Diction
AP English Literature
Definition: Word choice. Diction is the foundation of voice and contributes to all of its elements. Diction creates the color and texture of the written work; they both reflect and determine the level of formality; they shape the reader’s perceptions.
Effective voice is shaped by words that are clear, concrete, and exact. Good writers eschew words like pretty, nice, and bad. Instead they employ words that invoke a specific effect. A coat isn’t old; it is tattered. The United States Army does not want revenge; it is thirsting for revenge. A door does not shut; it thuds.
Understanding diction will help you to analyze better and to write better. Learn the meaning of diction to identify and analyze in a text and learn to use more precise diction in your own writing. (from Voice Lessons by Nancy Dean)
Examples
1. The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
-Robert Hayden from “The Whipping”
· What is the connotation of the word “crippling”? What does the combination of “crippling fat” suggest?
· What other words in the poem carry great meaning? What do they suggest about the relationship between the woman and the boy?
2. “A rowan like a lipsticked girl.” Rowan = a small deciduous tree having
--Seamus Heany, “Song” Field Work white flowers and orange berries.
· Other than color, what comes to mind when you think of a lipsticked girl?
· How would it change the meaning and tone of the line if, instead of lipsticked girl, the author wrote girl with lipstick on?
3. Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.
-W.H. Auden “The Shield of Achilles”
· List a few words that have a strong connotation.
· How would the meaning of the stanza change if “lounged” were replaced by stood or “pale figures” were replaced by “men”?
4. Wind rocks the car.
We sit parked by the river,
silence between our teeth.
Birds scatter across islands
of broken ice. . .
--Adrienne Rich “Like This Together, for A. H. C.”
· What is the tone produced by the word rocks? Gentle, violent, or both?
· How would the meaning change if we changed the first line to Wind shakes the car?