THE ELEMENTS OF STYLEEnglish 4 AP - Smith

INTRO

• Once you begin to analyze literature you will see how all the parts of a piece of literature work together.

• Understanding the terms and concepts will give you things to be on the lookout for as you close-read

DICTION

• Word choice

• Denotation/Connotation

• Formal/Informal – slang/colloquial

• Abstract/Concrete

• Abstract terms refer to ideas or concepts; they have no physical referents.

• Examples of abstract terms include love, success, freedom, good, moral, democracy, and any -ism (chauvinism, Communism, feminism, racism, sexism)

• Concrete terms refer to objects or events that are available to the senses.

• Examples of concrete terms include spoon, velvet eye patch, nose ring, green, walking

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

• Figure of speech

• Simile

• Metaphor

• Personification

• Analogy

• Overstatement/Understatement

• Paradox

• Irony

IMAGERY

• Appeals to the five senses

• Touch

• Taste

• Sight

• Smell

• Hearing

SYNTAX

• Arrangement of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences.

• Simple/Complex

• Inverted

• Syntactic patterns (long followed by short)

• Cumulative (beginning with independent followed by subordinate)

• Periodic (begin with subordinate that build toward main)

PERIODIC & CUMULATIVE STRUCTURE

Notice how the following sentences differ:

• If you're the kind of person who likes to cry at the movies, you'll love Casablanca.

• You'll love Casablanca if you're the kind of person who likes to cry at movies.

Cumulative Structure: Independent clauses are located at the beginning of the sentence.

Ex: You'll love Casablanca (independent) if you're the kind of person who likes to cry at movies. (subordinate)

• Starts with your main point

PERIODIC & CUMULATIVE STRUCTURE

PERIODIC & CUMULATIVE STRUCTURE

Periodic structure: Independent clauses are located at the end of the sentence.

Ex: If you're the kind of person who likes to cry at the movies, (subordinate) you'll love Casablanca. (independent clause)

• Builds toward your main point.

PERIODIC & CUMULATIVE STRUCTURE

• An occasional periodic sentence is not only dramatic but persuasive: even if the readers do not agree with your conclusion, they will read your evidence first with open minds.

• If you use a loose sentence with hostile readers, the readers will probably close their minds before considering any of your evidence.

• Periodic sentences used once or twice in a piece of writing, can be very effective; used any more than that, they can make you sound dull and pompous

TONE AND MOOD

• Tone – speaker’s attitude

• Mood – feeling the reader experiences

• Emotional coloring of the work

EXAMPLES OF QUESTIONS TO ASK WHILE READING…

• Diction

• Which of the important words in the poem or passage are general and abstract, and which are specific and concrete?

• Are the important words formal, informal, colloquial or slang?

• Are there words with strong connotations, words we might refer to as “loaded”?

• Figurative Language

• Are some words not literal but figurative, creating figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, and personification?

• Imagery

• Are the images – the parts of the passage we experience with our five senses – concrete, or do they depend on figurative language to come alive?

• Syntax

• What is the order of the words in the sentences? Are they in the usual subject-verb-object order, or are they inverted?

• Which is more prevalent in the passage, nouns or verbs?

• What are the sentences like? Do their meanings build periodically or cumulatively?

• How do the sentences connect their words, phrases, and clauses?

• How is the poem or passage organized? Is it chronological? Does it move from concrete to abstract or vice versa? Or does it follow some other pattern?

EXAMPLES OF QUESTIONS TO ASK WHILE READING…

CLOSE ANALYSIS EXAMPLE

• Read the excerpt from “Old Mr. Marblehall”

• How would you analyze the style?

• Look at Diction, Figurative Language, and Syntax

• What is the mood/tone of the passage?

• Read example

EXAMPLE

PRACTICE

• Read The Great Gatsby excerpt and follow the directions