Discourse sample 2: The second discourse example was by Enrique whose short story was about a boy who went swimming and got ate by a great white shark. In his discourse sample, he began the story with “one day a boy swimming” which demonstrates that he knows how to correctly begin the story. He also introduces the audience to the little boy, revealing he is aware that there is a character in every story. Although, he is missing the auxiliary verb “went” to create “one day a boy went swimming” he understands that a story consists of a beginning, a character(s), coordinating conjunctions, and a setting. Throughout the story, he demonstrates his knowledge on pronouns because he introduced the character as a boy and referred back to the boy as “he” throughout the whole story. By him referring back to the character as “he”, he is also showing cohesion ties because he is maintaining the reference “he” to the same character. The student uses the coordinating conjunction “but” to join two different phrases “But he sow a grate wite shark. But he was very tiirt the shark ate him” the student uses the conjunction “but” to demonstrate that the boy saw a great white shark but he was too tired to keep swimming, so the shark ate him. In the example sentence, he is missing the conjunction “so” so it could have read “But …show more content…
Upon asking Luis what his intended meaning was that his favorite show was a cartoon about Star Wars. In his writing, it is evident that Luis has trouble with adjective clauses, often using the wrong relative pronoun in his sentence. A correct version of the sentence Luis wrote would be, “The cartoon that is about Star Wars is my favorite show”. Adjective clauses according to Folse, “describe or give more information about a noun” and need relative pronouns to identify in the clause (Folse 194).
Transitive/Intransitive
In David Sheff’s book “Beautiful Boy” he utilizes descriptive diction, allusions to other works, and vivid imagery to recreate the experiences he’s gone through during his son’s addiction, times in recovery, and relapses.
Diction is one of the most important literary devices. When Sam and Eric were trying to keep the fire ablaze, they thought they saw the beast. “Neither of the boys screamed but the grip of their arms tightened and their mouths grew peaked. For perhaps ten seconds they crouched like that while the flailing fire sent smoke and sparks and waves of inconstant light over the top of
The modern lifestyle, full of one time use items and pollution generating machines, is harming our environment, and, without a plan, the death of our planet is certain. Environmentalist and author, Derrick Jensen uses a comparison of possible outcomes to persuade his readers to take action that would help stop climate change; political resistance is his preferred and recommended course of action for his audience. Throughout his essay, “Forget Shorter Showers”, Jensen makes clear his desire to reduce or even reverse the effects industrialization (476-478). He advocates an approach where society makes changes to industry and to government over the current methods of voluntary
James Paul Gee explores the idea of discourse as a series of sentences that are modified based on context and recipient, in order to convey a particular meaning. Discourse is modified according to the recipient’s familiarity with the speaker/writer. The level of familiarity influences whether the speaker/writer uses vernacular, or non-vernacular language to express himself. Additionally, discourse changes according to social identities. Gee provides an example by describing a conversation between a waiter and his costumer. The costumer enacts his identity as a costumer, which is recognized by the waiter, who in turn modifies the language he uses to addresses him. Similarly, the costumer recognizes the identity of the waiter as waiter and proceeds
For instance, Hosseini often writes a full sentence, then one or two action verbs following. “ His eyes fell on me. Lingered. Then he looked away. Looked down at his naked feet ” (280), is an example of this. Hosseini could have connected the two, however he wanted the reader to notice the hesitance more. Had he connected the sentences, the reader's eyes would brush over it to another sentence, but with “lingered,” it stops the audience. It causes them to linger over the word itself and consider Sohrab and his curtain problems. It is a paused moment, a chance to analyze and observe what is happening before all the action starts. Readers may infer the thoughts of Sohrab, that he is afraid to stare too long at Amir. They also might infer that he still has a childlike curiosity despite the horrors he has been through. Hosseini uses the technique of fragments containing a single world often.“Then he saw me and waved. Smiled ” (131), was a proud moment for Amir because it was one of the few times that Baba ever smiled at him. Since visible affection seldom happened, Amir noticed it and took pleasure from it, which is why Hosseini creates a single sentence with it. Hosseini emphasizes a relationship between father and son that lack affection. “I walked up the creaky stairs to the second floor, down a dim hallway to the last door on the right. Checked the address on the piece of stationery paper in my palm. Knocked ” (197).
