LESSON 1: ANALYSING DICTION
Teacher: Mr F. Bounar
Module: Text Analysis
Level: 1st Year
Groups: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Lesson 1: Analysing Diction
Diction or Word Choice
Word choice is an important aspect of good writing. Being a rich language,
English makes available a wide range of vocabulary to its users, who sometimes become
confused as to which word to use in a particular context. The context may be formal,
informal, academic, and so on, but it is not the only determinant. Professional writers
are also aware that words in English are not absolutely synonymous and that some
words are more specific than others. Thus, knowing a particular word’s connotations
helps them convey a specific meaning that they would not be able to convey using, say,
another word, which may be close in meaning.
Today’s lesson will show you how to analyse words along the context in which
they occur. The focus is especially placed on notions such as synonymy, specificity,
connotation, and atmosphere.
Some Examples
Read the following examples carefully:
a. Poor lamb! They run them ragged at school.
b. Hit me!
c. He went about flaunting his bike.
d. Rob was grinning from ear to ear.
e. A Creature was fast approaching.
Commentary
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LESSON 1: ANALYSING DICTION
As a foreign learner of the language, one might get confused by example (a). What
is the general context here? Is it about school, or is it about an animal? At a superficial
level, a lamb is a young or a baby sheep, but understanding the word this way is
confusing because the sentence does not make sense. In informal English, lamb is used
to talk about a young child. Understanding the word this way helps us understand the
overall meaning of the sentence and the context in which the word usually occurs.
Hence, the nature of the word determines the situation or the context in which it is
usually used. Using lamb to talk about a young child in, say, an academic context would
not sound right.
How did the word lamb come to mean young child? In English, much like other
languages, many animal words are used to describe human-beings. Take fox, for
instance:
1. He’s foxy.
2. He’s a fox.
In our collective consciousness (imagination), a fox is associated with abstract ideas
like cunning and deception. These associations, referred to as connotations, are then
used to describe human-beings and their actions.
What connotations does lamb have? Sheep is usually associated with abstract
ideas such as innocence and helplessness. In the famous cliché a wolf in sheep’s clothing,
the innocence of sheep is juxtaposed with the deception of the wolf to talk about a
deceitful person. In a similar vein, a lamb and a young child are generally believed to be
innocent creatures; this is why lamb came to mean what it means nowadays.
Example (b) poses no problem as such. One would instantly think the speaker
wants to be struck. The meaning is one, but the context in which the speaker produces
this utterance may vary: it might be that the speaker is challenging an opponent, or it
might be that the speaker is asking to be hit in retaliation for hitting his opponent.
Anyway, the context may differ, but the act of hitting is real. Now, let us imagine that
Bob and Mike are debating a particular topic, and their debate becomes intense
eventually:
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LESSON 1: ANALYSING DICTION
Bob: You’ve answered none of my questions. You’re just another smart alec!
Mike: Oh yeah! I’ve given you loads of arguments, haven’t I? You got more questions?
Go on! Hit me!
Here, hit is used to ask somebody to ask a question or to say what they have to say. The
context in which the verb occurs clarifies the meaning. ‘Hit me!’, when it occurs in
isolation, is ambiguous until further contextual details are provided.
The verbs flaunt and grin in sentences (c) and (d) are specific alternatives to show
and smile respectively. Words in English can be neutral (general) or specific. This
categorisation implies that, on a general principle, there are no absolute synonyms but
words that are close in meaning. To express different ways of smiling, the verb smile
usually requires an adverb or another phrase tagged on to it to render the meaning more
accurate:
a. He smiled.
b. He smiled slyly.
c. He smiled delightfully.
d. He smiled in a silly way.
Grin, by contrast, is smile in a certain way: in this case, it is to smile widely because one
is happy or delighted. Grin, then, is more specific than smile. Similarly, flaunt is more
specific than show because it usually implies that the person showing something is a
show-off. Notice the difference between the two examples below:
a. He showed us his bike.
b. He flaunted his bike.
Specificity applies not only to verbs but also to adjectives and nouns. In our last
example, creature is too general because it does not paint a clear picture in the reader’s
mind. By creature, one might mean animal or human-being, which are more specific
than creature. One might conjure up a sharper image using the words man or woman.
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LESSON 1: ANALYSING DICTION
In other words, the more specific the word is the more vivid the description becomes.
So, building is more general than house, but house is less specific than mansion.
Mood or Atmosphere
Compare the two sentences:
a. When the knock came, Sally walked to the door and opened it. She looked at the
stranger for a few seconds, then said, “you’re too late. Horace left an hour ago.”
