diction analysis essay

Home — Essay Samples — History — American History — The Declaration of Independence: Diction Analysis

The Declaration of Independence: Diction Analysis

Categories: American History Art History Thomas Jefferson

About this sample

Words: 688 |

Published: Mar 16, 2024

Words: 688 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Historical context, diction analysis, impact and legacy.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

Expert in: History Arts & Culture Government & Politics

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 851 words

2 pages / 984 words

4 pages / 1854 words

6 pages / 2546 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on American History

In the annals of American history, few individuals have a legacy as intricate and profound as George Mason. As one of the founding fathers, Mason’s contributions to the shaping of American democracy and the establishment of [...]

America, a nation marked by its continual evolution, has witnessed profound transformations in its history. This essay embarks on how America has changed over time, spanning political, social, and economic domains. It delves [...]

The Declaration of Independence, a foundational document in American history, serves as a beacon of freedom and democracy. This essay delves into the historical context surrounding the Declaration and explores how it was [...]

Boot, Max. 'Did Killing Osama Bin Laden Make America Safer?' The New York Times, 3 May 2016.Amar, Michael. 'The Dismemberment of Iraq and Syria.' Hoover Institution, 2017.Dilanian, Ken and Bennett, Brian. 'U.S. Confirms [...]

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 was brought about by the Puritans severe religious standards and intolerance of anything not acknowledged with their scripture. The biggest record of witch trials as well as deaths due to the witch [...]

California became an American territory when the United States defeated Mexico in 1847. John Marshall discovered gold the next year, bringing people from all over the world to the port of San Francisco and the surrounding area. [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Literary Focus

Roundtables

—Style Analysis—

When we refer to a writer's style, we mean the way authors or playwrights use various literary techniques to establish tone and convey theme. To make this process as simple as possible for students, we limit our discussion to what we call the "four pillars" of style analysis: diction, imagery, language, and syntax. We'll look at each of these pillars individually in the sections below.

I. Diction

To understand the significance of diction, or word choice, students first must differentiate between the denotation of a word and its connotation. By denotation we mean the definition found in the dictionary; by connotation we mean the attitude or feelings associated with the word. To make this difference clear to students, we provide three pairs of words that have similar denotations but very different connotations:

In the first example, if we refer to a dog as a "mutt," there is an element of disrespect in that designation, implying that the dog is of an inferior type. In the second example, two groups could be engaged in the exact same behavior that shows they find something funny, but the group described as "giggling" seems young and immature compared to a group that is "laughing." Boys and girls "giggle," whereas men and women "laugh." In the final example, if a teacher is described as "strict," it implies that she maintains order and discipline in the classroom. Even though a "strict" teacher may not be as much fun for students, the adjective carries an element of respect. If a teacher is described as "rigid," however, she may be so disciplined in her approach that she is seen as closed-minded and inflexible, which are obviously negative attributes.

Once students have been introduced to the concept of diction, we analyze a short passage from a literary work they are reading. For instance, in the opening description of Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five , the narrator tells us that "Billy has come unstuck in time." When we ask students if the word "unstuck" has a positive or negative connotation, there is usually a pause. On one hand, being "unstuck" implies liberation and freedom, words that have positive connotations, but to be "unstuck in time" also implies a helplessness and lack of control, which is reinforced by the word "spastic" in the following excerpt.

Similar to our interpretation of AP prompts, we encourage students to look at words as not necessarily positive or negative, but as sometimes positive and negative. For Billy, becoming "unstuck in time" is a coping mechanism that helps him deal with the traumatic experiences in his life. By taking a passive, fatalistic approach to life, Billy protects himself from feeling pain in any particular moment. With that "freedom," however, comes a corresponding lack of control and disconnectedness from the reality of his own experience. Moments are seen as transitory and impermanent, and the result is that Billy suffers from perpetual anxiety, or "stage fright," since he has no idea "what part of his life he is going to have to act in next."

The purpose of identifying tone is to determine a narrator's attitude towards a subject. So how does the narrator feel about Billy's being "spastic in time"? As a temporary coping mechanism, it appears to be a successful strategy; as a way to live one's life, however, it appears to be an abject failure. To be "spastic" is to lack control and agency over one's own life. While we understand why Billy responds to trauma in this particular way, we should recognize that Vonnegut does not want us emulating Billy. Our job over the course of the novel is to determine what we can learn from Billy's experience and find a better way to deal with life's difficulties on our own.

II. Imagery

When we refer to an author or playwright's use of imagery, we mean descriptions that include any of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Sensory details not only make the reader experience a scene more vividly, but they also serve to establish the narrator's tone, or attitude, towards the subject.

In Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony , we are introduced to Tayo, another character who suffers from traumatic experiences in World War II. Silko uses imagery to immerse us in the opening scene so that we can vicariously see, hear, and feel what is going on inside Tayo's head as he lies sleeplessly on his bed after returning to the Laguna Pueblo reservation:

Visually, we can see the "old iron bed" that Tayo "tossed" restlessly upon, but the more dominant sensory detail is the "coiled springs" underneath the mattress that "kept squeaking even after he lay still again." In many ways Tayo is like those "coiled springs" under constant tension. The incessant squeaking triggers "humid dreams of black night," which combines a visual darkness with a tactile humidity that reminds him of the Pacific jungles that still haunt him. From out of the darkness comes a series of "loud voices" that are figuratively "rollling him over and over again" as if he were "debris caught in a flood." Silko makes us experience Tayo's hellish dreamscape through her use of vivid imagery—a disorienting combination of sight, sound, and touch that makes us intimately aware of Tayo's inner distress. Tayo cannot control the shifts that occur inside his mind that combine his present reality with his traumatic past. We know from Silko's use of imagery in the opening description that Tayo's life is in the balance, for he is currently helpless in confronting the confusion and despair that threaten to engulf him.

III. Language

When the AP refers to language in its prompts, they mean figurative language. To simplify this concept for students, we focus only on the three types of figurative language most often used in literature: metaphors, symbols, and allusions.

When authors or playwrights use metaphoric language, they are comparing one thing in terms of another. Similes are metaphors using "like" or "as" to make the comparison more explicit; personification is giving a non-human entity human characteristics. An element in a literary work may be symbolic if it represents something larger than the element itself. Allusions are indirect references to something outside the literary work for the purpose of comparison. The four most common types of allusions that we discuss with students are literary, mythological, historical, and biblical.

In the final soliloquy of Macbeth , William Shakespeare uses all three types of figurative language to show Macbeth's hopelessness and despair after receiving word that Lady Macbeth has died, most likely by suicide. As Macbeth faces his own imminent death as he prepares to defend Dunsinane against his fellow countrymen who have rebelled against his tyrannous rule, he contemplates the absurdity and meaninglessness of life:

When Macbeth says, "Out, out, brief candle," he seems to welcome the thought of his own death, comparing life to a symbolic candle that burns itself down into nothingness. Shakespeare has Macbeth follow this line by stating, "Life's but a walking shadow," which seems to be an allusion to Psalms 23:4 in the Old Testament:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The irony of this biblical allusion is that instead of being comforted by the presence of God in the face of death, Macbeth finds himself utterly alone and in despair. Macbeth's only solace is that perhaps there is no God nor any purpose in life. Instead of a life of goodness and faith, Macbeth has embraced evil and a belief in "nothing." The final metaphor that Macbeth uses is one of a "poor player," or actor, who "struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more." By having Macbeth equate life to acting upon a stage, Shakespeare seems to imply that we all play roles in life, some that may not reflect who we really are. In this final soliloquy, Shakespeare perhaps wants us to remember that Macbeth was once admired and respected for his courage and virtue. Shakespeare suggests that Macbeth's life is a tragedy because he was once capable of goodness. By seeing himself as an actor upon a stage, we imagine that the real Macbeth could have been someone far different from the villain he portrayed.

IV. Syntax

For most students, the most daunting and least utilized pillar of style analysis is syntax, which refers to the way that words are structured and organized in a text. When we refer to syntax, we think of how sentences and paragraphs are built — which includes everything from word order and arrangement to verb tenses and punctuation.

An examination of a writer's syntax requires a subtle and nuanced reading of the text, so we advise students not to put too much pressure on themselves to include a syntactical analysis in their essays. If they focus only on diction, imagery, and language, they should have plenty to discuss. That being said, if they can include elements of syntax in their analysis, it will be impressive to the reader because it is so rarely done.

The first thing we tell students when analyzing the syntax of a passage is to look for any structural elements that seem unusual or interesting. For instance, in the final chapter of Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine , the narration shifts from the third-person limited perspective of the mother and her children that was used in the previous chapters to the first-person narration of the father in the final chapter.

From what we know about the mild-mannered father from the previous chapters, we understand that he is in no way guilty of any of the crimes to which he now confesses. In fact, the seemingly never-ending laundry list of supposed crimes he has committed embodies all the accusations that were made against Japanese-Americans in World War II. By shifting to first-person narration, Otsuka gives us an opportunity to enter into the psyche of the falsely accused. The short, terse sentences reveal the pain and bitterness of being considered disloyal simply because of one's racial identity. Furthermore, by having the first-person narrator address the abstract "you" in this final chapter, Otsuka makes all Americans who failed to intervene on behalf of Japanese-Americans complicit in the crime of their internment. Otsuka's shift in style also represents a shift in tone. The readers being addressed as "you" are now put in a defensive position, feeling attacked for things for which we may not feel personally responsible. Now we know, Otsuka seems to suggest, how it feels to be falsely accused. The father also reveals his anger and frustration when he sarcastically repeats, "You were right. You were always right." Despite his innocence, the father knows that he will always be viewed as suspicious, regardless of what he says or does.

When first introducing the "four pillars" of style analysis to students, we focus on one element at a time so as not to overwhelm them. Once students are comfortable, however, we have them work in small groups to work on all four elements at once, as they do when analyzing the following passage from our unit on Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale :

Once students understand the fundamentals of style analysis and how diction, imagery, language, and syntax help authors establish tone and convey theme, they are ready to write an AP Passage Analysis essay, which is the ultimate assessment of a student's ability to read a passage closely to determine the author's intent.

