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; itthuds.
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.
Examples
1. “An aged man is but a paltry thing
A tattered coat upon a stick . . .”
--W. B. Yeats “Sailing to Byzantium”
· What picture is created by the use of the word tattered?
· By understanding the connotations of the word tattered, what do we understand about the persona’s attitude toward an aged man?
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. “Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool. His mind broke the surface and fell back several times.”
--John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
· What is the subject of the verb broke? What does this tell you about Doc’s ability to control his thinking at this point in the story?
· To what does surface refer? Remember that good writers often strive for complexity in meaning.
4. “Most men wear their belts low here, there being so many outstanding bellies, some big enough to have names of their own and be formally introduced. Those men don’t suck them in or hide them in loose shirts; they let them hang free, they pat them, they stroke them as they stand around and talk.”
--Garrison Keillor, “Home” Lake Wobegon Days
· What is the usual meaning of outstanding? What is its meaning here? What does this pun reveal about the attitude of the author toward his subject?
· Read the second sentence again. How would the level of formality change if we switched suck to pull and let them hang free to accept them?
5. 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?
(from Voice Lessons by Nancy Dean)