DIDLS DIDLS DICTION IMAGERY DETAILS LANGUAGE SYNTAX STYLE TONE THEME WORD CHOICE IMAGERY APPEALS TO SENSES DETAILS SUPPORTS ATTITUDE AND TONE LANGUAGE FIGURES OF SPEECH SOUND DEVICES LITERAY TECHNIQUES SYNTAX SENTENCE STRUCTURE STYLE WRITER’S MANNER OF EMPLOYING LANGUAGE TONE WRITER’S ATTITUDE TOWARD SUBJECT THEME GENERAL STATEMENT ABOUT LIFE OR HUMAN NATURE

Why We Study Diction (an example) Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers quarterback, still has some of his football scholarship rejection letters from college. One letter from a coach at Purdue states, "Good luck with your attempt at a college football career." What word in the sentence helps you understand the attitude of the Purdue coach? What is the coach’s attitude?

DICTION Attitudes implied by the varying word choice. For example: To laugh: to guffaw, to chuckle, to titter, to giggle, to cackle, to snicker, to roar Self-confident: proud, conceited, egotistical, stuck up, haughty, smug, complacent, arrogant, condescending House: home, hut, shack, mansion, cabin, chalet, abode, dwelling, shanty, domicile, residence King: ruler, leader, tyrant, dictator, autocrat, rex Old: mature, experienced, antique, relic, ancient, elderly, senior Fat: obese, plump, corpulent, portly, roly-poly, stout, rotund, burly, full-figured  

Describe diction (choice of words) Words can be monosyllabic (one syllable in length) or polysyllabic (more than one syllable in length). The higher the ratio of polysyllabic words, the more difficult the content. Words can be mainly colloquial (slang), informal (conversational), formal (literary), or old-fashioned. Words can be mainly denotative (containing an exact meaning, e.g., dress), or connotative (containing a suggested meaning, e.g., gown). Words can be concrete (specific) or abstract (general or conceptual). Words can be euphonious (pleasant sounding, e.g., languid, murmur) or cacophonous (harsh sounding, e.g., raucous, croak).  

“Outside the door I am aware of the darkness and the wind as a deliverance. I breathe as a deep as I can, and feel the breeze in my face, warm and soft as never before. Thoughts of girls, of flowery meadows, of white clouds suddenly come into my head… The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like a concert of drums. My limbs move supplely, I feel my joints strong. I breathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live. I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone” (33).

Words: Before shift: darkness, deep, warm, soft, flowery, white After shift: crackles, thunders, supplely, drums, hunger Tone: Author’s attitude created by words Before shift: wistful After shift: exhilarated Entire passage: tormented, miserable

To Kill a Mockingbird Practice: Think about the following passage where Scout introduces the reader to the town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. In addition to providing information about time and place, physical descriptions of a place can create a mood for the story. How would you describe the feeling or mood set by Lee in the beginning of the book? What specific words/diction contribute to that mood? Circle them. Write your connections in the margins. Which tone word most precisely describes the diction? Anything else you notice (method to meaning)? Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oak on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’ clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. (Lee 5).