We aspire to be an active, engaged professional development community. Please submit your questions, comments, or suggestions to join the conversation!

<< Setting

AP Passage Analysis >>

Definition of Diction

As a literary device, diction refers to the linguistic choices made by a writer to convey an idea or point of view , or tell a story , in an effective way. The author’s selection of words or vocabulary and the artistic arrangements of these words is what constitutes the style and establishes the voice of a literary work. Therefore, analyzing the style of a work of literature is an attempt to identify and understand diction – the type and quality of individual words that comprise the vocabulary of the work. Diction is closely connected to characterization . The words associated with a literary character represent their ideals, values, and attitudes . Diction can create a representation of a character’s outer appearance and/or inner state of mind for the reader.

For example, in George Bernard Shaw ’s play Pygmalion , Professor Henry Higgins famously teaches Eliza Doolittle to speak like an upper-class “lady” as opposed to a lower-class “flower girl,” changing who she is as a person and how she is regarded by others through changing her diction:

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

Shaw’s play explores the connection between diction and class in society, especially how the style of language, expression, and vocabulary is related to the speaker ’s perceived position of power in society. In this passage, Henry Higgins reveals his preoccupation with how a person speaks and articulates themselves as a reflection and societal measurement of who they are as a human being. This leads to Higgins taking on Eliza as a project to prove that he can transform how others perceive her in society by eliminating her use of colloquial diction and slang , and instead teaching her formal diction and articulation.

Common Types of Diction

Diction is a literary device that allows a writer to carefully choose words and vocabulary to communicate to the reader as well as establish a specific voice or writing style. Diction is used in every form of writing, from poetic and figurative language to formal and concise wording.

Here are eight common types of diction and their stylistic qualities:

Formal : use of elevated, sophisticated, professional language. Formal diction does not feature slang or colloquialisms , but instead adheres to proper grammar and complex sentence structure.
Informal : conversational, casual, realistic language. Informal diction is often used by writers to portray real-life communication or dialogue between realistic characters, and it is often utilized in narrative literary forms such as short fiction and novels.
Colloquial : informal words or expressions that are typically associated with a specific region or time period. Colloquialisms are useful in portraying realistic and colorful characters.
Slang : words or phrases originated within a particular culture or subgroup that become widespread in use.
Pedantic : detailed, academic writing. Pedantic diction generally reflects deliberate, educated word choices with denotative intention.
Abstract : expression of the intangible such as ideas or emotions.
Concrete : use of words for denotative meanings. Concrete diction is specific, literal, and detailed so that it’s not open to interpretation.
Poetic : lyrical wording related to and reflective of a poem ’s theme . Poetic diction typically includes descriptive language that is potentially set to rhythm and meter .

Examples of Common Types of Diction

Different styles of diction impact how a writer expresses an idea or message. In turn, writers utilize diction as a literary device to influence the way a reader understands or interprets the idea or message that is being expressed in a particular style. Diction is often used in a way that meet’s the reader’s expectations, such as formal diction for business writing and informal diction for casual dialogue. If the type of diction presented is not aligned with a reader’s expectations, this can be an incongruent result that may lead to misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what is being expressed.

Here are some examples of statements and phrases that represent common types of diction:

Formal : As heretofore stated by the representative of the firm, any indication of microaggression among colleagues will not be tolerated.
Informal : Text me when you’re ready to head home so I can pick you up.
Colloquial : Have y’all heard that new Country Music song?
Slang : I look tired because I was binge-watching a show on Netflix last night .
Pedantic : It’s beneficial in an academic milieu to understand the etymology of literary terms.
Abstract : My head was swirling as I tried to recall my husband’s words of love.
Concrete : That book belongs in the empty space on the second shelf.
Poetic : Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky (from “ The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ” by T.S. Eliot)

Difference Between Diction and Dialect

Some people can find the difference between the terms diction and dialect confusing. Diction refers to the choice of words and linguistics as well as the levels of effectiveness and clarity of those choices. In addition, diction refers to how such words are presented to readers or an audience . Dialect, as a matter of linguistics, refers to a variety of spoken language that characterizes a certain region, community , or group of people. Dialect often reflects minor differences in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling, and style of speech.

Archaic Diction

In general, it is stated that the words not in use in topical language are known as archaic words. This is also called archaism but it is mostly the use of classical or outdated words that constitute archaism. Poets often dig out such old-fashioned words to write poetry to meet the demands of rhythm or metrical pattern. For example, using steed or stallion instead of a horse is an archaic usage of the word.

Impacts of Diction on Themes

Not only in common communication of daily lives but also in literary works, diction plays an important role in setting things right. The first significant development comes in the thematic strands that a literary piece propagates. Although tone and point of view, too, contribute to thematic strands, they depend on diction in passing on those ideas. Therefore, when diction moves, changes colors and shows nuances, it impacts the thematic strands in different ways. It is clear from Hemingway’s use of diction in A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea.

Use of Diction in Sentences

The banality of this argument is evident from the use in untoward circumstances. (Difficult Diction)
The general feature of this argument is clear when applied to this difficult situation. (Common Diction)
We do not hope that they all will come and declare it an open place. (Simple Diction).
“The boxes will come later. That takes more time.” (Conversational/Informal Diction)
If doughty deeds my lady please / Right soon I’ll mount my steed.” (Archaic Diction).

Examples of Diction in Literature

In literature, writers carefully choose specific words and phrases depending on the outcome they wish to achieve for the reader. Diction is the literary device that refers to these linguistic word choices and their artistic arrangement by a writer. Here are some examples of diction in literature:

Example 1: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Then you must tell ’em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

In Hurston’s novel , Janie’s diction helps to establish the setting of rural Florida in the early 1900s. Janie’s diction is colloquial and her word choices and expression support the way she is characterized in the novel as a strong and passionate woman. In this passage, Janie’s diction reveals much about her rural background and limited education in terms of her manner of expression. However, the poetic nature of her words also indicates to the reader that Janie is introspective and capable of deep emotions. Therefore, rather than Hurston choosing to portray Janie through simple colloquial diction, she allows the protagonist to reflect a complex female character through the artistic style of her words and vocabulary.

Example 2: The School by Donald Barthelme

One day, we had a discussion in class. They asked me, where did they go? The trees , the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? And I said, I don’t know, I don’t know. And they said, who knows? and I said, nobody knows. And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life. Then they said, but isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of – I said, yes, maybe. They said, we don’t like it. I said, that’s sound. They said, it’s a bloody shame! I said, it is.

In Barthelme’s short story , he utilizes a combination of formal and informal diction to convey the literary theme of the randomness and universality of death. However, in this passage, the author cleverly reverses the diction expected by the reader by assigning formal diction to the elementary students and informal diction to their teacher, Edgar. This reversal of diction and reader expectation underscores the literary theme as well that death is both ever-present yet inexplicable in its pattern of occurrence. The children’s formal wording in their assessment of death as a “fundamental datum” reinforces the absurdity of anyone attempting to explain its meaning–even a figure of authority such as an elementary school teacher. In addition, the limited and informal diction used in response by the student’s teacher reinforces the absurdity that human beings can provide “answers” when it comes to such abstractions as death and life.

The word and vocabulary choices made by Barthelme in his literary short fiction establish the story’s narrative voice and tone in an effective way. The children/students in the story are genuinely interested in learning about death and “where” the dead go. However, their teacher is incapable of providing the answers to their questions because he doesn’t have the knowledge, nor the vocabulary, to express any proper responses. This results in an emotional response on the part of the reader of frustration and helplessness in understanding the full concept of death, and therefore life as well.

Example 3: This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

Though Williams’s poem is composed in free verse , without formal rhyme or meter, the diction is poetic in that the poet’s choice of words is descriptive and lyrical. This careful and deliberate use of vocabulary allows the poet to emphasize the denotative and connotative meaning of each word in each line. For the reader, the diction used by Williams in the poem reinforces the theme of temptation and desire intertwined with feelings of resentment and coldness.

Example 4: A Farewell to Arms

The forest of oak trees on the mountain beyond the town was gone. The forest had been green in the summer when we had come into the town but now there were the stumps and the broken trunks and the ground torn up, and one day at the end of the fall when I was out where the oak forest had been I saw a cloud coming over the mountain. It came very fast and the sun went a dull yellow and then everything was gray and the sky was covered and the cloud came on down the mountain and suddenly we were in it and it was snow . The snow slanted across the wind, the bare ground was covered, the stumps of trees projected, there was snow on the guns and there were paths in the snow going back to the latrines behind trenches.

The minimum use of adjectives in these lines shows the use of diction by Hemingway. Although it is a descriptive paragraph, there are very few adjectives used, which show how a description could still write descriptives without adjectives to simplify the work and yet make it easy to understand. For example, the first line shows the description of deforestation.

“It’s been a bad summer,” the major said. “Are you strong now?” “Yes.” “Did you ever get the decorations?” “Yes. I got them fine. Thank you very much.” “Let’s see them.” I opened my cape so he could see the two ribbons. “Did you get the boxes with the medals?” “No. Just the papers.” “The boxes will come later. That takes more time.” “What do you want me to do?”

The writers can use description or dialogues to move the story further. Here, the use of simple diction in the conversation shows how Hemingway has transformed it into a vehicle to convey implicit meanings just using dialogues.

Synonyms of Diction

In literary vocabulary, the word diction has a vast list of meanings. It could be used in various senses such as phraseology, phrasing, rephrasing, turn of a phrase , choice of words, wording, use of language, language, parlance, vocabulary, terms, terminology, jargon , idiolect, locution, etc.

