Working with numerous texts is one of the activities for the development of soft and hard, i. e. professional skills, especially in the process of learning a foreign language. Studying and analyzing texts of different styles, fiction ones in particular, helps students with various levels of the language command, whether at school or in a higher educational establishment; develops analytical and critical thinking together with attention to detail; enriches knowledge from historical and sociocultural perspectives; allows language to get acquainted with new vocabulary and/ or grammar or a number of other ways of using well-known constructions to be found; and also directly improves general reading skills and partially helps with writing and speaking ones.
There is a large number of studies that emphasize the benefits of creating a plan before starting the direct implementation of the written task mostly for students in general or those attending schools [2; 4]. Learning how to approach text analysis is especially important for students majoring in philology, particularly if they specialize in a foreign language and have a goal not only to identify the main structural components of the text offered to them for familiarization, but also to consider it from different angles, paying attention to stylistic features, vocabulary used throughout the story, and ideas, themes and messages highlighted in the work and conveyed through the description of events and the behavior of characters. Understanding a fictional paper and the ability to logically divide it into more and less significant parts for emphasis and further more detailed study of each of them as well as the text as a whole is an opportunity for students to organize thoughts after the original acquaintance with the text and build its visual skeleton. Therefore, composing an outline for its use in further engagement with the material is one of the first, but no less important steps in text analysis.
It is important to mention that outline composition is the basis and foundation for such further writing assignments as an essay, an annotation or a summary of the text. Students get to highlight the main parts of the text, emphasize crucial elements of the story for themselves and organize the information provided in a simplified abridged form using a multilevel list with numbers and bullets that correspond to the chronology of events from the paper. It is especially important to emphasize that the plan helps students to organize their thoughts, reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed by the large amount of information that needs to be covered, and build a framework for an excerpt or the whole literary work [2, p. 209] using the semantic and lexical structures of the latter, without losing specific features of the original text.
Additionally to its contribution to the writing skill development, preparing an outline is an important step a student should take before an in-role text retelling, a great way of their oral skill upgrade and a performative approach to the in-depth study of the plot, characters and the “language” of the text [3, p. 351]. A brief plan of all essential parts of the story prepared with the use of speech patterns, word combinations and phrases characteristic of this particular example of fiction refreshes the memory and assists with an accurate representation of the original partial or full piece of work.
An outline is an auxiliary element in performing a stylistic analysis of the text, which future philologists learn to conduct either. A well-crafted outline based on the text with its original vocabulary and semantic structures, which also includes specific style elements, together with register, stylistic devices and expressive means, organizes information and allows students to focus on the main point.
Furthermore, a carefully created outline can be also used for translation purposes. As text analysis is one of the translation stages, necessary for a better understanding of the source material and its specifics, an outline of the text may prevent distraction and allow a student to fully comprehend the messages and point out crucial details for developing a translation strategy [1, p. 34–37]. An outline can act both like a checklist and a source material database divided into groups and subgroups for students to rely on when performing a translation.
Even a masterfully composed outline cannot fully substitute such examples of academic writing as an abstract and a summary or be used in oral retelling without necessary modifications and additions of information as well as for text translations. Nevertheless, there is no denying that an outline can provide a certain level of content organization, relieve informational overload and contribute to a better focus on both the general text and its details in their further analysis or reproduction, helping students, especially those majoring in philology, to develop skills to work with different kinds of texts in the future.
References
1. Nord C. Next Analysis in Translation: Theory, Methodology, and Didactic Application of a Model for Translation-oriented Text Analysis. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2005. 274 p.
2. Tazky K. The Effect of Using Outline Technique to Improve Students’ Ability in Writing Descriptive. RETAIN. 2018. № 3. Vol. 6. P. 202-210.
3. Vakulenko A. The Efficiency in the Use of In-role Text Retelling for Future Philologists in the English Language Learning Process. The current state of the organization of scientific activity in the world: Papers of the XXIII International Scientific and Practical Conference (Madrid, 10–12 Jun. 2024). Madrid, 2024. P. 350 351.
4. Wahyudin A. Y. Maximizing Outlining Practice in Teaching Writing for EFL Secondary Students: A Research Perspective. Linguistic, Literature & Language Teaching Series. An Overview of Current Issues in Literature, Linguistics, and Language Teaching, 2018. P. 45-50.
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