This work-book discusses the basics of linguistic text analysis from a present-day viewpoint. Its special concern is to underline the commonalities existing between many of the text-linguistic approaches that have been proposed, and to provide a well-defined overview of descriptive aspects. Chapter 1 looks at the history of the discipline, Chapter 2 discusses the problem of defining texts. Chapter 3 proposes a descriptive matrix encompassing four dimensions discussed in the remaining chapters: 4. situational context, 5. function, 6. topic, 7. linguistic form.