Link to facebook
Link to linkedin
Link to twitter
Link to youtube
Writing Tips

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay

3-minute read

22nd August 2023

A rhetorical analysis essay is a type of academic writing that analyzes how authors use language, persuasion techniques , and other rhetorical strategies to communicate with their audience. In this post, we’ll review how to write a rhetorical analysis essay, including:

Understanding the assignment guidelines
Introducing your essay topic
Examining the rhetorical strategies
Summarizing your main points

Keep reading for a step-by-step guide to rhetorical analysis.

What Is a Rhetorical Strategy?

A rhetorical strategy is a deliberate approach or technique a writer uses to convey a message and/or persuade the audience. A rhetorical strategy typically involves using language, sentence structure, and tone/style to influence the audience to think a certain way or understand a specific point of view. Rhetorical strategies are especially common in advertisements, speeches, and political writing, but you can also find them in many other types of literature.

1. Understanding the Assignment Guidelines

Before you begin your rhetorical analysis essay, make sure you understand the assignment and guidelines. Typically, when writing a rhetorical analysis, you should approach the text objectively, focusing on the techniques the author uses rather than expressing your own opinions about the topic or summarizing the content. Thus, it’s essential to discuss the rhetorical methods used and then back up your analysis with evidence and quotations from the text.

2. Introducing Your Essay Topic

Introduce your essay by providing some context about the text you’re analyzing. Give a brief overview of the author, intended audience, and purpose of the writing. You should also clearly state your thesis , which is your main point or argument about how and why the author uses rhetorical strategies. Try to avoid going into detail on any points or diving into specific examples – the introduction should be concise, and you’ll be providing a much more in-depth analysis later in the text.

3. Examining the Rhetorical Strategies

In the body paragraphs, analyze the rhetorical strategies the author uses. Here are some common rhetorical strategies to include in your discussion:

● Ethos : Establishing trust between the writer and the audience by appealing to credibility and ethics

● Pathos : Appealing to the audience’s emotions and values

● Logos : Employing logic, reason, and evidence to appeal to the reader

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

● Diction : Deliberately choosing specific language and vocabulary

● Syntax : Structuring and arranging sentences in certain ways

● Tone : Conveying attitude or mood in certain ways

● Literary Devices : Using metaphors, similes, analogies , repetition, etc.

Keep in mind that for a rhetorical analysis essay, you’re not usually required to find examples of all of the above rhetorical strategies. But for each one you do analyze, consider how it contributes to the author’s purpose, how it influences the audience, and what emotions or thoughts it could evoke in the reader.

4. Summarizing Your Main Points

In your conclusion , sum up the main points of your analysis and restate your thesis. Without introducing any new points (such as topics or ideas you haven’t already covered in the main body of your essay), summarize the overall impact that the author’s rhetorical strategies likely had on their intended audience.

Expert Proofreading Services

Ensure that your rhetorical analysis essay stands out by having our expert team proofread it. Send in your free sample of 500 words or less and see for yourself the difference in your work!

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

2-minute read

How to Cite the CDC in APA

If you’re writing about health issues, you might need to reference the Centers for Disease...

5-minute read

Six Product Description Generator Tools for Your Product Copy

Introduction If you’re involved with ecommerce, you’re likely familiar with the often painstaking process of...

What Is a Content Editor?

Are you interested in learning more about the role of a content editor and the...

4-minute read

The Benefits of Using an Online Proofreading Service

Proofreading is important to ensure your writing is clear and concise for your readers. Whether...

6 Online AI Presentation Maker Tools

Creating presentations can be time-consuming and frustrating. Trying to construct a visually appealing and informative...

What Is Market Research?

No matter your industry, conducting market research helps you keep up to date with shifting...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Style, Diction, Tone, and Voice

Style is the way in which something is written, as opposed to the meaning of what is written. In writing, however, the two are very closely linked. As the package for the meaning of the text, style influences the reader’s impression of the information itself. Style includes diction and tone. The main goal in considering style is to present your information in a manner appropriate for both the audience and the purpose of the writing. Consistency is vital. Switching styles can distract the reader and diminish the believability of the paper’s argument.

Diction is word choice. When writing, use vocabulary suited for the type of assignment. Words that have almost the same denotation (dictionary meaning) can have very different connotations (implied meanings).

Besides the level of formality, also consider positive or negative connotations of the words chosen.

Some types of diction are almost never advisable in writing. Avoid clichés, vagueness (language that has more than one equally probable meaning), wordiness, and unnecessarily complex language.

Aside from individual word choice, the overall tone, or attitude, of a piece of writing should be appropriate to the audience and purpose. The tone may be objective or subjective, logical or emotional, intimate or distant, serious or humorous. It can consist mostly of long, intricate sentences, of short, simple ones, or of something in between. (Good writers frequently vary the length of their sentences.)

One way to achieve proper tone is to imagine a situation in which to say the words being written. A journal might be like a conversation with a close friend where there is the freedom to use slang or other casual forms of speech. A column for a newspaper may be more like a high-school graduation speech: it can be more formal, but it can still be funny or familiar. An academic paper is like a formal speech at a conference: being interesting is desirable, but there is no room for personal digressions or familiar usage of slang words.

In all of these cases, there is some freedom of self-expression while adapting to the audience. In the same way, writing should change to suit the occasion.

Tone vs. Voice

Anything you write should still have your voice: something that makes your writing sound uniquely like you. A personal conversation with a friend differs from a speech given to a large group of strangers. Just as you speak to different people in different ways yet remain yourself, so the tone of your writing can vary with the situation while the voice -- the essential, individual thoughts and expression -- is still your own.

“Don’t play what’s there; play what’s not there.” - Miles Davis “The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides.” - Artur Schnabel (1882–1951), German-born U.S. pianist.

These two musicians expressed the same thought in their own unique voices.

Reference: Strunk, William Jr., and E. B. White. The Elements of Style . 4th ed., Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write the AP Lang Rhetorical Essay

Do you know how to improve your profile for college applications.

See how your profile ranks among thousands of other students using CollegeVine. Calculate your chances at your dream schools and learn what areas you need to improve right now — it only takes 3 minutes and it's 100% free.

Show me what areas I need to improve

What’s Covered:

What is the ap lang rhetorical essay, tips for writing the ap lang rhetorical essay.

AP Lang Rhetorical Essay Example

How Will AP Scores Affect College Chances?

The AP English Language Exam is one of the most common AP exams you can take. However, the average score on the exam in 2020 was a 2.96 out of 5. While this may seem a bit low, it is important to note that over 550,000 students take the exam annually. With some preparation and knowing how to study, it is totally possible to do well on this AP exam.

The AP Lang Rhetorical Essay is one section of the AP English Language Exam. The exam itself is 3 hours and 15 minutes long, and is broken into two sections. The first part of the exam is a 60 minute, 45-question multiple-choice section. The questions on this part of the exam will test your ability to read a passage and then interpret its meaning, style, and overall themes. After the multiple-choice section, there is a section lasting 2 hours and 15 minutes with three “free response” essays. This includes the synthesis essay, the rhetorical analysis essay, and the argument essay.

In the synthesis essay , you will have to develop an argument using pieces of evidence provided to you.
The argumentative essay will have you pick a side in a debate and argue for or against it.
The rhetorical essay requires that you discuss how an author’s written passage contributes to a greater meaning or theme.

The rhetorical essay is perhaps the most unique of all AP Lang exam essays because it requires the test taker to analyze and interpret the deeper meanings of the passage and connect them to the author’s writing style and writing syntax in only 40 minutes. This essay can be the trickiest because it requires you to have knowledge of rhetorical strategies and then apply them to a passage you’ve never seen before.

1. Outline Your Essay Before Writing

One of the most important parts of the AP Lang essays is structuring your essay so that it makes sense to the reader. This is just as important as having good content. For this essay in particular, you’ll want to read the passage first and write a brief outline of your points before you begin the essay. This is because you will want to write the essay using the passage chronologically, which will be discussed in detail below.

2. Understand Rhetorical Strategies

If you feel like you don’t know where to start as you prepare to study for the rhetorical essay portion of the exam, you aren’t alone. It is imperative that you have a grasp on what rhetorical strategies are and how you can use them in your essay. One definition of rhetoric is “language carefully chosen and arranged for maximum effect.” This can include types of figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification, pun, irony, etc.) elements of syntax (parallelism, juxtaposition, anthesis, anaphora, etc), logical fallacies, or persuasive appeals. Overall, there are many elements that you can analyze in an essay and having a good grasp on them through practice and memorization is important.

3. Keep the Essay Well Structured

Even if you understand the various rhetorical strategies you can use, where do you begin? First of all, you’ll want to write a strong introduction that outlines the purpose of the piece. At the end of this introduction, you will write a thesis statement that encapsulates all the rhetorical strategies you discuss. Perhaps these are style elements, tone, or syntax. Be sure to be specific as you list these.

Next, you will create your body paragraphs. As you discuss the rhetorical elements in the piece and tie them back to the work’s meanings, be sure to discuss the points in chronological order. You don’t have to discuss every single strategy, but just pick the ones that are most important. Be sure to cite the line where you found the example. At the end of the essay, write a short conclusion that summarizes the major points above.

4. Be Sure to Explain Your Examples

As you write the essay, don’t just list out your examples and say something like “this is an example of ethos, logos, pathos.” Instead, analyze how the example shows that rhetoric device and how it helps the author further their argument. As you write the rhetorical essay, you’ll want to be as specific and detail-focused as possible.

Discover your chances at hundreds of schools

Our free chancing engine takes into account your history, background, test scores, and extracurricular activities to show you your real chances of admission—and how to improve them.

AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Below is a prompt and example for a rhetorical essay, along with its score and what the writer did well and could have improved:

The passage below is an excerpt from “On the Want of Money,” an essay written by nineteenth-century author William Hazlitt. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Hazlitt uses to develop his position about money.

Student essay example:

In his essay, Hazlitt develops his position on money through careful use of adjectives and verbs, hypothetical situations, and images. His examples serve to impress upon the reader the highly negative consequences of being in “want of money.”

