Midterms

• Style is how a writer tells a story, shaping their voice and setting the mood through tone, words, and description.
• 6 Parts of Style:

  1. Diction
  2. Sentence Structure
  3. Tone
  4. Narrator
  5. Grammar
  6. Creative Devices
• Diction is the author's word choice style.
• Sentence structure is how words are arranged in a sentence.
• Tone is the mood or attitude a story creates.
• The narrator is the person telling the story and the point of view it's told from.
• Grammar refers to the rules and structure of language.
• Creative devices, such as symbolism, allegory, metaphor, and rhyme, add depth and meaning to a story.
• Diction is how a writer chooses words, which can be formal, informal, or colloquial, affecting how readers understand the text.
• Diction is the author's word choice and language style, crucial for setting the appropriate tone and voice for the audience and writing objective.
• 4 Levels of Diction:

  1. High Formal Elevated
  2. Neutral Standard
  3. Neutral Informal
  4. Low Non-Standard
• High Formal Elevated level of diction sounds fancy and doesn't use slang or short words, but instead uses longer, sophisticated words and sentences.
• High Formal Elevated level of diction is suitable for formal occasions and highly educated audiences, often found in scholarly journals and academic publications.
• Neutral standard diction is used for well-educated audiences, commonly seen in college papers, mass publications, and business communication.
• Neutral Standard level of diction is used in college writing, newspapers, and general interest journals, maintaining a professional tone without highly technical terms.
• Neutral informal diction is grammatically correct but conversational, used in personal letters, emails, and documents for casual or entertaining purposes, including slang for specific flavor, like in sports casting or novels.
• Low non-standard diction refers to language that deviates from conventional or standard use, including vulgarity, slang, colloquialisms, dialects, clichés, and jargon.
• 12 Types of Diction:

  1. Slang
  2. Vulgarity
  3. Colloquial
  4. Jargon
  5. Dialect
  6. Cliche
  7. Concrete Diction
  8. Abstract Diction
  9. General
  10. Specific
  11. Denotation
  12. Connotation
• Slang includes recently coined informal words like "emo," "frenemy," "my bad," "awesomity," "greycation," and "bromance."
• Vulgarity is crude and tasteless language, often involving swear words like "pakshet" and "difotah."
• Colloquial expressions are informal or regional ways of using language, like "anyhow," "gotcha," "gramps," "stats," "info," "guys," and "kid."
• Jargon includes words specific to a profession or field, like "gigabyte," "logic board," "CPU," and "LCD" in computer terminology.
• Dialect is a nonstandard subgroup of a language with its own vocabulary and grammar, such as Philippine English as a dialect of the English language.
• A cliché is a phrase used so often that it has lost its originality, like "Time is Gold," "Love is like a rosary full of mystery," and "You shine like a star."
• Concrete diction uses specific words describing physical qualities, like "spoon," "table," "velvet eye patch," "nose ring," "sinus mask," and "hot."
• Abstract diction refers to language expressing intangible ideas, emotions, or concepts, like "love," "success," "freedom," "good," "moral," "democracy," "chauvinism," "Communism," "feminism," "racism," and "sexism."
• General diction refers to words that denote groups or categories, like "furniture," "people," "institutions," and "houses."
• Specific diction refers to individual items or entities, like "rocking chair," "Filipinos," "hospitals," and "nipa hut."
• Denotation is the precise, literal definition of a word, without emotional connotations or secondary meanings, such as "snake" (reptile), "house," "mother," and "loose" (not tight).
• Connotation is the implied meaning of a word, including suggestions, associations, and emotional overtones, such as "snake" (evil), "home," "stepmother," and "loose" (not in the right mind).
• Narrative point of view refers to the perspective of the narrator telling the story, expressed through first-person, second-person, or alternating-person viewpoints.
• 4 Narrative Point of View:

  1. First-Person
  2. Second-Person
  3. Third-Person
  4. Alternating Person
• First-person point of view occurs when the narrator is a character within the story, using "I" or occasionally "we" when referring to a group.
• Second-person point of view involves a narrator telling the story of another person or themselves, using the pronoun "you."
• Third-person point of view involves a narrator referring to every character as "she," "he," or "it," without using "I," "we," or "you."
• Alternating Person point of view is used in novels when authors experiment with different points of view, combining both first and third person storytelling, even if a single point of view is suggested.
• Narrative voice includes stream of consciousness, character voice, unreliable narrator, epistolary voice, and third-person perspectives like subjective, objective, omniscient, free indirect, and alternating.
• 5 Types of Narrative Voice:

  1. Stream-of-Conciousness
  2. Character Voice
  3. Unreliable Voice
  4. Epistolary Voice
  5. Third Person Voices
• Stream-of-Consciousness is when thoughts are expressed directly to the audience but not necessarily to other characters.
• Character Voice is used in first or third-person viewpoints where the narrator portrays how the character views humanity and the world, presenting the story's viewpoint character as the narrator.