INTERPRETI

NG TEXTS

W H AT TO S

A Y AB O U T W

H A T ’ S B

E I NG S

A I D

1. IDENTIFYING THE PORPOISE“They were obliged to have him along. If any fish came to me

and said that they were going on a journey, I should say “With what porpoise? ‘

“You mean ‘Purpose’ “ said Alice. “I meant what I said! “ snapped the Mock Turtle. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

.

Obviously, We did mean “Purpose”. In analysing any text, one of the first questions that we must ask about it is “Why was it produced? “ Compare the following two sentences:

• If two men can build a wall six feet high and twenty feet long in half a day, how long will it take six men to build a wall of the same height?

• If illegal immigrants are prepared to work for 20 credits a day, but the state requires that all legal workers are paid a minimum of 50 credits a day, how much can an employer save by hiring illegal immigrants, even if this will ruin the national economy?

Notice how they are both phrased as mathematical questions, but clearly have very different purposes, and messages for their readers. The second question has a clear agenda, regardless of how it has conveyed this.

Once we know why a text has been produced, we are able to comment on it far more accurately, and decide whether it is successful in its purpose.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE AUDIENCEWho is the text being written for? In the same way that you

wouldn’t take kids to a violent adult action film, or a first date to see a Western (trust me), texts need to be analysed in terms of who was intended to read them.

Saying that you found a “Spot the Dog” book juvenile and patronising, or a repair manual for a low-pressure reduction steam engine to be predictable and slow-moving really says that you have no appreciation for the audience or context of the work. Expect to be snubbed at dinner parties.

CONTEXT Having established that almost any source of information can

be considered a text, we need to appreciate that the conditions that produced said text need to be taken into account when we analyse it. Note that this DOES NOT excuse hate speech or bigotry ! These are not acceptable reasons for voicing such things:

• I didn’t think anyone else was listening.• I was addressing a particular audience. They understood

where I was coming from.• Everyone else was saying stuff like that. Context can help us to understand the purpose of a text, and often the tone of this, but it cannot be the sole factor by which we assess a text, either linguistically or morally.

REPUTATION AND PRECEDENTAs part of context, we need to appreciate REPUTATION. History

students will know this in terms of assessing the validity of sources.

For instance, what if aliens landed in the cities of the world? Would you believe it if you saw the story in this newspaper?

What about this one?

REGISTER AND TONE How has the text expressed itself? Lots of visual images, or

verbose text? Simple diction, or jargon? Does it address the audience directly, or offer vagaries? Is it informative, or patronising, friendly, formal or cold? Is there a lot of direct speech, slang or informal speech, foul

language, etc? Are we being asked to take this text seriously, and do we?