Hazlitt’s word choice in his opening phrase provides an example of his technique in the rest of the essay. It is not necessary to follow “literally” with “truly” yet his repetition of the same ideas emphasizes his point. In his next sentence, one that lasts forty-six lines, Hazlitt condignly repeats similar ideas, beating into his audience the necessity of having money in this world. The parallelism throughout that one long sentence, “it is not to be sent for to court, or asked out to dinner…it is not to have your own opinion consulted or sees rejected with contempt..” ties the many different situations Haziltt gives together. What could have become a tedious spiel instead becomes a melodious recitation, each example reminding you of one before it, either because of the similarities in structure or content. Hazlitt addresses many different negative effects of not having money but manages to tie them together with his rhetorical strategies.

The diction of the passage fully relays Hazlitt’s position about money. In every example he gives a negative situation but in most emphasizes the terrible circumstance with strong negative adjectives or verbs. “Rejected,” “contempt,” “disparaged,” “scrutinized,” “irksome,” “deprived,” “assailed” “chagrin;” the endless repetition of such discouragement shows how empathetically Hazlitt believes money is a requisite for a happy life. Even the irony of the last sentences is negative, conveying the utter hopelessness of one without money. Through one may have none in life, pitiless men will proceed to mock one’s circumstances, “at a considerable expense” after death!

In having as the body of his essay one long sentence, Hazlitt creates a flow that speeds the passage along, hardly giving the reader time to absorb one idea before another is thrown at him. The unceasing flow is synonymous with Hazlitt’s view of the life of a person without money: he will be “jostled” through life, unable to stop and appreciate the beauty around him or to take time for his own leisure.

The score on this essay was a 6 out of 6. This essay started out very strong as the student had a concrete thesis statement explaining the strategies that Hazlitt used to develop his position on money as well as Hazlitt’s belief on the topic. In the thesis statement, the student points out that adjectives, verbs, hypothetical situations, and images help prove Hazlitt’s point that wanting money can be problematic.

Next, the student broke down their points into three main subsections related to their thesis. More specifically, the student first discusses word choice of repetition and parallelism. When the student discusses these strategies, they list evidence in the paragraph that can be found chronologically in Hazlitt’s essay. The next paragraph is about diction, and the student used specific adjectives and verbs that support this idea. In the last paragraph, the student emphasized how the speed and flow of the essay helped describe Hazlitt’s viewpoint on life. This last concluding sentence is particularly thoughtful, as it goes beyond the explicit points made in the essay and discusses the style and tone of the writing.

It is important to remember that in some ways, the rhetorical essay is also an argumentative essay, as the student must prove how certain rhetorical strategies are used and their significance in the essay. The student even discussed the irony of the paragraph, which is not explicit in the passage.

Overall, this student did an excellent job organizing and structuring the essay and did a nice job using evidence to prove their points.

Now that you’ve learned about the AP Lang rhetorical essay, you may be wondering how your AP scores impact your chances of admission. In fact, your AP scores have relatively little impact on your admissions decision , and your course rigor has much more weight in the application process.

If you’d like to know your chances of admission, be sure to check out our chancing calculator! This tool takes into account your classes, extracurriculars, demographic information, and test scores to understand your chances at admission at over 600 schools. Best of all, it is completely free!

How to Write a Language Analysis

Last Updated: April 30, 2020 Approved

This article was co-authored by Jamie Korsmo, PhD . Jamie Korsmo is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Georgia State University. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 85% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 171,835 times.

Understanding how to structure and write a language analysis is a useful skill that is necessary to succeed in many academic settings and college courses. Strong language analysis essays identify how the author of a particular piece of writing uses words to sway her readers' opinions. This type of essay provides the reader with a detailed analysis of the rhetorical devices used by an author and elucidates how these techniques persuade readers.

Understanding the Format

Step 1 Understand the purpose of a language analysis.

For a language analysis, the text to be analyzed is usually chosen for you by your teacher. So you won't have to panic about choosing an appropriate text to analyze.

Step 2 Understand the methodology of a language analysis.

The effectiveness of this type of essay depends on your ability to parse through the source material and uncover the moments of persuasion present, identify these moments, and explain their effectiveness to the reader. To this end, you must familiarize yourself with different kinds of rhetorical devices and persuasive techniques used by writers.

Step 3 Understand the desired outcome of a language analysis.

Some common persuasive techniques include logical fallacies and rhetorical appeals (to ethos, pathos, or logos).

Getting Started

Try an initial scan, followed by a more thorough detail reading. Reading once broadly and another time in detail can help you to define the overall ideas of the article or articles. Then go back and focus on the details you want to use in your language analysis.

Step 2 Highlight or underline key passages.

Taking notes as you go (by highlighting or underlining) will save you a lot of time later when you want to go back to the text for details to support your claims.

Step 3 Figure out what the persuasive intention of your author is.

Understanding an author's intention and point of view will help you organize your own thoughts and formulate your analysis.

Identifying Rhetorical Language Use

Step 1 Understand the rhetorical situation.

Rhetorical situations usually involve employing language that is intended to persuade someone toward a particular view or belief. That is why rhetoric is important in a language analysis essay. These types of essays aim to uncover specific language used by authors in order to persuade readers.

For example, if an author uses the word terminate to indicate an ending, this has a much more final, definite ending than to simply say that something is finished or came to an end. Choosing this word over others is a deliberate act on the part of the author, one that can be interrogated in a language analysis essay.

Step 3 Find appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos.

An appeal to ethos is an ethical appeal that emphasizes the reliability or credibility of the author and their sources to prove a point.
An appeal to logos is a logical application of evidence that appeals to the readers sense of logic or reason.
An appeal to pathos is a rhetorical technique that weighs on people's emotions to sway their opinion one way or another.

One example of a logical fallacy is a hasty generalization. [4] X Research source This fallacy involves reaching a conclusion before you have gathered adequate evidence on the subject. An example of a hasty generalization would be that all cows are black with white spots because you've seen three cows and all three of them were black with white spots.
Another example of a logical fallacy is a slippery slope argument. [5] X Research source This fallacy involves arguing that if one event is allowed to happen, it will inevitably lead to an extreme and undesirable result. An example of a slippery slope argument would be: If we allow one hotel to be built on the lake, pretty soon the whole place will be worse than Las Vegas.

In his play As You Like It, William Shakespeare’s Jacques famously says, All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players: / They have their exits and their entrances. [7] X Research source This is a metaphor that compares the action of real life with the action of a theatrical play. Shakespeare says that world is a stage and all the people are actors, not merely that they are like actors.

For example, saying she was as quiet as a mouse is an analogy that lets the reader know something about the subject, she , by relating a fact about her to a fact everyone knows (that mice are quiet).

Writing Your Analysis

A good thesis statement is concise and clear. It tells the reader what the point of the paper is and why it's important. The thesis must make a claim of some sort. [8] X Research source
For this type of essay, your thesis claim will probably be something like this: Through his use of ______ (whatever rhetorical technique you think your author employs), this author attempts to _______ (whatever you think the purpose of his persuasion is).
Here is an example of a strong thesis statement: Excessive meat consumption in America is the leading cause of pollution today, and, thus, is a significant influence on global warming. This thesis makes a claim (specifically a cause and effect claim) about a debatable topic with a narrow enough focus to create an interesting, manageable argumentative essay.
Here is an example of a weak thesis statement: Pollution is a problem in the world today. This is not a debatable issue; few people would argue that pollution is not a problem. The topic is also too broad. You can't write a paper on every single aspect of pollution.

Step 2 Avoid the standard three-part thesis often taught to beginning writers.

An example of a three-part thesis statement might look something like this: Global warming is caused by industrial pollution, automobile exhaust fumes, and waste dumping in the oceans. In this case, you would expect to find three body paragraphs: one about industrial pollution, one about car exhaust fumes, and one about trash in the ocean. Any other causes of pollution would not fit anywhere in this essay, which restricts the meaning and the message of the paper.
Changing the thesis to avoid this form will make for a much more functional essay that is written at a more advanced level. A more effective thesis would be something like this: Due to increasing global temperatures and rising ocean levels, global warming has become an issue that needs to be acknowledged by a wider audience in order to begin reversing the effects.

A good introduction should give enough background information that the reader feels intrigued and knows what to look for in the rest of the paper.

Be sure to review your main points and restate your thesis. But make sure not to introduce any new information in the conclusion so that you can effectively wrap up what you've already said.

Revising and Applying Final Touches

Sentence fragments. [10] X Research source Fragments are incomplete phrases that cannot stand alone as a sentence because they are missing either a verb, a noun, or a complete thought.
Parallelism. [11] X Research source Errors in parallelism occur when words or groups of words do not appear in the same format or structure within a sentence.
Subject-verb agreement. [12] X Research source Errors with subject-verb agreement happen when an incorrect verb form is used with a particular subject. For example, he know instead of he knows.

Step 5 Check for problems with formatting or quote incorporation.

Expert Q&A

Compare or contrast multiple articles. In an assignment that involves multiple pieces of source material, it can be extremely helpful to compare and contrast these clearly as part of the overall language analysis. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Always read the syllabus or special instructions. Many teachers who assign this type of work will include specific directions for those who need to complete it. Make sure you pay attention to these in creating the best and most effective language analysis. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/01/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/04/
↑ http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/101-hasty-generalization
↑ http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/163-slippery-slope
↑ http://literarydevices.net/metaphor/
↑ http://shakespeare.mit.edu/asyoulikeit/asyoulikeit.2.7.html
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/01/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/5/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/620/01/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/01/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/599/01/

About This Article

A language analysis is an essay that explores how an author tries to sway their readers about a subject. While you’re reading your text, highlight examples where the author's trying to convince you of something. Some common methods of persuasion include using metaphors, writing with emotional language, and using logical fallacies. Then, try to figure out what the author's overall goal is and come up with a thesis for your paper. For example, your thesis might look something like, "Through his use of emotional language, the author is attempting to persuade his readers that excessive meat consumption causes pollution." Write a paragraph for each method of persuasion and include quotes from the text to support your thesis. For more tips from our English co-author, including how to conclude your language analysis, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Dec 15, 2016

Did this article help you?

