A method for identifying word patterns in text is conducted in real time and is highly suitable for network and Internet use. The method involves receiving a stream of text, breaking the stream of text into a plurality of threads, tokenizing the words in each thread, and comparing the words to identified words in the semantic network. Recognized, words are then examined, together with surrounding words in the text to determine whether the words are part of a word pattern. Word patterns are located at nodes in the semantic network in a hierarchical structure, and certain word patterns correspond to objects of the semantic network. When all word patterns involving a word are located, links are followed to objects corresponding to the word patterns. Several nodes may point to a single object, but each object is represented only once in the semantic network. Identified objects may thus be identified in real time, as the text streams through the text analysis module.