Microsoft Word Seminars on stylistics

9.
 
Characterize the category of modality in the text concentrating on the 
addressee’s way of evaluation: Is the story in the name of the author, or one of the 
personages, or an on-looker, eye-witness? Is the narrator’s attitude explicit or 
hidden? How does the choice of words reveal the authors attitude? Is his attitude 
passionate or neutral? Does he avoid straight-forward evaluations and characterize 
his personages only through the depiction of their actions or does he characterize 
them directly? 
10.
 
Comment on the category of the implicitness. Find the main implicates 
of the text:
a)
An implicit title ;
b)
Implication of precedence; 
c)
Implicit details.
Say which of them play an important role in revealing conceptual 
information of the text. 
11
. Reveal the conceptual information of the text (the idea of the story and) 
substantiate it by picking out from the text: 
a)
Poetic details: depicting details, characterological details, authenticity, 
implication details and extract their subcurrent information;
b)
Stylistic devices – and comment on their functions in revealing the 
author’s message and supplementing superlinear information; 
c)
Draw conclusions from the linguistic approach to the text. Comment on 
the degree of the richness of the author’s vocabulary: the usage of borrowings, 
foreign words, colloquialisms, vulgarisms, scientific words, neologisms. Is the 

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author experimenting with the language? What unusual word combinations and 
nonce words has he coined? 
Find thematic and key words. Reveal the role of stylistically marked words 
and words charged with emotive meaning. Trace cases of repetition of the same 
word. Does frequent repetition of a word make it symbolic?
d)
Comment on the meaning of the title and connect it with the conceptual 
information. 
The suggested scheme includes nearly all possible characteristics relevant 
for text interpretation. It must be noted that each concrete text requires specific 
approach and some items may prove optional in its analysis.