Tukwasi Nwazota

Nov 12, 2016

Veronica NG

Mar 9, 2017

Allen Atukunda

Dec 21, 2016

Jun 17, 2016

Featured Articles

Watch Articles

Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Do Not Sell or Share My Info
Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

school Campus Bookshelves
menu_book Bookshelves
perm_media Learning Objects
login Login
how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
hub Instructor Commons
Download Page (PDF)
Download Full Book (PDF)
Periodic Table
Physics Constants
Scientific Calculator
Reference & Cite
Tools expand_more
Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

Last updated
Save as PDF
Page ID 40514

Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.

While reading these examples, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the essay's thesis statement, and how do you know it is the thesis statement?
What is the main idea or topic sentence of each body paragraph, and how does it relate back to the thesis statement?
Where and how does each essay use evidence (quotes or paraphrase from the literature)?
What are some of the literary devices or structures the essays analyze or discuss?
How does each author structure their conclusion, and how does their conclusion differ from their introduction?

Example 1: Poetry

Victoria Morillo

Instructor Heather Ringo

3 August 2022

How Nguyen’s Structure Solidifies the Impact of Sexual Violence in “The Study”

Stripped of innocence, your body taken from you. No matter how much you try to block out the instance in which these two things occurred, memories surface and come back to haunt you. How does a person, a young boy , cope with an event that forever changes his life? Hieu Minh Nguyen deconstructs this very way in which an act of sexual violence affects a survivor. In his poem, “The Study,” the poem's speaker recounts the year in which his molestation took place, describing how his memory filters in and out. Throughout the poem, Nguyen writes in free verse, permitting a structural liberation to become the foundation for his message to shine through. While he moves the readers with this poignant narrative, Nguyen effectively conveys the resulting internal struggles of feeling alone and unseen.

The speaker recalls his experience with such painful memory through the use of specific punctuation choices. Just by looking at the poem, we see that the first period doesn’t appear until line 14. It finally comes after the speaker reveals to his readers the possible, central purpose for writing this poem: the speaker's molestation. In the first half, the poem makes use of commas, em dashes, and colons, which lends itself to the idea of the speaker stringing along all of these details to make sense of this time in his life. If reading the poem following the conventions of punctuation, a sense of urgency is present here, as well. This is exemplified by the lack of periods to finalize a thought; and instead, Nguyen uses other punctuation marks to connect them. Serving as another connector of thoughts, the two em dashes give emphasis to the role memory plays when the speaker discusses how “no one [had] a face” during that time (Nguyen 9-11). He speaks in this urgent manner until the 14th line, and when he finally gets it off his chest, the pace of the poem changes, as does the more frequent use of the period. This stream-of-consciousness-like section when juxtaposed with the latter half of the poem, causes readers to slow down and pay attention to the details. It also splits the poem in two: a section that talks of the fogginess of memory then transitions into one that remembers it all.

In tandem with the fluctuating nature of memory, the utilization of line breaks and word choice help reflect the damage the molestation has had. Within the first couple of lines of the poem, the poem demands the readers’ attention when the line breaks from “floating” to “dead” as the speaker describes his memory of Little Billy (Nguyen 1-4). This line break averts the readers’ expectation of the direction of the narrative and immediately shifts the tone of the poem. The break also speaks to the effect his trauma has ingrained in him and how “[f]or the longest time,” his only memory of that year revolves around an image of a boy’s death. In a way, the speaker sees himself in Little Billy; or perhaps, he’s representative of the tragic death of his boyhood, how the speaker felt so “dead” after enduring such a traumatic experience, even referring to himself as a “ghost” that he tries to evict from his conscience (Nguyen 24). The feeling that a part of him has died is solidified at the very end of the poem when the speaker describes himself as a nine-year-old boy who’s been “fossilized,” forever changed by this act (Nguyen 29). By choosing words associated with permanence and death, the speaker tries to recreate the atmosphere (for which he felt trapped in) in order for readers to understand the loneliness that came as a result of his trauma. With the assistance of line breaks, more attention is drawn to the speaker's words, intensifying their importance, and demanding to be felt by the readers.

Most importantly, the speaker expresses eloquently, and so heartbreakingly, about the effect sexual violence has on a person. Perhaps what seems to be the most frustrating are the people who fail to believe survivors of these types of crimes. This is evident when he describes “how angry” the tenants were when they filled the pool with cement (Nguyen 4). They seem to represent how people in the speaker's life were dismissive of his assault and who viewed his tragedy as a nuisance of some sorts. This sentiment is bookended when he says, “They say, give us details , so I give them my body. / They say, give us proof , so I give them my body,” (Nguyen 25-26). The repetition of these two lines reinforces the feeling many feel in these scenarios, as they’re often left to deal with trying to make people believe them, or to even see them.

It’s important to recognize how the structure of this poem gives the speaker space to express the pain he’s had to carry for so long. As a characteristic of free verse, the poem doesn’t follow any structured rhyme scheme or meter; which in turn, allows him to not have any constraints in telling his story the way he wants to. The speaker has the freedom to display his experience in a way that evades predictability and engenders authenticity of a story very personal to him. As readers, we abandon anticipating the next rhyme, and instead focus our attention to the other ways, like his punctuation or word choice, in which he effectively tells his story. The speaker recognizes that some part of him no longer belongs to himself, but by writing “The Study,” he shows other survivors that they’re not alone and encourages hope that eventually, they will be freed from the shackles of sexual violence.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Hieu Minh. “The Study” Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets, Coffee House Press, 2018, https://poets.org/poem/study-0 .

Example 2: Fiction

Todd Goodwin

Professor Stan Matyshak

Advanced Expository Writing

Sept. 17, 20—

Poe’s “Usher”: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity

Right from the outset of the grim story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe enmeshes us in a dark, gloomy, hopeless world, alienating his characters and the reader from any sort of physical or psychological norm where such values as hope and happiness could possibly exist. He fatalistically tells the story of how a man (the narrator) comes from the outside world of hope, religion, and everyday society and tries to bring some kind of redeeming happiness to his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who not only has physically and psychologically wasted away but is entrapped in a dilapidated house of ever-looming terror with an emaciated and deranged twin sister. Roderick Usher embodies the wasting away of what once was vibrant and alive, and his house of “insufferable gloom” (273), which contains his morbid sister, seems to mirror or reflect this fear of death and annihilation that he most horribly endures. A close reading of the story reveals that Poe uses mirror images, or reflections, to contribute to the fatalistic theme of “Usher”: each reflection serves to intensify an already prevalent tone of hopelessness, darkness, and fatalism.

It could be argued that the house of Roderick Usher is a “house of mirrors,” whose unpleasant and grim reflections create a dark and hopeless setting. For example, the narrator first approaches “the melancholy house of Usher on a dark and soundless day,” and finds a building which causes him a “sense of insufferable gloom,” which “pervades his spirit and causes an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an undiscerned dreariness of thought” (273). The narrator then optimistically states: “I reflected that a mere different arrangement of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” (274). But the narrator then sees the reflection of the house in the tarn and experiences a “shudder even more thrilling than before” (274). Thus the reader begins to realize that the narrator cannot change or stop the impending doom that will befall the house of Usher, and maybe humanity. The story cleverly plays with the word reflection : the narrator sees a physical reflection that leads him to a mental reflection about Usher’s surroundings.

The narrator’s disillusionment by such grim reflection continues in the story. For example, he describes Roderick Usher’s face as distinct with signs of old strength but lost vigor: the remains of what used to be. He describes the house as a once happy and vibrant place, which, like Roderick, lost its vitality. Also, the narrator describes Usher’s hair as growing wild on his rather obtrusive head, which directly mirrors the eerie moss and straw covering the outside of the house. The narrator continually longs to see these bleak reflections as a dream, for he states: “Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building” (276). He does not want to face the reality that Usher and his home are doomed to fall, regardless of what he does.

Although there are almost countless examples of these mirror images, two others stand out as important. First, Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are twins. The narrator aptly states just as he and Roderick are entombing Madeline that there is “a striking similitude between brother and sister” (288). Indeed, they are mirror images of each other. Madeline is fading away psychologically and physically, and Roderick is not too far behind! The reflection of “doom” that these two share helps intensify and symbolize the hopelessness of the entire situation; thus, they further develop the fatalistic theme. Second, in the climactic scene where Madeline has been mistakenly entombed alive, there is a pairing of images and sounds as the narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a romance story. Events in the story simultaneously unfold with events of the sister escaping her tomb. In the story, the hero breaks out of the coffin. Then, in the story, the dragon’s shriek as he is slain parallels Madeline’s shriek. Finally, the story tells of the clangor of a shield, matched by the sister’s clanging along a metal passageway. As the suspense reaches its climax, Roderick shrieks his last words to his “friend,” the narrator: “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door” (296).

Roderick, who slowly falls into insanity, ironically calls the narrator the “Madman.” We are left to reflect on what Poe means by this ironic twist. Poe’s bleak and dark imagery, and his use of mirror reflections, seem only to intensify the hopelessness of “Usher.” We can plausibly conclude that, indeed, the narrator is the “Madman,” for he comes from everyday society, which is a place where hope and faith exist. Poe would probably argue that such a place is opposite to the world of Usher because a world where death is inevitable could not possibly hold such positive values. Therefore, just as Roderick mirrors his sister, the reflection in the tarn mirrors the dilapidation of the house, and the story mirrors the final actions before the death of Usher. “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects Poe’s view that humanity is hopelessly doomed.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library . 1995. Web. 1 July 2012. < http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeFall.html >.