Without another word, she closed the door.
b. When the knock came, Sally lept to the door and flung it open. She scowled at
the stranger for a few seconds, then growled, “you’re too late. Horace left an hour
ago.” Without another word, she slammed the door.
Sentences (a) and (b) express more or less the same actions, but the actions in sentence
(b) are more specific in the sense that the verbs in bold are more emotionally-
charged. Apart from giving us a superficial account of what happened, sentence (a) does
not really give us any clue regarding Sally’s state of mind. In other words, the verbs in
(a) are general or neutral. However, (b) does a better job of revealing Sally’s feelings
because more specific (emotionally-charged) verbs are used. By using leap, fling, scowl,
growl, and slam, the writer is able to show (showing instead of telling) that Sally is
angry. To use a more technical word, one might say that the atmosphere or the mood
is that of anger, and that the writer has successfully captured this mood by using more
specific words.
Now, let us see how mood or atmosphere is created in a passage. Think of a war
context, for instance. What would the mood of the battlefield be like? It certainly would
not be that of serenity and lethargy; instead, it would be that of action and violence. In
order to capture such a mood, a professional writer would use more specific words that
have specific connotations. Look at this example from a war novel:
A weapon came in his way from across the river, and he went back into his
hole. In the darkness, it sent a white light like an acetylene torch, and its
sound was terrible. Croft was holding himself together by the force of his
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LESSON 1: ANALYSING DICTION
will. He pressed the trigger of his gun and it moved under his hand. The
tracers travelled into the jungle on the other side of the river.
Does the writer successfully capture the mood of the battlefield? Well, not really! As
readers, we do not feel that we are really plunged into the violent atmosphere of the
battle. In fact, this is a modified version of the original passage, which has a different
feel:
A machine gun lashed at him from across the river, and he ducked into
his hole. In the darkness, it spat a vindictive white light like an acetylene
torch, and its sound was terrifying. Croft was holding himself together by
the force of his will. He pressed the trigger of his gun and it leaped and
bucked under his hand. The tracers spewed wildly into the jungle on the
other side of the river.
The original passage captures the mood successfully. As readers, we feel that everything
is moving violently fast. Look at the definitions provided by the Oxford Dictionary of
the words in bold:
Lash To move or to move sth quickly and violently from side to side
Duck To move your head or body downwards to avoid being hit or seen
Spit To make a noise and throw out fat, sparks, etc
Leap To move or do sth suddenly and quickly
Buck To move up and down suddenly or in a way that is not controlled
Spew To flow out quickly, or to make sth flow out quickly, in large amounts
Let us analyse another passage from gothic literature. A gothic story is a romantic
story set in frightening and mysterious settings. The gothic context must then call for
a different mood than a war context. The opening passage of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall
of the house of Usher serves as a good example of gothic writing:
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year,
when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone,
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LESSON 1: ANALYSING DICTION
on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found
myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy
House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the
building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable;
for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic,
sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images
of the desolate or terrible.
Here, on his way to the house of Usher, the narrator paints a dark picture of the place
to create an atmosphere of anticipation, fear, and depression. Doing this in the
opening of a story usually foreshadows (foreshadowing) its main events and the eventual
lot (fate) of the characters. The setting (time and place) are carefully chosen. In our
collective consciousness, autumn is associated with gloom and dejection. The day is dull,
dark, and soundless. The path that the narrator takes is singularly dreary. The negative
aura in which the whole place is bathed is further captured by the following words:
melancholy, gloom, stern, desolate, and terrible.
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LESSON 2: ANALYSING AND REWRITING SENTENCES
Teacher: Mr F. Bounar
Module: Text Analysis
Level: 1st Year
Groups: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Lesson 2: Analysing and Rewriting Sentences
There is/are and Have
Key Definitions
Subject and Predicate
Every sentence is made up of two key components: a subject and a predicate. A
subject is a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun representing somebody or something
that performs an action or somebody or something about whom/which something is
stated. A predicate is the part of the sentence containing a verb that states something
about the subject. Consider the following examples:
a. Jake works a night shift.
b. They are very friendly.
c. The injured player has criticised his coach.
Fragments
A sentence cannot be called a sentence unless it expresses a complete thought.
Incomplete sentences leave you with an unanswered question. For example, he bought
does not express a complete thought because it leaves us with the what did he buy?
question. Incomplete sentences are commonly referred to as fragments. So, before
writing your sentences, make sure they express complete thoughts.
