WORD CHOICE

AUTHOR'S WORD CHOICE

Herman

English 2

BELIEVE IT OR NOT...

every single word an author chooses has a purpose and affects the story!

An author's word choice is called diction

Multiple Choice

What is an author's word choice called?

• connotation

• diction

• syntax

• summary

Types of diction:

• Formal diction: Professional writing. This will have good grammar and vocabulary. You would use formal diction to talk to the Queen of England or writing an essay.

• Informal diction: More conversational writing. This is closer to how people normally speak. You would use this with family or friends.

Multiple Choice

“At last, after walking two hours, we had attained a depth of about 300 yards, that is to say, the extreme limit on which coral begins to form.”

• Informal

• Formal

Multiple Choice

“I climb up the shed and crept up to my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased-up and clayey, and I was dog-tired.”

• Formal

• Informal

Multiple Choice

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.

• Formal

• Informal

Multiple Choice

And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars."

• Formal

• Informal

The diction affects the tone of the story.

Multiple Choice

What is tone?

• how the reader feels about the writing

• the attitude of a writer towards the subject or story

• the author's choice of words

• the sentence structure of a text

Tone is the author's attitude.

We can figure out what the tone is based on the author's diction.

For example,

• If I say "I woke up this morning and got ready to go to work" it's hard to figure out the tone. How do I feel about work? We are not sure.

• “The alarm clock's shrill ring jerked me out of my pleasant dream. I slowly got out of bed and got ready to trudge to work." In this one, we can tell that the author does not want to get out of bed. They are bitter.

• The diction (or word choice) of the second quote lets us know the tone of the story.

Multiple Choice

Often you feel you’ve done nothing when you’ve actually done a lot. That’s because what you did do seemed beneath notice—it was so small that it didn’t “count.” But it did—just as each stitch counts toward a finished dress, each brick or nail toward a house you can live in, each mistake toward knowing how to do things right.

• hesitant

• encouraging

• amused

Multiple Choice

We have come together this afternoon to mourn the deaths of sixteen miners—our friends and neighbors—who were trapped by fire yesterday, deep below the earth. They lived bravely and they died too soon, leaving behind grieving wives and bewildered children. We bid them a final farewell.

• forgiving

• sorrowful

• angry

Multiple Choice

What’s the matter with those idiots in the city council? First they pass new parking regulations saying we can’t park our cars in front of our own houses without a special permit. Now they’ve gone and slapped another tax on gas purchase—just to widen a road that’s already wide enough. Anyway, nobody enjoys the traffic delays resulting from road construction. The sooner we vote those incompetents out, the better off we’ll all be.

• objective

• angry

• surprised

An author creates tone with specific diction (word choice). But how does he select the right words?

Connotation and Denotation

Connotation and Denotation

• Denotation is the definition of the word.

• Connotation is the feelings or social implications attached to the word.

• For example, "my mom is curious" is a more polite way to say "my mom is nosy." The words mean the same thing, BUT the connotation makes them different.

• Lots of words have negative, neutral, or positive connotations.

• Authors pick words based on their denotation AND connotation.

REVIEW

Multiple Choice

What is diction?

• social implications of a word

• The attitude of an author

• The author's choice of letters

• The author's choice of words

Multiple Choice

What are the two main types of diction?

• informal, tone

• informal, formal

• formation, information

• connotation, denotation

Multiple Choice

What is tone?

• an author's attitude toward the subject

• the reader's attitude

• the author's word choice

Multiple Choice

Which of the following affect the tone?

• Diction

• Denotation

• Connotation

• All of the above

Multiple Choice

What is connotation?

• The feelings and social implications behind a word.

• The definition of a word.

• The author's attitude.

• The author's word choice.

Multiple Choice

What is denotation?

• The definition of a word.

• Social implications behind a word.

• Author's word choice

Poll

How are you feeling about what we learned today?

• Great! I know it all!

• Good! I am learning it.

• Okay. I think I will get it with some practice.

• Not great. I am confused about some things.

• Bad. I do not understand anything.