Example 3: Poetry

Amy Chisnell

Professor Laura Neary

Writing and Literature

April 17, 20—

Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Carroll 164)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass , Humpty Dumpty confidently translates (to a not so confident Alice) the complicated language of the poem “Jabberwocky.” The words of the poem, though nonsense, aptly tell the story of the slaying of the Jabberwock. Upon finding “Jabberwocky” on a table in the looking-glass room, Alice is confused by the strange words. She is quite certain that “ somebody killed something ,” but she does not understand much more than that. When later she encounters Humpty Dumpty, she seizes the opportunity at having the knowledgeable egg interpret—or translate—the poem. Since Humpty Dumpty professes to be able to “make a word work” for him, he is quick to agree. Thus he acts like a New Critic who interprets the poem by performing a close reading of it. Through Humpty’s interpretation of the first stanza, however, we see the poem’s deeper comment concerning the practice of interpreting poetry and literature in general—that strict analytical translation destroys the beauty of a poem. In fact, Humpty Dumpty commits the “heresy of paraphrase,” for he fails to understand that meaning cannot be separated from the form or structure of the literary work.

Of the 71 words found in “Jabberwocky,” 43 have no known meaning. They are simply nonsense. Yet through this nonsensical language, the poem manages not only to tell a story but also gives the reader a sense of setting and characterization. One feels, rather than concretely knows, that the setting is dark, wooded, and frightening. The characters, such as the Jubjub bird, the Bandersnatch, and the doomed Jabberwock, also appear in the reader’s head, even though they will not be found in the local zoo. Even though most of the words are not real, the reader is able to understand what goes on because he or she is given free license to imagine what the words denote and connote. Simply, the poem’s nonsense words are the meaning.

Therefore, when Humpty interprets “Jabberwocky” for Alice, he is not doing her any favors, for he actually misreads the poem. Although the poem in its original is constructed from nonsense words, by the time Humpty is done interpreting it, it truly does not make any sense. The first stanza of the original poem is as follows:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

An the mome raths outgrabe. (Carroll 164)

If we replace, however, the nonsense words of “Jabberwocky” with Humpty’s translated words, the effect would be something like this:

’Twas four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lithe and slimy badger-lizard-corkscrew creatures

Did go round and round and make holes in the grass-plot round the sun-dial:

All flimsy and miserable were the shabby-looking birds

with mop feathers,

And the lost green pigs bellowed-sneezed-whistled.

By translating the poem in such a way, Humpty removes the charm or essence—and the beauty, grace, and rhythm—from the poem. The poetry is sacrificed for meaning. Humpty Dumpty commits the heresy of paraphrase. As Cleanth Brooks argues, “The structure of a poem resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of resolutions and balances and harmonizations” (203). When the poem is left as nonsense, the reader can easily imagine what a “slithy tove” might be, but when Humpty tells us what it is, he takes that imaginative license away from the reader. The beauty (if that is the proper word) of “Jabberwocky” is in not knowing what the words mean, and yet understanding. By translating the poem, Humpty takes that privilege from the reader. In addition, Humpty fails to recognize that meaning cannot be separated from the structure itself: the nonsense poem reflects this literally—it means “nothing” and achieves this meaning by using “nonsense” words.

Furthermore, the nonsense words Carroll chooses to use in “Jabberwocky” have a magical effect upon the reader; the shadowy sound of the words create the atmosphere, which may be described as a trance-like mood. When Alice first reads the poem, she says it seems to fill her head “with ideas.” The strange-sounding words in the original poem do give one ideas. Why is this? Even though the reader has never heard these words before, he or she is instantly aware of the murky, mysterious mood they set. In other words, diction operates not on the denotative level (the dictionary meaning) but on the connotative level (the emotion(s) they evoke). Thus “Jabberwocky” creates a shadowy mood, and the nonsense words are instrumental in creating this mood. Carroll could not have simply used any nonsense words.

For example, let us change the “dark,” “ominous” words of the first stanza to “lighter,” more “comic” words:

’Twas mearly, and the churly pells

Did bimble and ringle in the tink;

All timpy were the brimbledimps,

And the bip plips outlink.

Shifting the sounds of the words from dark to light merely takes a shift in thought. To create a specific mood using nonsense words, one must create new words from old words that convey the desired mood. In “Jabberwocky,” Carroll mixes “slimy,” a grim idea, “lithe,” a pliable image, to get a new adjective: “slithy” (a portmanteau word). In this translation, brighter words were used to get a lighter effect. “Mearly” is a combination of “morning” and “early,” and “ringle” is a blend of “ring” and "dingle.” The point is that “Jabberwocky’s” nonsense words are created specifically to convey this shadowy or mysterious mood and are integral to the “meaning.”

Consequently, Humpty’s rendering of the poem leaves the reader with a completely different feeling than does the original poem, which provided us with a sense of ethereal mystery, of a dark and foreign land with exotic creatures and fantastic settings. The mysteriousness is destroyed by Humpty’s literal paraphrase of the creatures and the setting; by doing so, he has taken the beauty away from the poem in his attempt to understand it. He has committed the heresy of paraphrase: “If we allow ourselves to be misled by it [this heresy], we distort the relation of the poem to its ‘truth’… we split the poem between its ‘form’ and its ‘content’” (Brooks 201). Humpty Dumpty’s ultimate demise might be seen to symbolize the heretical split between form and content: as a literary creation, Humpty Dumpty is an egg, a well-wrought urn of nonsense. His fall from the wall cracks him and separates the contents from the container, and not even all the King’s men can put the scrambled egg back together again!

Through the odd characters of a little girl and a foolish egg, “Jabberwocky” suggests a bit of sage advice about reading poetry, advice that the New Critics built their theories on. The importance lies not solely within strict analytical translation or interpretation, but in the overall effect of the imagery and word choice that evokes a meaning inseparable from those literary devices. As Archibald MacLeish so aptly writes: “A poem should not mean / But be.” Sometimes it takes a little nonsense to show us the sense in something.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry . 1942. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Wonderland . 2nd ed. Ed. Donald J. Gray. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry . Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 385–86. Print.

Attribution

Sample Essay 1 received permission from Victoria Morillo to publish, licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )
Sample Essays 2 and 3 adapted from Cordell, Ryan and John Pennington. "2.5: Student Sample Papers" from Creating Literary Analysis. 2012. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

FREE Online Lectures April 8-25, 2024. Register now !

Language Analysis: The Perfect Essay Structure

Thursday 12th, May 2016

Lauren White

Language Analysis. It’s a third of the exam, and it’s one of the hardest parts of the VCE English course to master. Many schools complete their Language Analysis SAC early in the year, which means you’ll have months between your school assessment and the end-of-year task. Unfortunately, if you don’t keep up your skills in the meantime, it’s all too easy to fall behind and end up heading into October like “wait… what’s a language analysis and how do I do one!?”

(Sneaky plug for our L.A. Club if you’re looking for some valuable practice & feedback!)

What’s worse is that the kind of material you’re dealing with in your SACs probably won’t be very similar to what’s on the exam. AND the advice you get from your teachers may not align with what the assessors expect of you.

So how can you write an objectively safe, ridiculously impressive, kick-ass 10/10 piece at the end of the year?

Well, let’s first look at what the task involves. (NOTE: we’re mainly going to be focussing on Language Analysis in the exam as opposed to your SAC. Check with your teacher if you’re looking for an idea essay structure for your in-school assessment. This guide is to help you prepare for the big end-of-year task!)

What’s the point of a Language Analysis?

Luckily, there’s a pretty big clue on the Section C page of the exam. And by ‘clue,’ I mean VCAA have straight up told you what they’re looking for.

How is language used to persuade the audience?

That is what your whole piece should be geared towards. Not how many techniques you can find. Not how many quotes you can cram into your paragraphs. Not how many synonyms for the word ‘contends’ you can use. So long as your essays are addressing that core question, everything else is secondary.

However, there are different sub-criteria you’re expected to address, and those aren’t stated quite so clearly.

For one, you are required to unpack the persuasive devices and the language features in the material. You need to strike a balance between the different types of material you’re given. You need to talk about the way these techniques affect the audience and why the author would want them to think/feel/believe something. And you should also endeavour to discuss tone (or tonal shifts), connections between written and visual material, and the connotations of words and phrases.

For more on the different requirements in Language Analysis, scroll down to the end of this article for a complete checklist!

Introductions

Any introduction you write is going to be pretty important. In Language Analysis, your intro isn’t technically worth any marks, but it is your chance to make a good first impression on your assessor! If your introduction is a rambly mess and takes three quarters of a page to express a whole bunch of useless information, then the person marking your work isn’t going to be too thrilled with you. Or, if you’ve misunderstood the author’s contention from the outset, you’re going to find it harder to recover later.

Compare this with an intro that’s clear, concise, and not bogged down by any unnecessary repetition. Obviously this neat intro is going to be a much better starting point.

Good Language Analysis introductions will usually be pretty straightforward. The most important thing is that you outline the contention of the main written piece(s).

Generally, you should also touch on the background information and the ‘spark’ that prompted this author to respond to an issue, though this is more optional and shouldn’t take more than a sentence or two. From there, you can outline the main contention, as well as the arguments of any accompanying written or visual material.

Note that if you get multiple written pieces, you don’t have to go through every single contention. So if you were given, say, three comments along with a blog post, explaining the contentions of each of those comments wouldn’t be necessary. In those circumstances, it’s enough to just go through the contention of the main piece and then mention that ‘this piece was also accompanied by a variety of comments spanning different views from members of the public.’ Then, when you have to analyse these comments in your body paragraphs, you can just give a quick run-down of those contentions where necessary.

Consider the following introduction for the 2015 VCAA exam:

SAMPLE LANGUAGE ANALYSIS INTRODUCTION

At the 2015 ceremony for the recognition of Australian volunteer organisations, the CEO of bigsplash, Stephanie Bennett, gave a speech celebrating the altruism of volunteers and extolling the good they do for their communities, and society as a whole. The speech which was later televised addressed the groups of volunteers who were present and praised them for their selfless acts of generosity. ‘bigsplash’ also bestowed an award upon a group called ‘Tradespeople Without Borders,’ and their spokesperson Mathew Nguyen was invited to give an acceptance speech. In it, he contended that volunteering should be thought of as its own reward, and that although the praise was welcome, it shouldn’t be an expected part of the volunteering process. Both of these speeches were also accompanied by various visual aids.

