Discussing Language in your Written Explanation
Huxley’s use of Language and Stylistic Features within Brave New World
(Now that you have gained an insight into how to discuss language, you will need to be able to identify specific
stylistic or language devices used by Huxley in Brave New World and apply these in your own writing)
Just as the Written Explanation requires you to use specific language devices for a specific purpose
in each of your folio texts, Huxley, like any writer, has used engaging language devices for a
specific purpose within his text, Brave New World.
Below is a list of language and stylistic features (metalanguage) used in Brave New World.
1. Read through each device and its definition. Ensure you understand these devices and their
definitions.
2. Once you have done this, find and list an example taken from the text.
Metalanguage
Allusion, allusive a passing reference in a work of literature to something outside itself.
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Distance, distancing a work of literature should arouse its reader’s sympathies, but if a reader
identifies too strongly with a character, situation or idea, whether for emotional, personal or
political reasons, it may distort judgement. A writer may therefore create ‘distance’ between the
reader and the event of the text, for example by commenting on the action or by giving an
otherwise heroic character unsympathetic faults.
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Ellipsis the omission of one or more words from a sentence for reasons of economy or style
(Chapter 1, p.9).
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Foil a character who illuminates by contrast some aspects of a more central character.
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Free indirect discourse a technique of narrating the thoughts or speech of a character by
incorporating their words or ideas into a third-person narrative (refer to Chapter 9, p.13).
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Image, imagery in its narrowest sense; an image is a word-picture, describing some visible scene
or object (Chapter 14).
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Metaphor goes further than a comparison between two different things or ideas by fusing them
together: one thing is described as being another thing, carrying over its associations (Chapter 1,
p. 1).
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Minor sentence a group of words punctuated like a sentence and functioning as a similar unit of
meaning, but lacking the grammatical constituents of a full sentence (Chapter 1, p.1; this example
omits the subject and the verb ‘it was’).
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Novel of ideas a type of narrative fiction in which action is less important than explicit discussion
between the characters.
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Onomatopoeia words which sound like the noise which they describe (Chapter 18, p.277).
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Parable a narrative which demonstrates a moral or a lesson.
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Parody an imitation of something, for example a style of writing or a particular work of literature,
intended to ridicule its characteristic features.
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Simile an explicit comparison in which one thing in said to be like another. Similes always contain
the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ (Chapter 5, section 1, p.67).
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Stream of consciousness the attempt to convey all that is passing through a character’s mind by
recording it as it passes (Chapter 8, p.120).
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Symbol, symbolic something which represents something else (often an idea or quality) either by
analogy or association. Many symbols exist by convention of tradition. Sunlight, for example, is a
positive image, suggesting vitality, pleasure an naturalness (Chapter 1, Chapter 2).
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