---
title: "Analysis"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:43:14.317109+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Analysis (pl.: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle, though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.
The word comes from the Ancient Greek ἀνάλυσις (analysis, "a breaking-up" or "an untying" from ana- "up, throughout" and lysis "a loosening"). From it also comes the word's plural, analyses.
As a formal concept, the method has variously been ascribed to René Descartes (Discourse on the Method), and Galileo Galilei. It has also been ascribed to Isaac Newton, in the form of a practical method of physical discovery (which he did not name).
The converse of analysis is synthesis: putting the pieces back together again in a new or different whole.

== Academic analysis ==
Academic analysis is a systematic, methodological approach to inquiry used across scholarly disciplines to deconstruct complex ideas, texts, data, or systems. Its primary aim is to foster a deeper, evidence-based understanding, challenge assumptions, and contribute to a body of knowledge through critical examination and rigorous argumentation. This form of analysis is foundational to higher education and research, distinguished by its adherence to disciplinary conventions, peer review, and the use of established theoretical or conceptual frameworks.
Methods vary significantly by field. In the humanities, it often involves hermeneutic or discourse analysis to interpret the meaning, context, and ideology within texts and artifacts. In the social sciences, analysis frequently employs qualitative methods (e.g., thematic analysis, content analysis) and quantitative methods (e.g., statistical analysis, econometrics) to examine human behavior and societal structures. In the natural and formal sciences, the analytical process is characterized by hypothesis testing, mathematical modeling, and the reproducible analysis of empirical data.
A cornerstone of academic analysis is reflexivity, where scholars critically examine their own role, potential biases, and the influence of their theoretical position on the analytical process. The product of academic analysis is typically a sustained argument presented in a format such as a monograph, journal article, or dissertation, which is subjected to peer evaluation for validity, originality, and contribution to the field.

== Humanities and social sciences ==

=== Linguistics ===
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It involves the systematic analysis of the properties of specific languages as well as the universal characteristics of language in general, including its structure, use, and cognitive and social aspects. Linguistics explores individual languages and language in general by breaking language down into component parts for analysis. Core areas of analysis include theory, phonetics (the production and perception of speech sounds), phonology (the abstract sound systems of languages and the systematic organization of sounds in a language), morphology (the structure and formation of words), the history of words and word origins, semantics (the study of linguistic meaning, including the meaning of words and word combinations), semantic analysis, syntax (the rules governing the structure and construction of sentences), pragmatics (how context contributes to meaning and how utterances are used), discourse analysis (basic construction beyond the sentence level), conversation, and stylistics and stylistics.
Theoretical linguistics is concerned with developing a general framework for understanding the fundamental nature of language. Linguistics also encompasses the study of language change over time, known as historical linguistics.
Linguistics examines these areas using a range of methods, including tools from computational linguistics that involve computational modelling, statistics, and modeling of natural language. The field also analyses language through interdisciplinary approaches that consider its context, including anthropological linguistics (which investigates the place of language in its wider social and cultural context), biolinguistics and evolutionary linguistics or biolinguistics, geography, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and neurology, linguistic anthropology (a subfield of anthropology using anthropological methods to study language within a cultural framework), and history, as well as related perspectives from anthropology, biology, evolution, psychology, and sociology.
The field takes applied approaches, utilizing scientific findings for practical purposes under the umbrella of applied linguistics. This includes understanding language acquisition and individual language development across the lifespan, from first language acquisition in children to second language learning in adults. Applied linguistics also addresses clinical issues in communication disorders and clinical issues, applying linguistic theory and methods to the study, diagnosis, and assessment of communication disorders. It also includes improving language education and other applied and interdisciplinary subfields such as computational linguistics, as well as areas such as stylistics.

=== Literature ===
Literary criticism is the analysis of literature. The focus can be as diverse as the analysis of Homer or Freud. While not all literary-critical methods are primarily analytical in nature, the main approach to the teaching of literature in the west since the mid-twentieth century, literary formal analysis or close reading, is. This method, rooted in the academic movement labelled The New Criticism, approaches texts – chiefly short poems such as sonnets, which by virtue of their small size and significant complexity lend themselves well to this type of analysis – as units of discourse that can be understood in themselves, without reference to biographical or historical frameworks. This method of analysis breaks up the text linguistically in a study of prosody (the formal analysis of meter) and phonic effects such as alliteration and rhyme, and cognitively in examination of the interplay of syntactic structures, figurative language, and other elements of the poem that work to produce its larger effects.