Notice that this intro has focused more so on the contentions of the two written pieces and has only really addressed the visuals in that final sentence? That’s because, for this exam, the written content was way more dominant. It wouldn’t’ve hurt to briefly summarise what the visuals were, but in the interests of keeping the intro short and sweet, we can just leave them till later.

Body Paragraphs

Now onto the important parts of your Language Analysis essay – body paragraphs! This is where the vast majority of your marks are decided, and no matter how delightful your intros and conclusions are, the body paragraphs are your biggest priorities. Solid language analysis abilities are the strength of any Section C piece, so it’s crucial that you know how to conduct detailed and efficient analysis.

There are many different ways to analyse the material, and it will depend on the kind of content you get given in the exam. But the way you format your analysis is also a pretty significant factor.

The most common strategy is to structure things chronologically (meaning you just start analysing the beginning of the material and go on till you get to the end and run out of stuff to say). The advantage here is that this method is pretty straightforward, and won’t require a whole lot of planning. You can essentially just read through the material once or twice and begin analysing straight away. But the disadvantage is that there’s a chance your essay could become really imbalanced. If the author’s arguments are all over the place, and you end up repeating yourself and jumping around unnecessarily, you could potentially lose marks for lacking cohesiveness.

Other methods involve structuring by techniques, which is even riskier since it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to find a neat way to divide the material up into three or four paragraphs based on the language devices they employ. And if you just turn your ‘essay’ into a collection of disconnected paragraphs focussing on a heap of different techniques, you’ll definitely struggle to earn credit for your overall structuring of the material.

What I would recommend instead is that you structure your essay by arguments (or, more accurately, sub-arguments ).

How do you do that?

Well, if an author is trying to convince you that their contention was right, then they’d also be trying to convince you of various other supporting points.

For instance, if I were trying to persuade you to move to New Zealand, then it would make sense that I’d also want you to believe that:

– New Zealand is more livable than Australia.

– New Zealand has a strong economy and job prospects.

– New Zealand people are nicer and better looking.

…and so on. Whereas, if I were trying to persuade you NOT to move to New Zealand, then I’d be claiming that

– New Zealand is way less livable than Australia.

– New Zealand’s economy is dead and no one can find employment.

– New Zealand people are all cruel and ugly.

From this, we can conclude that the sub-arguments are supporting the overall contention. Because if I were instead trying to argue that you SHOULD move to New Zealand, but I was saying that their economy was dead and that everyone who lived there was hideous, that wouldn’t help strengthen my argument.

So if you were to conduct a Language Analysis based on my argument, you might break things down into:

Paragraph 1: the livability of New Zealand

Paragraph 2: the strength of the New Zealand economy, and the potential job prospects

Paragraph 3: the appeal of New Zealand people

Then, in each of these paragraphs, you would discuss how language is used to persuade readers of these sub-arguments. And at the end of each paragraph, you can link these sub-arguments to the overall contention of the author. So you’d begin by outlining what the sub-argument is, and what the author is suggesting. Then, you’d analyse evidence from the material to demonstrate this. Finally, you can explain why this sub-argument is supporting the author’s broader intention.

This will neatly get around the problem of needing to jump around the articles (since you’re grouping by ideas/arguments rather than going through it all line by line,) and it will usually make for a much clearer and more even dissection of the material. It’s reasonably quick, it’s easy to master, and it’s probably the most sophisticated way to format your analysis, so I’d definitely recommend this as your first resort.

That is, unless you get a comparative piece…

OMG COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE ANALYSIS WTF!?

Yep. Comparative tasks are not only very possible (as the 2011, 2014, and 2015 exams show,) but it’s also quite likely that you’ll have to deal with them this year. There’s no telling what VCAA will throw at you though. Maybe it’ll just be a single written piece with a couple of visuals (à la 2008-2013), maybe it’ll be one main piece with a comment or response (like in 2014 and 2015), or maybe it’ll be some kind of horrifically difficult task with half a dozen different written pieces (*cough 2011 cough*). Likewise, we don’t know whether there’ll be an opinion piece, a speech, a blog post, or something we haven’t seen before. Everything’s a mystery until 9:00am October 26th when about 50,000 kids turn to Section C.

But the fact that you don’t know precisely what kind of material is going to come up doesn’t mean it’s impossible to prepare yourself.

After all, you don’t know which exact numbers are going to be on your Maths exams ahead of time, do you?

Whilst you may not be able to predict what the exam material will look like, there are a couple of things we can safely assume.

1. There’ll be two pages worth of content to analyse.

2. There will DEFINITELY be both written and visual material.

3. Supplementary visual material (e.g. a slideshow presentation or an embedded visual) usually has the same contention as the piece it accompanies.

4. The material will be based on the same subject matter, even if the contentions of written pieces differ.

But guess what? Our sub-argument approach from above still works for comparative material!

All you have to do is find sub-arguments that are present in different written pieces. Let’s take that New Zealand example from above, and assume that you were given two pieces on the exam. The first one argues that you should move to New Zealand for those reasons we outlined. But the second piece suggests that you shouldn’t move.

Your essay will consist of three paragraphs (if you’ve found three key ideas you believe to be important) and each one will focus on the same sub-arguments as before:

Paragraph 1: the livability of New Zealand.

Paragraph 2: the strength of the New Zealand economy, and the potential job prospects.

Paragraph 3: the appeal of New Zealand people.

But this time, you will spend time on both pieces within the same paragraph.

For instance, in your first paragraph, you would discuss how the first author depicts New Zealand as a wonderful island paradise. Then (using a linking phrase like ‘by contrast’ or ‘on the other hand,’) you’ll bring up the second author and discuss how they instead draw attention to how New Zealand is a nightmarish hellscape full of blood and gore and death, and no one would ever want to live there!

*Disclaimer: I have never been to New Zealand.

Point being: your body paragraph contrasts the authors’ approaches, thereby ensuring you don’t have to do a clunky ‘comparison’ paragraph at the end.

Note that you DON’T have to mention every single article in every single paragraph of your Language Analysis piece. If you were given something like the 2015 exam, you might have:

Paragraph 1: the main speech + the first visual.

Paragraph 2: the main speech + the secondary speech.

Paragraph 3: the secondary speech + the second visual.

There’s no one correct structure; it’s all dependent on what YOU think is important.

By way of example, here’s a body paragraph for the 2015 exam that looks at the main speech, and the secondary one, looking at the way the two speakers position the award:

SAMPLE LANGUAGE ANALYSIS BODY PARAGRAPH

Bennett likewise lauds the role of the Volunteers Award as an important and necessary gesture of recognition. From the outset, she proclaims that it is her “great privilege” to present the ceremony, which aggrandises the award by implying that it is an honour to present, let alone to receive. She also clearly elucidates bigsplash’s intentions by directly stating that their “corporate ethos” has prompted them to try and “address [the] lack of acknowledgement” granted to volunteers. Hence, she engenders the audience’s respect for the organisation in order to solidify the award as being the product of a benevolent institution. This can also be seen in her use of definitive and pithy language in calling for the audience to “never forget or overlook” volunteers since “bigsplash certainly does not.” By contrasting words like “forget” and “overlook” and their connotations of neglect and disregard with the comparatively kind and fair ethos of ‘bigsplash,’ Bennett positions the award as something that corrects this injustice. And since she explicitly characterises the award as being “from bigsplash,” she is therefore highlighting the company’s social conscience and goodwill. Contrarily, although Nguyen in his acceptance speech does recognise the importance of the award, he instead sees it as an incidental part of volunteering rather than an integral force to redress the balance of acknowledgement. His colloquial opening of “thanks heaps” and “cheers” stands in contrast to Bennett’s formality, and instead creates a sense of casual humility as opposed to ceremonious grandeur. Nguyen also declares that the “pleasure” achieved through “seeing things improve for people” is in fact “better than [the] award” with the comparative word “better” eliciting a comparison in the audience’s minds in which volunteering is more beneficial and rewarding than receiving a formal commendation. Thus, Nguyen’s speech infers that volunteers should derive fulfilment by observing the positive consequences of their actions, and that bigsplash’s award is a welcome, but ultimately inessential part of their intentions.

See how that transition sentence made the connection between these two pieces nice and clear? This is all the comparison you need! So don’t waste a whole paragraph going back and forth between different parts of the material. Just find a point of similarity or difference between them, and do a quick and simple transition within one of your body paragraphs.

Conclusions

Finally, there’s the conclusion of your Language Analysis essay. Much like the intro, it is a structural requirement meaning you should write one if you don’t want to lose marks. However, there’s not a lot at stake here. Provided you can wrap things up nicely and make a good final impression, you should be fine.

If possible, try and say something about how language has been used overall, or comment on a major appeal or big technique that the author uses. Otherwise, just build your way back out to the overall contentions, and make a brief statement or two about how the author wants the audience to respond. Don’t do any new analysis, and try not to just list various devices you’ve found. Instead, focus on the broad intentions of the author, and the way they are positioning the audience.

Here’s a sample conclusion based on the 2015 exam that deals with both written pieces:

SAMPLE LANGUAGE ANALYSIS CONCLUSION

By implying that volunteering should be done without expecting gratitude, Nguyen’s speech encourages the audience to consider acts of charity as being more rewarding than commendation. By contrast, Bennett suggests that bigsplash and their award is a potent symbol of the need to recognise and reward those who contribute to the community. Thus, whilst both speakers concur that volunteering is an admirable and selfless act, Bennett seeks to elicit the audience’s approval for bigsplash’s generosity towards the volunteers whose work goes unnoticed, while Nguyen instead encourages the audience to view volunteering as a philanthropic act that doesn’t necessarily require acknowledgement to be worthwhile.

