INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS: A SEMANTICO-SYNTACTIC STUDY OF WRITINGS FROM SELECTED SOURCES
INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS: A SEMANTICO-SYNTACTIC STUDY OF WRITINGS FROM SELECTED SOURCES
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Date
1997-03
Authors
ADEJOH, JOSEPHINE ELEOJO
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
This is a study on Interpretation of texts - A
semantico - syntactic study of writings from selected
sources. It is based on the difficulties people face in
an attempt to correctly interpret texts. Our respondents
who were the SSII students of school mentioned in the
work, face many difficulties when interpreting texts, and
as a result, wrong interpretations were given.
The tests administered to test the interpretative
ability were taken from the novel:-"No Second Chance"
(by Olumense, S) and a text book titled:- "Handbook of
special Education: Teaching the Visually Handicapped"
(by Abang, Theresa) . The texts were chosen because they
were believed to be of the appropriate difficulty level
for the respondents at their own level.
The objective of this study was to discover the
difficulties faced by people in interpreting texts, look
into the causes and make suggestions on how these
difficulties can be overcome.
Chapter one formed the introduction of the study.
It discussed the statement of the problem, aims and
objectives of the study and the scope of the study. It
also looked at some terms - reading, writing,
interpretation (briefly) and the overt relationship
between syntax and semantics.
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Chapter two reviewed some related literature. It
reappraised a text - what formed the constituents, the
field, tenor and mode of discourse, registers, cohesion
and the linguistic system, theories of reading, writing
and interpretation, representational holism and then a
summary on spoken and written language.
Chapter three was the theoretical framework. Two
approaches used in this work were Davy and Crystal's
approach and Haynes's approach to stylistic analysis. It
also treated the classification of features like
individuality, dialect, time, province, etc. The chapter
discussed the methodology and the total number of
respondents.
In chapter four, the findings and performances on
the different sub-tests have been represented in tables
followed by discussions. The tests were marked based on
the following criteria - cognitive, interpretative,
evaluative and affective abilities. The last part of
this chapter formed the concluding observations on the
overall performance.
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Chapter five summed up all that had been discussed
in the previous chapters. It has reflected on the
implications of the findings for teachers, students and
text writers. Recommendations/suggestions have been
made, these with the overall intention of advancing
points that could help uplift both students'
interpretative skills and an improvement in the methods
used for testing interpretation.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the post-graduate school, Ahmadu
Bello University, Zaria in partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the Award of the Degree of Master of Arts
in English language, in the Department of English,
Faculty of Arts, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
Keywords
INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS:, SEMANTICO-SYNTACTIC STUDY, WRITINGS, SELECTED SOURCES