S.W.A.

T
Single Word Analysis Technique (or word peeling)
When you are analysing the author’s use of language (as you will be asked to do in
your literature exam and section A of Paper 1) or any time you are analysing or
comparing poetry (as you will have to do in the Literature exam and Paper 2) you
need to analyse the language. This means you will ‘write a lot about a little’. This
technique will help you look at individual words and get to their meaning and
purpose in the text you are reading.

The word you are going to analyse

The literal meaning of the word

What it means in this context

• The word’s effect

• What it does to or for the poem
• What it makes the reader think
or feel

For example (sorry it looks strange, I’ve had to stretch it to make the
text boxes work!):

This example
analyses the word
Spinster
‘Spinster’ from
Havisham by Carol
Ann Duffy An older unmarried
woman. Negative
term.
She is a spinster as she was left at the
altar by the man she talks about and
who she now hates.

‘Spinster’ is a one word sentence suggesting her isolation.

Placement at start of stanza draws attention to it – she
wanted to be married; the isolation suggests bitterness. This
and the plosive ‘Sp’ start helps her spit out the word,
emphasising her bitterness. Alliteration with ‘stink’….