions) – and so is the sound image, which now includes squealing.
Now, you might argue that there is, in fact, something different happening in this sentence compared to the first one - perhaps there was no writhing or squealing going on then. This is why, in practice, it’s very hard to fully separate [1] and [2]. However, the language itself does affect the meaning here too: the listing (three verbs in quick succession) and the repetition of ‘and’ both help to emphasise the horror of the moment. However, this effect is very subtle - it’s one of those nuances of language you need to be sensitive to.
Let’s look at one more example in which some very slight changes to the language have a more powerful effect:
With the third blow, he pierced the bear’s heart and blood poured from her wound as she twitched and writhed and screamed into death.
Here, it’s hard to argue that anything different is happening in the text. The number of words is the same as in the previous example, and there are no new images. However, this time the bear is gendered (her/she), and the verb ‘scream’ is used instead of ‘squeal’. This slightly changes the meaning of the sentence again. The determiner (her), the pronoun (she) and the personification (screamed) all make the bear seem more human-like. As a result, this language implies that the bear is experiencing not just physical pain but mental anguish, in a similar way to a human, thus changing the meaning of the sentence in a subtle but deliberate way.
By changing a few words, a writer can add this kind of nuance to the meaning to a text. Analysing methods is about showing you are able to understand this kind of subtle meaning - that you can be sensitive to the nuance of language.
How to write your analysis of the effect of a method
The next part of this guide will look at how, practically, to write the parts of a paragraph in which you analyse methods in the way we discussed above. There are 2 steps for this.
1. Put your example in context
When you start this part of your analysis, you should state the method (if possible), and put it in context by saying what the method is being used to describe. Consider the following metaphor: “I looked out at the sea of faces.” In this metaphor, there is a crowd of people which is being compared, metaphorically, to the sea. If we analysed it without context we’d get something like this:
Analysis without context: The writer uses the metaphor “sea” to create a sense of endlessness and anonymity.
In this example, it’s unclear what the metaphor is being used to describe. What is being compared to the sea? What is endless and anonymous? This analysis doesn’t say. The method needs to be put into context – it needs to mention the crowd.
Analysis with context: The writer uses the metaphor “sea” to describe the faces in the crowd. This suggests the crowd is endless and anonymous.
Although the analysis itself still has problems (see below), the context here is much better. It’s now clear what two things are being compared in the metaphor: a sea and some faces in a crowd. This is important because it’s the meaning of the faces that is changed by the metaphor. The phrase ‘to describe’ is useful for establishing the context of a method.
2. Explain the effect in detail, including why the method has that effect
The main thing you have to do is explain the effect the method has on the meaning of the text. But this alone is not enough: you also need to explain why the method has that effect. This will allow you to analyse the method clearly.
The key here is to be specific. You must refer to specific words, images or connotations in the method. For example, you cannot analyse the metaphor “the sea of faces” without writing about the sea. That’s the issue with the second example above: the analysis doesn’t mention the sea. The sea is vast and can seem endless (it covers far more of the earth than the land does), and it all seems to be made of the same stuff (water). This is why the metaphor creates a sense of anonymity and endlessness. You need to explain this in order to make your analysis of the effect clear.
Let’s look at the polar bear example from earlier in this guide. Here is some vague analysis, without the ‘why’:
Analysis without the ‘why’: The writer uses personification (‘scream[ing]’, ‘she’, ‘her’) to describe the bear as it dies. This suggests the bear is experiencing not just physical pain but mental anguish.
The basic effect is correct here, but it’s not clear why the language has this effect. It’s not clear that the person writing this analysis really understands the language - they might just be repeating something someone else has told them. To write clear and detailed analysis, you need to show your working - you need to explain why the language creates the effect it does:
Analysis with the ‘why’: The writer uses personification (‘scream[ing]’, ‘she’, ‘her’) to describe the bear as it dies. This creates the impression that the bear is human-like, which gives the animal’s suffering an emotional dimension. It suggests the bear is experiencing not just physical pain but mental anguish, like a human would in this situation.
In this version, there’s a much clearer sense of why the language has the effect that it has. This is really important for writing clear and detailed analysis. Don’t worry if you’re still unsure about how to do this at this stage. There will be more examples in the second part of this guide, as well as in other guides in this series.
But, in essence, you need the following three things when you write the analysis of a method:
Say what the method is (terminology) and put it in context
Explain what effect the method has on the meaning
Explain why the method has that effect
We will look at all of these things in more detail in the next guide, which you should read now.
There is no quiz for this guide. There are 2 parts to go, and the quiz is at the end of part 3.