The fourth level of analysis is Discourse analysis . Discourse level processing attempts to interpret the structure and meaning of even larger units example at paragraph level and document level the terms of words , phrases, clusters and sentences. It requires discourse knowledge i.e knowledge of how the meaning of a sentence is determined by preceding sentences. For instance, if one sentence reads, “Manhattan speaks to all its people,” and the following sentence reads, “It calls out to Dave,” discourse integration checks the first sentence for context to understand that “It” in the latter sentence refers to Manhattan. The highest level of processing is Pragmatic analysis .
Which deals with the purposeful use of sentences in situations. It requires the knowledge of world i.e. knowledge that extends beyond the contents of the text. For instance, a pragmatic analysis can uncover the intended meaning of “Manhattan speaks to all its people.” Methods like neural networks assess the context to understand that the sentence isn’t literal, and most people won’t interpret it as such. A pragmatic analysis deduces that this sentence is a metaphor for how people emotionally connect with place.