Monotonous writing: There is/are and Have
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LESSON 2: ANALYSING AND REWRITING SENTENCES
Writing is a different process than speaking. Speaking is usually a spur-of-the-
moment production of the target language, but one usually has more time to think about
his/her writing. Unfortunately, as foreign learners of the language, we may write correct
sentences expressing complete thoughts, but our writing would still be monotonous.
Let us imagine that your teacher asked you to write about your garden. After having
thought it over, you took your pen and wrote the following:
(1) My garden has a black iron door. (2) It has pruned shrubs in the north corner.
(3) My garden has a lot of lilies everywhere. (4) My garden has a rich scent. (5)
There is a wooden bench in the middle of my garden.
The five sentences that make up the paragraph are grammatically correct.
Although they express complete thoughts, the paragraph feels monotonous in that they
are more or less structured and built in the same way. Most importantly, the predicates
in sentences 1 2 3 and 4 contain the verb have, and sentence 5 opens with a hackneyed
there is. While the paragraph seems a little exaggerated, we, as EFL students, tend to
overuse the verb have and the clichéd opener there is/are to the detriment of variety and
elegance. You should be aware that elegance does not mean fancy or big words. Rather,
producing elegant sentences depends on our understanding of how to make small
changes to a bad sentence. How do we fix or rewrite our paragraph then?
Fixing the Problems
Let us begin with sentence one:
(1) My garden has a black iron door.
My garden is the subject and has a black iron door is the predicate. As we saw above,
the verb have is sloppily used because a garden cannot possess something. To make the
sentence read differently, we should first look at the key word(s) in the predicate: door.
This word has lost its potency (power) because we moved it to the predicate. The trick
is simple: make it the subject of the sentence and drop the verb have. After having made
it the subject of the sentence, we will find ourselves obliged to come up with a verb to
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LESSON 2: ANALYSING AND REWRITING SENTENCES
express an action or state something about our new subject. Consider the following
revisions:
(1) A Black iron door opens onto my lovely garden.
(2) In the north corner, pruned shrubs stand like proud soldiers.
Let us merge sentences 3 and 4 into one sentence to create variety.
(3) Surrounding them a cluster of lilies dance in full bloom, and (4) a rich scent fills
the whole place.
(5) In the middle, a wooden bench provides comfort for the contemplator.
Let us add a sixth sentence to end the paragraph.
(6) Nowhere else do I feel happier than in my garden.
Now, let us compare the two paragraphs:
My garden has a black iron door. It has pruned shrubs in the north
corner. My garden has a lot of lilies everywhere. My garden has a
rich scent. There is a wooden bench in the middle of my garden.
A Black iron door opens onto my lovely garden. In the north corner,
pruned shrubs stand like ready soldiers. Surrounding them a cluster
of lilies dance in full bloom, and a rich scent fills the whole place. In
the middle, a wooden bench provides comfort for the contemplator.
Nowhere else do I feel happier than in my garden.
The monotonous original paragraph, in its modified version, reads differently.
It is no longer sloppy; it is rather smooth and more vivid. Opening your sentences with
there is/are is a real spoiler because your key words will be squeezed in the predicate:
1. There is a wooden bench in the middle of my garden.
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LESSON 2: ANALYSING AND REWRITING SENTENCES
2. In the middle of my garden, A wooden bench provides comfort for the
contemplator.
Apart from saying where the bench is located, sentence (1) does not give us any useful
information about it because there is by definition implies the existence of something.
We may, of course, tweak sentence (1) in a variety of ways, but we will not be able to get
a satisfactory result:
Revision: There is a wooden bench in the middle of my garden, which provides comfort
for the contemplator.
The sentence is awkwardly couched. It is not really clear whether which refers to bench
or garden. On paper, so to speak, the relative pronoun refers to garden, not to bench.
The best solution, then, is to drop the sloppy there is/are so that you leave your options
open as to which verb to use.
The same procedure applies to the verb have, which, if applied to objects,
becomes confusing. Objects cannot possess something, so using have to describe an
object this way is not your best option:
My garden has a lot of lilies everywhere. My garden has a rich scent.
To render your writing more fluid, a little variety would not do you harm. So, while
combining the two sentences breaks the monotony, making lilies and scent the subjects
leaves you with more options for a more vivid description:
Surrounding them (shrubs), a cluster of lilies dance in full bloom, and a rich scent fills
the whole place.
You may become a little more creative and write:
Surrounding them, a cluster of lilies bow in sweet submission to the wafting breeze, and
a rich scent caresses my nostrils.
By dropping have and removing the key words from the predicate, you open up endless
possibilities for revision of the same sentence.
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