Language – A Note
Diction
word choice; a study of diction is the analysis of how a writer uses language for a distinct purpose and effect,
including word choice and figures of speech
Informal diction (personal writing)
Formal diction (academic or literary writing)
Types of Diction
Colloquial Words – conversational language
Ex.
Slang Words – highly informal
Ex.
Jargon – the special language of a profession or group (lawyer talk, technical talk)
Ex.
WAYS TO CHARACTERIZE DICTION
Examples of General Language: look, walk sit, cry, throw, dog, boy
Examples of Specific Language: gaze, stride, slump, weep, hurl, black Labrador Retriever, tall boy
Monosyllabic words – single syllable words; for example:
CAT (one beat)
Polysyllabic words – more than one syllable in a word: rancid; Microsoft (2 beats; 3 beats)
THE GREATER THE NUMBER OF POLYSSYLLABIC WORDS, THE MORE COMPLEX THE PASSAGE
Denotative Words – dictionary meaning (wedding dress, law officer, public servant)
Connotative Words – emotional meaning (wedding gown, cop, bureaucrat)
Cacophonous Words: harsh sounding words (maggot)
Euphonious Words: pleasant sounding words (butterfly)
Abstract Words: not material – these words represent a thought (pleasant taste)
Concrete Words: real or actual; specific, not general (sour tasting)
Abstract Painting 26
Picasso
Questions to ponder while analyzing text:
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Are the words monosyllabic or polysyllabic?
Is the diction formal or informal?
Is the diction colloquial?
Is the diction slang or filled with jargon?
Is the language concrete or abstract?
At any time during reading, is there a change in the level of diction in the passage?
Some Additional Literary Devices
(Add these to the devices already studied in class!)
Alliteration:
The recurrence of initial consonant sounds
For example:
Ah, what a delicious day!
Assonance:
Similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or close words
For example:
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Consonance:
Prosody (linguistically, the study of the patterns and stresses in a language; in literature, the
study of poetic metre); similarity between consonant sounds, but not between vowels;
consonance is especially evident at the end of words
Sweet silent thought (vowels do not have to match; a and t are at the beginning and end of
both words)
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought (“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” – William
Wordsworth)
For Example:
Second Ex.:
Pun:
For Example:
a play on words for words that are nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; use of
words and phrases to exploit ambiguities and innuendoes, usually for humour
Richard Lederer says, “In what other language do you play at a recital and recite at a play.”
Second Ex.:
Apostrophe:
For Example:
a figure of speech in which someone absent, dead or non-human is addressed as if it was
alive and present and able to reply
The Sun Rising by John Donne
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Paradox:
For Example:
a contradictory assertion; a seemingly; an absurd statement that may be true
“I can resist anything but temptation.” Oscar Wilde
“What a shame that youth must be wasted on the young.” George Bernard Shaw
Antithesis:
the exact opposite of something else
For Example:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we
had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we
were all going direct the other way." (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
Second Ex.:
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
(Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964)
Synecdoche:
a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole
Nice Wheels
Metonomy:
For Example:
Second Ex.:
a word/phrase that stands in for a similar word/phrase
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” Edward Bulwer Lytton (pen = written word; sword =
military might)
The White House will announce its new economic plan today.