Essay, English
Language analysis
Project description
Analyse the given text with regard to its narrative structure; i.e.
• Identify the personal, temporal, spatial and causal elements (who, when, where,
what).
• Identify the sequence of events; how is this sequence marked?
• How does the ‘teller’ focus the addressee’s attention?
Analyse the above with regard to the given text and also consider whether this text
conforms to what you would expect from your understanding of the relevant literature.
Given the word limit, your writing needs to be to the point. Please use prose, but stick to the
most pertinent points and avoid any superfluous chatter. This means you have to identify
the points you want to make and briefly discuss them.
Your lecture notes should be the starting point for these analyses but you will have to draw
on additional academic material to achieve a good mark.
Jack Kerouac “On the Road” (part 2, chapter 1)
It was over a year before I saw Dean again. I stayed home all that time, finished my book
and began going to school on the GI Bill of Rights. At Christmas 1948 my aunt and I went
down to visit my brother in Virginia, laden with presents. I had been writing to Dean and he
said he was coming East again; and I told him if so he would find me in Testament, Virginia,
between Christmas and New Year’s. One day when all our Southern relatives were sitting
around the parlor in Testament, gaunt men and women with the old Southern soil in their
eyes, talking in low, whining voices about the weather, the crops, and the general weary
recapitulation of who had a baby, who got a new house, and so on, a mud-spattered ‘49
Hudson drew up in front of the house on the dirt road. I had no idea who it was. A weary
young fellow, muscular and ragged in a T-shirt, unshaven, red-eyed, came to the porch and
rang the bell. I opened the door and suddenly realized it was Dean. He had come all the way
from San Francisco to my brother Rocco’s door in Virginia, and in an amazingly short time,
because I had just written my last letter, telling where I was. In the car I could see two
figures sleeping. «I’ll be goddamned! Dean! Who’s in the car?»
«Hello, hello, man, it’s Marylou. And Ed Dunkel. We gotta have place to wash up
immediately, we’re dog-tired.»
«But how did you get here so fast?»
«Ah, man, that Hudson goes!»
«Where did you get it?»
«I bought it with my savings. I’ve been working on the railroad, making four hundred dollars
a month.»
There was utter confusion in the following hour. My Southern relatives had no idea what
was going on, or who or what Dean, Marylou, and Ed Dunkel were; they dumbly stared. My
aunt and my brother Rocky went in the kitchen to consult. There were, in all, eleven people
in the little Southern house. Not only that, but my brother had just decided to move from
that house, and half his furniture was gone; he and his wife and baby were moving closer to
the town of Testament. They had bought a new parlor set and their old one was going to my
aunt’s house in Paterson, though we hadn’t yet decided how. When Dean heard this he at
once offered his services with the Hudson. He and I would carry the furniture to Paterson in
two fast trips and bring my aunt back at the end of the second trip. This was going to save us
a lot of money and trouble. It was agreed upon. My sister-inlaw made a spread, and the
three battered travelers sat down to eat. Marylou had not slept since Denver. I thought she
looked older and more beautiful now.
I learned that Dean had lived happily with Camille in San Francisco ever since that fall of
1947; he got a job on the railroad and made a lot of money. He became the father of a cute
little girl, Amy Moriarty. Then suddenly he blew his top while walking down the street one
day. He saw a ’49 Hudson for sale and rushed to the bank for his entire roll. He bought the
car on the spot. Ed Dunkel was with him. Now they were broke. Dean calmed Camille’s fears
and told her he’d be back in a month. «I’m going to New York and bring Sal back.» She
wasn’t too pleased at this prospect.
«But what is the purpose of all this? Why are you doing this to me?»
«It’s nothing, it’s nothing, darling – ah – hem – Sal has pleaded and begged with me to come
and get him, it is absolutely necessary for me to – but we won’t go into all these
explanations – and I’ll tell you why . . . No, listen, I’ll tell you why.» And he told her why, and
of course it made no sense.
Resources Notes
Key texts
Hoey, M. (2000). Textual Interaction: An
Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis.
London: Routledge.
Hoey’s book provides a good overview of
structural aspects of texts. This will be the
main key text and it is recommended you
purchase a copy.
Other Books
Carter,R. & Nash W. (1990) Seeing through Language. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Coulthard, M. (ed.) (1994) Advances in Written Text Analysis. London: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London:
Routledge.
Georgakopoulou, A. & Goutsos, D. (2004) Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1989) Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1994) 3rd ed. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Hoey, M. (1991) Patterns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Johnstone, B. (2008) Discourse Analysis. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1981) Metaphors we Live by. Chicago: Univ. Press.
Paltridge, B. (2006) Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.
Salkie, R. (1995) Text and Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge.
Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton H.E. (eds., 2003) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Underhill, J.W. (2013) Creating Worldviews. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
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