The Writer’s Voice
• Voice of the Writer ???
• The identity we create by choosing words and
arranging them on the page
• E.g. angry, friendly, meditative (thoughtful)
• Why do we need the voice?
• To convey the message we want to
Features of the language to control
the voice:
• Tone
• Writer’s stance/attitude toward the topic
• Diction
• Choice of words
• Point of view
• Perspective from which the writer views the topic
• Metadiscourse
• Signals that help readers understand the message
TONE
• In face-to-face communication, the voice and even mimics
help to communicate the tone.
• But how does writer’s voice sound?
• It is the rhetorical situation (topic, purpose, and audience)
that determines the tone!
• Compare and contrast the tone of a text message to a friend
with a letter to the dean.
• See the examples on p. 118-119 and go to exercise 20!
DICTION
• There is a connection between tone and diction—choice of
words!
• There are some important points to know related to diction.
• A) denotation and connotation.
• Denotation: dictionary meaning of a word
• Connotation: what the word suggests
• E.g. These words and phrases all refer to "a young person," but their
connotations may be quite different depending on the context
• youngster, child, kid, little one, small fry, brat, urchin, juvenile,
minor.
• Some carry positive connotations (little one)
• Some negative connotations (brat)
• Some fairly neutral connotations (child)
• E.g. Calling a young person a brat lets the readers know at once how
the writer feels about the rotten kid.
Other examples for
connotation
• Economical and cheap (synonyms)
• An economical car means having good gas mileage
(positive connotation)
• A cheap car means needing multiple car repairs
(negative connotation)
• Choose, select, and pick out (synonyms)
• Pick out is the least formal
• Select is the most formal
• Choose is neutral
• Then, which of these words do we select?
• Consider the situation, the audience, and purpose!
• E.g.
• Don’t use too formal words if it is not really needed
• Or don’t use too informal words if it doesn’t serve your purpose
• Inappropriate word choice means the loss of personal voice!
• Look at the example paragraph on p. 121; then go to group
discussion
• B) Metaphor
• Use of metaphor (application of words from one sphere to
another) is another way of using diction.
• Metaphors can be made by using only «be»
• All the world is a stage
• Happiness is a warm puppy
• Or with a simple modifier
• Company as a sinking ship
• Flowery prose
• See the paragraph on p. 124
• C) Verbs and Formality
• Phrasal verbs and idioms are informal
• E.g They can be used in personal essays but not good for
research papers or technical reports
• Go to exercise 21 on p. 126
• D) Nominalized Verbs and Abstract Subjects
• Nominalized verbs (verbs that have been turned into nouns)
are used very often in formal writing.
• E.g. Occur – occurence; succeed – success; combine – combination;
remove – removal
• They can be used for coherence (known-new concept)
• E.g. Written language differs from spoken language. This difference …..
• However, you should use it carefully
• Ask yourself:
• Is the agent there?
• If so, is it functioning as the subject? (Does the sentence explain
who is doing what?)
• If the answer is NO, then you need to revise
• Can you find the agent in the following sentence?
• High student achievement led to the creating of the Gifted
Students Program.
agent
• High student achievement led to the creating of the Gifted
Students Program.
• The agent is an abstraction! Could be a student or anyone
else!!
• Possible revision:
• The School Board created the Gifted Students Program for
higher achievers.
• Now go to exercise 22 on p. 127-128.
• E) Contractions
• Contractions affect the rhythm of the sentence.
• They are more conversational and less formal
• Think of the rhythm in the following two sentences:
• It is a nice day today.
• It’s a nice day today.
• Contractions with pronouns are more common in written
language than contractions with nouns
• My dog’ll eat anything
• He’ll eat anything
METADISCOURSE
• Certain signals that help the reader understand the writer’s
message.
• E.g. ‘thus’ tells that a summary is on the way
‘for example’ tells that an example will be given..
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The are many metadiscourse signals:
A) Connectors
Conjunctive adverbs: however, so, nevertheless, …
Prepositional phrases: in other words, in addition, …
Listing conjunctions: first, next, in conclusion, …
Contrasting pairs: on the one hand/on the other hand…
• B) Signals to inform readers about writer’s own attitude:
• E.g.
• 1. The point is that we, as readers, shouldn’t have to do the
figuring.
• (emphasizes our point of view about the proposition)
• 2. Parallelism is usually thought of as a device for enhancing a
writer’s style – and indeed it is that --- as you learned in
Chapter 4.
• (calls attention to the truth of the statement)
• 3. You’ve probably been told at one time or another to avoid I
or you or the passive voice – and, very possibly, the it-cleft as
well.
• Use of probably is called ‘hedging’ (use of a word or phrase to
make statements less forceful or assertive)
• Other hedging words:
• perhaps, seem, indicate, suggest, to a certain extent, might, may,
could
• C) Other metadiscourse markers
• 1. As you probably noticed, the only difference between the
two passages is in the rhythm pattern of the last sentence in
each.
• 2. The following passive sentence, which may look familiar,
closes the first paragraph of the section in Chapter 2 called
‘Sentence Patterns.’
• 3. It is important to recognize that pronouns without
antecedents are in violation of the known-new contract.
• 4. And you can be sure that in reading their own prose,
whether silently or aloud, they are paying attention to
sentence rhythm.
• D) Code Gloss (parenthetical comment)
• Used when the writer wants to clarify the meaning of a word
or phrase
• See example paragraph on p. 131-132
• E) Attributor (the first sentence of a paragraph introducing the
previous quotation)
• E.g. In the following paragraph,…..
POINT OF VIEW
• Point of view is the perspective from which the writer views the
topic.
• How is it done? By using personal pronouns!
• First person (I) is used in most essays
• Third person (he, she, it) is used in scientific reports, newspapers,
historical articles, …
• Use of we, us, our (collective first person)
• Can be used when the writer wants the reader to be included in his
description of the universe
• E.g Now at first sight, all this evidence that the universe looks the same
whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is
something special about our place in the universe.
• Use of you
• Not necessarily to address the reader; can be used in a more
general sense
• E.g. Most of the rooms were evidently used for anthropological
items. You had the sense of a museum of the second order.
• Use of one
• Can be used in the same way as ‘you’, but it adds formality, a
distance that ‘you’ does not have.
• E.g. When one sees the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, the
sight is simply breathtaking.
• Now go to Group Discussion on p. 135