Language Analysis Checklist

Length and coverage.

• Is the piece an appropriate length given the task material? • Does the spread of the analysis reflect the spread of the material? • Is the analysis balanced across the written and/or visual pieces with an appropriate amount of explanation for each? • Does the piece appear to have covered the most important facets or ‘gist’ of the material? • Does the piece take into consideration any relevant background information or structural features (e.g. it being a blog, speech, magazine interview, etc.)? • Has the piece avoided summarising the material, or evaluating it by casting judgement on the effectiveness of the persuasion or providing their opinion on the issue?

• Does the piece adopt a structure that is suitable to the task? • Are the paragraphs (if multiple) roughly even and balanced in terms of what they’re covering? • Does the piece begin and conclude in an appropriate way?

• Is the contention articulated in this piece accurate, and well-explained? • Has this piece expressed a comprehensive understanding of the overarching argument and sub-arguments? • Does the analysis in this piece help support the contention that has been identified?

Quality of Analysis

• Does this piece justify itself in terms of how language is used to persuade? • Does it use a method of analysis that maximises efficiency? • Does this piece examine persuasive language and explain how it is persuasive? • Are there a few examples of close connotative analysis, and has this piece taken the appropriate opportunities to explore this language? • Does this piece have sufficient explanations as to how the audience are made to think, feel, or believe? • Is the piece accurate in its assessment of the audience’s response and the author’s intention? • Do the points raised in this analysis culminate in a discussion of why the author has made certain choices in order to get their argument across?

Topic Sentences

• Does the piece have effective topic sentences that make the initial focus clear? • Are the topic sentences precise and well-worded? • Has the student avoided jumping into close analysis too soon? • Do the topic sentences outline a concept specific to the material as opposed to a very general concern relating to the issue instead of the material?

• Have the quotes been well-integrated, and do they fit the grammar of the sentences they’re in? • Has the student modified quotes with [square brackets] and ellipsis […] where appropriate? • Are the quotes the right length, and has the student selected the most relevant language to include as opposed to inserting a whole chunk of the piece in their own work? • Do the quotes support the analysis being conducted? • Does the piece use a sufficiently varied amount of evidence and avoid using the same language multiple times, where possible?

• Has the piece made succinct and obvious connections between different points of analysis? • Does the piece have a sense of flow in the way it transitions both within and between paragraphs?

Techniques and Metalanguage

• Has this piece correctly identified a variety of important rhetorical and persuasive devices? • Are these devices linked to an appropriate quote or example to demonstrate their application? • Does this piece use the correct metalanguage when commenting on language, tone, and argument?

• Does the analysis comment on any overarching tones in the material? • Does the analysis comment on any distinctive tonal shifts in the material? • Is this discussion on tone supported by quotes/evidence?

Visual Analysis

• Does the piece choose an appropriate moment to comment on the visual? • Has the piece correctly identified the contention of the visual, or, at least, has the piece conducted sufficient justification for its interpretation of the visual? • Does the piece use metalanguage to describe the visual features and explain how and why they persuade? • Has the piece made effective connections between the written and visual material (where applicable)?

Comparative Analysis

• Is the wording and syntax of this piece clear and concise? • Are the sentences an appropriate length with the right amount of information packaged into each one? • Does the piece flow effectively from one piece of analysis to the next, successfully avoiding the trap of feeling like a string of unconnected bits and pieces based on annotations? • Does the expression and grammar do justice to the quality of the analysis?

If you have any Language Analysis questions, feel free to drop them below. Alternatively, our English Q and A thread is always at your service!

You must be logged in to leave a comment

No comments yet…

What does it actually mean to “study smart”?

How to study in high school - the 'dos' and 'don'ts'

Spare 5 minutes? Here are 7 quick study strategies

How to get more out of your textbook

The benefit of asking questions in high school

Your Year 12 study questions answered!

Sponsored by the Victorian Government - Department of Education

Early childhood education: a career that makes a difference

Early childhood education is seeing growth like no other profession – creating thousands of jobs available over the decade. With financial support to study at university and Free TAFE courses available, there’s never been a better time to become a kinder teacher or educator.

IMAGES

How to Write about Diction
PPT
PPT
Types of Diction Free Essay Example
Diction Analysis Exercise
What Is a Critical Analysis Essay? Simple Guide With Examples

VIDEO

Data Dictionary in Analysis Workspace
A critical re-analysis of Quranic diction: Rab, Hadu and Mhmd, with the Linguist
Discourse Analysis
AP Lang
Rhetorical Analysis: "Learning to Read" Malcolm X (Lesson 5
How do you find tone and diction in a poem?

COMMENTS

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay
A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis, nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.
The Declaration of Independence: Diction Analysis
The diction used in the Declaration of Independence is a testament to the power of language in shaping history and inspiring change. Jefferson's choice of words and phrases reflects the Enlightenment ideals that animated the American Revolution and continues to resonate with audiences today. The document's enduring significance is a testament ...
Style Analysis
Once students understand the fundamentals of style analysis and how diction, imagery, language, and syntax help authors establish tone and convey theme, they are ready to write an AP Passage Analysis essay, which is the ultimate assessment of a student's ability to read a passage closely to determine the author's intent.
How to Write about Diction
This video explains how to write about diction for AP Lang rhetorical analysis essays.Here's a link to a Google Slides Handout with the info from the video: ...
PDF Analyzing DICTION specific words
Formal diction is reserved for scholarly writing and serious texts. Informal diction is often used in narrative essays and newspaper editorials. Colloquial diction and slang are typically used to capture the language of a particular time frame or culture. Finally, the type of diction a writer uses depends on the audience (readers, listeners ...
How to Write Literary Analysis
Literary analysis involves examining all the parts of a novel, play, short story, or poem—elements such as character, setting, tone, and imagery—and thinking about how the author uses those elements to create certain effects. A literary essay isn't a book review: you're not being asked whether or not you liked a book or whether you'd ...
Diction
Definition of Diction. As a literary device, diction refers to the linguistic choices made by a writer to convey an idea or point of view, or tell a story, in an effective way.The author's selection of words or vocabulary and the artistic arrangements of these words is what constitutes the style and establishes the voice of a literary work. Therefore, analyzing the style of a work of ...
PDF HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY
The term regularly used for the development of the central idea of a literary analysis essay is the body. In this section you present the paragraphs (at least 3 paragraphs for a 500-750 word essay) that support your thesis statement. Good literary analysis essays contain an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text (short story,
How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Diction: Deliberately choosing specific language and vocabulary Syntax: Structuring and arranging sentences in certain ways Tone: Conveying attitude or mood in certain ways Literary Devices: Using metaphors, similes, analogies, repetition, etc. Keep in mind that for a rhetorical analysis essay, you're not usually required to find examples of all of the above rhetorical strategies.
10.1: How Argument Analysis Essays are Structured
This page titled 10.1: How Argument Analysis Essays are Structured is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anna Mills ( ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative) . An argument analysis should summarize the argument and discuss how well any appeals to trust and emotion are likely to work with readers.
Analyzing Diction
Select one pair, then answer the "Diction Analysis" questions (handout) about the distinctions between the words in the pair you have chosen. ... Diction analysis is useful in essays that require you to: Analyze an author's style; Analyze an author's attitude (tone)
Style, Diction, Tone, and Voice
Style. Style is the way in which something is written, as opposed to the meaning of what is written. In writing, however, the two are very closely linked. As the package for the meaning of the text, style influences the reader's impression of the information itself. Style includes diction and tone. The main goal in considering style is to ...
27 Words to Describe Diction: Evaluating an Author's Word Choice
Tasteless, coarse, offensive. Evaluating word choice is a bit more objective task than evaluating tone, since tone is reflective of a speaker's attitude or feelings toward a subject. As a result, there are typically more options for describing tone, from appreciative to condescending, joyful to patronizing.
How to Write the AP Lang Rhetorical Essay
4. Be Sure to Explain Your Examples. As you write the essay, don't just list out your examples and say something like "this is an example of ethos, logos, pathos.". Instead, analyze how the example shows that rhetoric device and how it helps the author further their argument. As you write the rhetorical essay, you'll want to be as ...
How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis
A rhetorical analysis is a type of essay that looks at a text in terms of rhetoric. This means it is less concerned with what the author is saying than with how they say it: their goals, techniques, and appeals to the audience. A rhetorical analysis is structured similarly to other essays: an introduction presenting the thesis, a body analyzing ...
How to Write a Language Analysis (with Pictures)
1. Read your source material. Typically, the language analysis assignment includes specific source material in the form of articles or other texts. The first step to writing your language analysis is to read over these thoroughly and make notes. Try an initial scan, followed by a more thorough detail reading.
12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays
Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap. City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative. Table of contents. Example 1: Poetry. Example 2: Fiction. Example 3: Poetry. Attribution. The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.
Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney
By. 'Mid-Term Break' by Seamus Heaney describes the emotional turmoil experienced by a speaker who has lost a loved one in a traumatic way. Seamus Heaney is one of the best-loved poets of all time. After he passed away in 2013, the world went into grieving. 'Mid-Term Break' was published in Death of a Naturalist, Heaney's most-famous ...
AP English Language and Composition Past Exam Questions
Download free-response questions from past exams along with scoring guidelines, sample responses from exam takers, and scoring distributions. If you are using assistive technology and need help accessing these PDFs in another format, contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 212-713-8333 or by email at [email protected].
PDF Close Reading: Analyzing Mood and Tone
Language . Pre-AP and AP English . In this context, an author's . language . refers to her overall style of writing: the total effect created by her diction, imagery, details, and syntax in an entire work—or even in a collection of many works. Whereas diction, imagery, details, and syntax require specific and pointed analysis, language ...
ATAR Notes
Paragraph 3: the secondary speech + the second visual. There's no one correct structure; it's all dependent on what YOU think is important. By way of example, here's a body paragraph for the 2015 exam that looks at the main speech, and the secondary one, looking at the way the two speakers position the award: