Analysing Graphology

Getting the most from Graphology

Whatever exam board you are studying for English Language A-Level, you need to remember that Graphology is not, in itself, one of the higher scoring key constituents / frameworks when it comes to textual analysis. Observations such as, "The text is written in red because it is about donating blood" might well be accurate, but it's also not rocket science. 

Personally, I like Graphology to be described in terms of Text-Image Cohesion. In short, how visual devices or aids are used to support the text in achieving its purpose, appealing to its audience or how it works in tandem with other key constituents / frameworks of language. Let's look at a simple example. 

An early reader book for young children may have limited text on the page, with a sketch of the scene dominating the space. Here we have text-image cohesion because the picture is replicating the actions described by the simple sentences which comprise high frequency, low register lexis. Already, we have linked graphology, syntax and lexis. Now let's add purpose. 

This meets the needs of the reader as it helps to place the actions described in a more familiar context. The young reader's limited experience of life and language is being taken into consideration and the text-image cohesion adds to their understanding of events and sequencing. 

We can extend this to older readers who may enjoy comic strips or graphic novels. Perhaps the call-outs or text use exclamative forms or incorporate non-standard orthography to create phonological effects (think about Batman's famous fight scenes where punches are accompanied with lexical coinages such as 'thwack!'; 'kaboosh'; 'schlumpf'... The list is endless. Here the text-image cohesion allows us to better engage with the text as a 'realistic' recreation of a fight, or it might create humour in terms of the hyperbolic language which accompanies such pained facial expressions. 

In this example, we have managed to squeeze in orthography and phonology. In doing this, we have elevated the status of graphology to a potentially high scoring point of observation. Why? Because we are not analysing it in isolation, but as a component of the text. Ideally, texts should always be made up of complementary techniques. The trick for candidates is to join the dots between each. 

This is not to say that we can't be simplistic in order to bag a few easy points. If a text about an aquarium is predominantly blue and turquoise, it would be foolish to ignore the observation and the reasons for it. Likewise, if a text uses a high incidence of emojis (emoticons, or whatever they're called this week), then make the observation that the text is probably targeting a younger audience familiar with the phenomenon or that it is trying to convey a sense of face to face communication by expressing, visually, ideas that brief words alone cannot convey adequately. 

Graphology can take many forms - even something as obvious as pictorial representations to support instructions on something like a diagram from IKEA. Just try to link your observations to the text as a whole or, at the very least, as something which complements or makes possible another linguistic technique present in the text. 

CAPS LOCK AND SHOUTY MESSAGES

Sitting in my swivel chair while rubbing chalk dust from my scruffy tweed jacket's leather elbow patches, I've often told my A level Language students that writing about graphology is the last refuge of the loser. That if you write about graphology in an exam you would be best to write "Loser" as your name on the paper and write in the words "epic fail" where examiners should put their marks. We can all see that a heading is in bold to make it stand out, that a picture is centred to give it prominence, that the font is Times New Roman: none of that is language analysis and it's not worth any marks in exams. Loser.

But with Language & Mode now an AS level topic area, perhaps that's no longer the case. Graphology - the layout of words, images and headings on a page, the way things look on the page - is actually quite important when looking at differences between written and blended mode texts. The fact that a word on a web page is underlined might mean that it's a clickable link and therefore an interactive feature. The choice of font might actually convey some kind of tone too. And this piece on the BBC News website makes a number of interesting points about what we think about capital letters in emails or on web forums. As the piece tells us:

Most web users know capital letters are a capital offence - they're commonly thought to be online shorthand for screaming. But how did they get this reputation?

Ultimately, in the rushed world of online communication, all-caps has become a
bit of a "lazy" shorthand for yelling - it's faster than finding another way to
convey excitement or agitation. But the recipient feels like they are being
shouted at.

So, there's stuff here to think about for graphology and what it tells us about how we're being addressed by the writer of a text. The article also goes on to talk about different fonts and the history of some of them, which is interesting in a bit of a nerdy way, but it's the discussion of email etiquette and caps which is most useful, I think. So, graphology might now become quite an intelligent thing to write about in such situations. I take it all back: graphology is no longer the last refuge of the loser. Sorry.