Strategies for Identifying an Unidentified Text

This is a checklist for some of the features likely to be found in any text.
If the mode is written, the tenor formal, the domain legal, then the domain function may be referential and the linguistic features will include

• traditional orthography,
• some archaic lexis
• some very complex syntax.
• the content will confirm that it is a legal document.

Try the example here.

Use the following checklist for any text you meet and need to describe, even if you think you know its origins. Using the vocabulary below will help you to be precise about your observations.

1. Consider the general classes:

• Mode
• Tenor
• Domain

2. Consider the Domain functions:

• Referential
• Expressive
• Conative
• Poetic
• Phatic

3. Consider the linguistic features

• Lexis
• Orthography
• Typography
• Phonology
• Syntax
• Content
• Context
• Style
• Prosodics

To identify

• Author
• Audience
• Place
• Date
• Intention
• Medium

eg Helen Williamson, writing a love letter to her fiancé George, on the Somme, August 1916