Introduction

The text under consideration is entitled “Does life exist anywhere else in
the universe?”.The article was published in the printed edition "The
Economist" dating back to the 2018.
It is a piece of a publicistic writing, namely a feature article. There are a
number of factors enabling me to say so.
The text contains the objective information about the events which have
recently taken place at the headquarters NASA in Washington, USA.
It also gives the information of human interest because it involves the
reader emotionally.
Written by an expert this article provides background information on the
newsworthy topics. These features of a given piece of writing highlight
the main function of feature articles and the newspaper style in general.
Analysing the layout
Analysing the layout of this text, it should be mentioned that the piece of
writing conveys the information in the most readable and readily
interesting way. There is an important feature of clear and attractive
topography that is common for printed newspaper item.
The layout of the reading matter is adopted. Different sizes of type for the
main headline and the whole text are also used.
The information is divided into a large number of long and short but
exact physical paragraphs. The connection between paragraphs is made as
smooth as possible due to various adverbial connectives, such as
conjunctions and connective words. For example, “but”, “at first glance”,
“perhaps”. These factors help to attract the casual reader’s attention and
guide it rapidly through the matter on the page.
Summary
The main concern of the article in question the existence of life on other
planets.
The first logical part concerns itself with investigation of the Kepler
telescope.The author emphasizes that that scientists have announced the
discovery of one very fascinating planet, but it is too far to study.
The following part provides the information about the search for signs of
intelligent life.As well as information about famous scientist, who
introduced a special equation to find intelligent life.
The concluding logical part is devoted to another scientist, namely Jack
Shostak, who is trying to deduce an intelligent life himself.He and his
team conduct 2 experiments, thanks to which it will be possible to find
out whether the origin of life is a complex process that depends on
different cases of luck or circumstances, or whether it really occurs
easily. This will help determine the likelihood of life on other planets.
 Analysing the grammatical peculiarities

Analysing the grammatical peculiarities, it should be mentioned that a

feature article is characterized by a peculiar composition and by a certain
syntactic structure of sentences. This text has following grammatical
parameters that are typical of a feature article.
Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses are used widely in
the news item, the example is provided in the sentences:
The search for life beyond Earth has been buoyed by recent discoveries
made by NASA's Kepler telescope - it's looking for planets outside our
solar system known as exoplanets.
Mr Drake came up with something called the Drake Equation which is a
mathematical formula that estimates how many advanced civilizations
capable of transmitting signals might exist in the universe.
At first glance our solar system seems like a rather unlikely place to find
life beyond Earth but the reason scientists think it is plausible is because
of the discovery of a group of organisms called extremophiles that live on
earth.
This grammatical peculiarity is also found in all paragraphs.
Another grammatical feature found in the text is the Passive Voice,for
example in this sentence: The search for life beyond Earth has been
buoyed by recent discoveries made by NASA's Kepler telescope - it's
looking for planets outside our solar system known as exoplanets.
There is also widespread use of verb constructions(infinitive, gerundial,
participial). For exaple: In his lab at Harvard University he's trying to
determine how easy it is to create life by making it himself.
Also in the article modal verbs are often used, as in this
sentence:The hope is that if we find further life in our solar system on
places like Mars, we will improve our understanding of how easily it
might have started elsewhere.
Analysing the lexical peculiarities
In further analysis of a given feature article we proceed to the analysis of
the lexical peculiarities of the text. This piece of article includes
newspaper clichés, words in their figurative meaning, emotionally
coloured lexical units, special scientific, biological and space terms and
abbreviations.
All these groups are highlighted with following examples: clichés include
the phrases
“seeking the answers,another way to answer this question,scientists have
since identified, , the right distance, indicate the presence of life, another
way to learn, distant planets, intelligent life, genetic information,there is
another way to answer this question, trying to come up with an answer,
run the chemical reactions, we are alone”.Words in their figurative
meaning, that are given in the text, include “ expand capacity, a helping
hand, bits of luck, life emerges”.

The phrases “the universe, scientists, the cosmos,telescope, exoplanets,

stars, habitable zone, light-years, atmospheres, bio signatures, intelligent
life, civilizations, extraterrestrial intelligence, extremophiles, the moons,
Jupiter and Saturn,” belong to special space and geographic terms.

There are certain abbreviations present in this news item: NASA, SETI,
DNA, RNA.

The linguistic peculiarities of a headline are described with certain typical

items.

Lexical cohesion

Now let’s have a closer look at those means of the lexical cohesion which
contribute to the logico-semantic and artistic wholeness of the text under
analysis. One of the means through which the lexical cohesion finds its
expression in a given piece of writing is the recurrence of the key-words.

In the present text the following keywords can be distinguished: life and
scientists.

The key-word is “life” that is mentioned 13 times in a given article.

The thematic group is formed by the following words: exist, presence,

create.

To the semantic group belongs the word civilization.

A very important role in the lexical cohesion of the text is played by the
synonyms. Among them: learn-study, find - discover, our planet - Earth,
cosmos -universe.
Now let’s have a look at the word-building means, namely affixation and
compounding, that also reinforce the lexical cohesion of the text.
The examples of affixation are the following words: unlikely, brightness,
greatly, easily, likely, finally, capable, habitable, organization, reaction,
evolved, information, co-founded, primitive, determining, making,
discovering, relying, helping, appearing, sticking, unlikely, plausible,
extremophiles, evolved, replication, repeated.
In such a way the lexical cohesion of the text is created.