Style Dayna Horton, Erica Valdescaro, Evan Schaniel, Andrew Medina Period 0 Style​
: The way writers assemble words to tell the story, develop the argument, dramatize the play, or compose the poem. Style is best considered as the choice of words in the service of content. 1. Diction​
: refers to the qualities of the writer's word choice. 2. Formal (High level diction)​
: Consists of standard of ‘elegant” words, the retention of correct word order, and the absence of contractions. 3. Neutral (Middle level diction)​
: ordinary, everyday standard vocabulary, shunning longer words and using contractions when necessary. 4. Informal (Low level diction):​
can range from colloquial­ the language of relaxed, common activities­ to the level of substandard or slang expressions. 5. Specific​
: words that bring real and genuine situations to mind. 6. General​
: statements that refer to broad classes. 7. Concrete​
: words that describe qualities of immediate perception. 8. Abstract​
: words that refer to broader less palpable qualities. 9. Denotation​
: refers to what a word means. 10. Connotation​
: to what the word suggests. 11. Rhetoric​
: refers to the art of effective and persuasive writing and broadly, to the art of writing generally. 12. Simple sentence​
: contains one subject and one verb, together with modifiers and complements. 13. Compound sentences​
: contain two simple sentences joined by a conjunction (and, but, for, or, nor, so, or yet) and a comma or by a semicolon without a conjunction. 14. Complex sentences​
: contain a main clause and a subordinate clause. 15. Compound complex sentence​
: contain two main clauses and a subordinate clause. 16. Parallelism​
: refers to the repetition of the same grammatical forms (nouns, verbs, phrases, clauses) to balance expressions, converse words, and build climax. Death of a Salesman​
: ​
Willy is portrayed throughout the play as a burden to his family. He is unable to get along with his two sons and his expectations on how his sons and himself should be successful drives him and his family apart. Arthur Miller expresses the conflicts between the family members through ​
neutral level diction​
. Miller also uses ​
concrete ​
examples and ​
specific​
word choices throughout the play. This allows for the reader to understand much easier the true meaning of Miller’s message in that, every family isn’t going to see eye­to­eye on everything however, we all want each other to become the best we can be and be happy with our lives. The Crucible: ​
Miller, in The Crucible, uses informal diction to show the scenes of the play. The informal and relaxed language all help explain the story as it would be played out in their time. Miller uses a different diction for almost every character, this plays an important part in the play and is deliberately chosen. The dialogue uses very unfamiliar words and phrases that reflect the setting but consequently that makes each character unique. The Adventures of HuckleBerry Finn: ​
Jim is portrayed through the story as an uneducated black man; this is done through the use of ​
informal diction. A
​long with uneducated diction, Jim uses ​
simple sentence​
structure to enhance his illiteracy. The ​
denotation a​
nd ​
connotation o​
f the word “nigger”, which is used repeatedly many times throughout the story is another tool Twain used to emphasize Jim’s educational background. In addition, Twain uses abstract adjectives​
to describe Huck’s journey down the river with his enslaved friend. Twain as well utilizes general ​
statements to portray that society’s expectations can ruin a perfectly good human being and blur their innocent mindset­ on example being racism. The Things They Carried:​
​
Tim O’Brien’s uses ​
neutral diction ​
to portray the war story, using standard vocabulary and occasionally implementing ​
informal diction​
to portray the men in their own way, shedding a glimpse on the characters personalities. In addition, Tim uses ​
parallelism ​
to enhance the reader’s view on certain aspects of a character’s emotion of journey through war. Tim O’Brien ultimately uses a specific ​
style​
of writing to portray the setting, characters, and events in real and genuine situations, leading to the meaning of the work as a whole which is that the events that occurred in the lives of these soldiers led to an inevitable change in character. Beloved:​
​
In Morrison’s novel, Beloved, her use of ​
simple​
phrasing makes the ​
diction ​
easy to understand, allowing the reader to both follow such ​
simple sentences​
while maintaining a clear understanding on the content. ​
Sensory plays a crucial part in the novel for it allows the reader to feel unity between themselves and the characters in the book. Morrison’s use of diction varies between characters, allowing us to formulate a clear understanding on each character's personalities as well as their shift the text from colloquial passages to formal writings. In addition, Morrison’s use of ​
sentence structure ​
reads an ever changing point of view, allowing the readers to create the community of people and view them internally, with a greater understanding of each. Hamlet: ​
In Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet”, the usage of formal diction and a unique style allow Shakespeare to effectively express his ideals through the words and actions of the characters within the play. For example, Hamlet and all of the other characters within the play speak quite different than people do today. Despite this, the diction of the novel is still formal due to its use of a more diverse vocabulary as well as the order in which words were said and the absence of contractions. However, Shakespeare has different characters speak with different standards of diction, for example Polonius’ word choice opposed to the grave diggers accent. Additionally, the use of specific and concrete words allows for Shakespeare to get his ideas across. Hamlet, himself, uses words with differing connotations and denotations to create double entendres and also to express the playwright’s belief that the trust between individuals can be destroyed or strengthened based on the events occurring around the people at the time. This can be shown by Hamlet’s growing mistrust of his mother who Hamlet believes is dishonoring his father by marrying Claudius so quickly but also by the closely­knit relationship Hamlet has with Horatio that grows increasingly as Hamlet reveals more and more about his father’s murder. Shakespeare also uses rhetorical techniques such as humor and satire to express the beliefs of a character such as having Hamlet joke and tease Ophelia during the “Mousetrap” scene. Heart of Darkness: ​
In Joseph Conrad’s novella ​
Heart of Darkness, ​
Conrad uses a formal diction representative of the time and setting to express the events within the novel. The story is told through the eyes of an unknown narrator that listens to Marlow’s story about his travels through the Congo and encounter with Kurtz as their boat is docked along the River Thames in London, England. Throughout the novella, Conrad uses negatively connotative words to describe the land and the behavior of Marlow and his acquaintances. Additionally, Conrad also uses specific and concrete words to describe the setting, the Dutch explorers, and the natives of the Congo. By varying his usage of compound­complex sentences and complex sentences, Conrad enables himself to effectively express his belief that Heart of Darkness is representative of the harsh change that could occur to a person when he or she is put into a completely different environment with harsh circumstances. Conrad also uses humor, satire, and other rhetorical techniques to describe the voyage up the Congo and to reveal some of the personality traits a character may have.