Graphology Framework

AS Level English Language

What is graphology?

• Originally, graphology applied only to the appearance of a person's handwriting

• For the purposes of your course, however, it applies to any aspect of the form and appearance of a text that modifies meaning in any way.

• Importantly, it is the graphological qualities of any written or printed text that we first notice.

• For example, on the text on the right we can see from the graphological qualities that this text is a newspaper.

• Because these features are what you first notice you would do well to apply the graphology framework first in your stylistic analyses

• Although the graphological framework is not considered as important as others it is often overlooked.

• You should not focus too much on this framework, but properly applied graphological analysis can be very useful and subtle and add marks to your analysis.

• When you are analysing a text using the graphological framework, you will need to consider the following points:

• The nature of the characters – are they handwritten or printed, upper case or lower case?

• For example:

Uppercase text

Lowercase text

Uppercase text

• Of course, it is not acceptable merely to comment that the letters on this text are a mixture of upper and lower case words.

• You will have to say what effect these features have.

• For example:• “The main focus of the text is the initial

headline – “BUSH KNEW”, the use of upper case letters adds emphasis to the statement and lets the reader know what the article is about.”

• What could you say about the other examples pointed out?

• Mentioning what font the text is presented in is also useful, although you are not required to know various different font types e.g. Tahoma, Palatino Linotype, Times New Roman

• Also mention the font size• And also the font style, is it in bold,

underlined or in italics

• You will also need to mention graphemes• Graphemes are the letter or letter combination that

make up a sound (phoneme)• So for example:

GraphemeGrapheme

• From the example given, you can see that ‘AR’ are both graphemes, BUT, they represent two different phonemes

• The AR in HARLEY is a different sound to the AR in EARL

• There is much to say about graphemes as the entire text is made up of them!

• However in the exam it is better to comment on a few related examples or graphemes that are unusual

• For example:Grapheme of EZ used instead of ES – can tie this in with lexis

• Punctuation is a key feature of any written text and it is important to mention this within the graphology framework

• For example:

The use of full stops here in between the words ‘TOMMY GUN’ replicates the sound and action of a machine gun.

• Another key feature of graphology is the organisation of the text

• This basically means how it is laid out on the page

• Therefore you need to mention such things as:• Headings, columns, bullet points, numeration,

borders, boxes, paragraph size, line spacing and use of white space

Again, it is important to mention the effect these have on the text rather than just saying “there is a lot of white space in this text”!

Headings – shows clear definition Bullet points – showing organisation

Columns – showing clearly ordered text

Short, concise paragraphs

White space making the advert look uncluttered

• Finally the last things you need to mention regarding the graphology framework are:

• Use of colour• Logos• Drawings• Photographs• Captions• Diagrams• Charts

As stated before, you need to state what effect these features have on the text as a whole and if they are effective in achieving their aims.

Logo – tells you instinctively what the text is

Pink – the colour of love (softness) Drawing of a

heart

Mocked up photograph

Caption

Now you have the tools to analyse a text using the graphology framework!

The End!