Text Types: Linguistic Features & Analysis

Description: Linguistic Levels

Morphological Level

• Use of past and present tenses, imperfective in character.
• Dominance of the third person.
• Abundance of appreciative suffixation, especially in subjective descriptions.

Syntactic Level

• Prevalence of declarative sentences.
• Preference for attributive sentences.
• Importance of nouns to designate the described entity.
• Utilization of adjectives or adjectival phrases to characterize the described.

Semantic Level

• Use of state verbs.
• Importance of descriptive, relational, or membership adjectives in objective descriptions.
• Presence of adverbs or adverbial constructions indicating place, time, or manner.

Exposition: Linguistic Levels

Morphological Level

• Prevalence of the third person as a mark of objectivity, though sometimes using "we" to include the audience.
• Use of the present indicative, generally with timeless value.

Syntactic Level

• Preferred use of declarative sentences.
• Presence of subordinate adverbial clauses of cause, purpose, and consequence.
• Employment of explanatory structures.

Semantic Level

• Lexical selection determined by the subject and purpose. Generally, a denotative lexicon, often abstract.
• Presence of specialized jargon and adjectives for precise specification.

Narrative: Linguistic Levels

Morphological Level

• Use of the simple past perfect to state facts and the imperfect indicative to present developing actions.
• Use of the present tense with present, historical, or standard value.

Syntactic Level

• Prevalence of declarative sentences.
• Relevance of adverbial clauses of time and place.
• Use of subordinate adverbial clauses of cause, purpose, and consequence, and copulative coordination, which allow logical organization of events.
• Presence of direct and indirect speech.

Semantic Level

• Use of verbs of motion, action, and speech.
• Use of deictic adverbs of place and time.

Argumentation: Linguistic Levels

Morphological Level

• Use of first or third person depending on the argument's subjectivity.

Syntactic Level

• Use of extended sentence periods.
• Importance of subordinate adverbial clauses: causal, consecutive, conditional, and concessive.
• Prevalence of declarative sentences; interrogative sentences are common in advertising.

Semantic Level

• Use of verbs of desire, speech, and thought, and verbs denoting causality or consequence.
• Presence of abstract nouns, especially those related to processes.
• Use of evaluative adjectives, except in scientific argumentation.