From Something to Tell You, (Haniff Kureishi)

TEXT ANALYSIS. QUESTIONS

a. Why does the author use the metaphor secrets are my currency?
As it is said below, the narrator is a psychiatrist, so he makes a living out of secrets

b. Explain the meaning of the sentence – in a different silence-

Silence is silence. There are no different silences. The point is that, according to the context of
situation, people will be able to interpret the speaker’s or hearer’s silence in a precise moment. In
this case the narrator is usually in silence while his patients are talking, but in this passage, he is
by himself and he is meditating.

c. Find two sentence by which the author gives the same importance to verbal and non-
verbal communication
1. ... sentences and words from our conversations, as well as the joins and breaks between
them.

2. I’m into places where language can’t go

d. What does the author mean by ‘dirt digger’? Comment the word according to different
levels: phonetic, word formation and meaning
The author has to dig into dirty thoughts from his patients.

1. Phonetic level: it is an alliterative word, with the phonemes /δ / and /r/ repeated so that
the reader can remember the word easily.

2. Word formation: It is a compound word, noun + nominalised verb. Dirt is a stem and the
second part of the word follows a very productive process: adding the suffix –er to the
verb. The suffix means: the person or animal that carries out an action.

3. Meaning. The author expresses a figurative meaning. A dirt digger is a machine which
takes dirt out of the floor as he takes dirt out of the souls.

e. How does the author achieve cohesion in this passage?

The main cohesive device is lexical reference with collocations in two ways:

1. He uses repetition of the word why in rhetoric questions so as to invite the reader to think
over them with him.

2. He uses enumerations of word families such as:

Livelihood, vocation, enjoyment
Shrinkster, detective, healer, dirt digger, charlatan, fraud
 Fantasies, wishes, lies, dreams, nightmares
Explode, implode, dissolve

The purpose of this lexical cohesion is to make the reader think about the semantic field of the
mind.

There is also personal anaphoric reference, a good example for this is the last paragraph in which
the author uses both, existential and possessive reference.

f. This is the beginning of a novel by Haniff Kureishi. What is your opinion about the
paragraph?