3.1 A checklist of linguistic and stylistic categories
The categories are placed under four general headings: lexical categories,
grammatical categories, figures of speech, and cohesion and context. Semantic
categories are not listed separately, since, as suggested in section 2.9,
it is easier to arrive at these through other categories; for example, we use
our lexical categories to find out how choice of words involves various
types of meaning. Since the purpose of the list is heuristic, there is no harm
in mixing categories in this way. It is also in the nature of things that
categories will overlap, so that the same feature may well be noted under
different headings.
A: Lexical categories
[For notes (i–xiv) on the categories see pp. 66–7]
1 general. Is the vocabulary simple or complex(i)? formal or colloquial?
descriptive or evaluative? general or specific? How far does the writer
make use of the emotive and other associations of words, as opposed to
their referential meaning? Does the text contain idiomatic phrases or
notable collocations(ii), and if so, with what kind of dialect or register(iii)
are these idioms or collocations associated? Is there any use of rare or
specialised vocabulary? Are any particular morphological categories
noteworthy (e.g. compound words, words with particular suffixes)? To
what semantic fields do words belong?
2 nouns. Are the nouns abstract or concrete? What kinds of abstract
nouns occur (e.g. nouns referring to events, perceptions, processes, moral
qualities, social qualities)? What use is made of proper names? Collective
nouns?
3 adjectives. Are the adjectives frequent? To what kinds of attribute
do adjectives refer? Physical? Psychological? Visual? Auditory? Colour?
Referential? Emotive? Evaluative? etc. Are adjectives restrictive or nonrestrictive?
Gradable or non-gradable? Attributive or predicative?