The audience for whom those works were written for explains a great deal about the syntax and the diction, and as stated in Dynamic Argument, provides “different strokes for different folks” (Lamm and Everett 11). When Ron Reagan was delivering his remarks to the Democratic National Convention, he took into account that he needed to paint a picture for his audience “while still doing justice to the incredible science involve [involved]” (qtd in Lamm and Everett 428). The fact that he was trying to convince his audience to vote for embryonic stem-cell research showed that he needed to explain exactly how the procedure worked. His story about the thirteen-year-old young woma...
Identifying the author’s purpose in a text is very significant because it gives the reader insight into why the author wrote what they did and the intended effect of the text. Rhetorical modes of discourse allow for greater understanding of the author’s purpose as they illustrate the goal of the authors writing style. For instance, the narrative mode is used to detail a step-by-step storyline. What message would an author try to convey using a mode focussed on the sequence of events? Their point in using the mode is to explain the order of events, not persuade a person of something or compare or contrast ideas. It would be used to explain or describe a situation or event. In A Fort of Nine Towers, the author uses descriptive and narrative modes of discourse to explain his purpose—to tell the story of a family surviving in a crumbling Afghanistan and emphasize the importance of family in a tragic circumstance. For example, if he used the argumentative mode of discourse he wouldn’t be able to simply share his story; his goal or purpose in writing would be more than that. Moreover, because he used the narrative and descriptive cases, the reader can properly acknowledge the reason the author had in writing the text—in this case to tell a story. Therefore, the modes Omar used were effective in telling his story via the memoir as they helped to convey the author 's purpose, a staple in literary analysis and a very important element of
The Author uses these examples to give us a way to see descriptive language in short novel.
In the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” Edgar Allen Poe includes syntax throughout the story. The author’s purpose of incorporating syntax within a story is to attract attention to specific parts of the story that might be a sign of foreshadowing or symbolism. In addition, a writer will include syntax to catch the reader’s eye of significant ideas like a theme of the story. As an example, in paragraphs 8-12, Poe incorporates the use of specific punctuation
Kid nor either of the Thompson sisters can out right tell you when things had begun to change.
Declarative syntax is used in the story “The Student’s Wife.” It states in the story, “Please, God, let me sleep. She tried to sleep” (“The Student’s Wife” 201). Carver structures his stories to not have a lot of exclamation, but straightforward sentences. He also uses short sentences with four to five words, which makes his stories choppy and broken down. The narrator exclaims, “She closed the robe at her throat. The air was wet and cold” (“The Student’s Wife” 202). This is another example of how Carver uses declarative syntax. He wants to get his point across to the reader, so he uses short, easy to comprehend sentences to help the reader understand what is going on. Second, in the story “Cathedral”, declarative syntax is also used. In the story it says, “She was still wearing a smile. Just amazing” (“Cathedral” 205). Once again, Carver uses short, simple sentences to help the reader comprehend the story. The reader can tell by the sentence structure that the character is happy, but the reader can understand the sarcasticness of the second sentence. The two separate sentences can make it easier to see the different types of points the narrator is trying to get across. Robert says, “The news program ended. I set up and changed the channel” (“Cathedral” 208). Carver uses declarative syntax and simple, broken down sentences here to send the message that Robert is bored. He is just trying to pass the time with the blind man. The reader can tell by the sentence structure that it is a boring statement, which can conclude that Robert is bored and does not want to be where he is at. Declarative syntax is one of the many elements Carver uses to contribute to his
Croft, William, and D A. Cruse. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2004. USC Upstate Ebook. Web. 27 February 2011.
Walker uses anaphora of the words ‘I’ and ‘she’ to compare how Celie deals with domestic abuse to how Nettie dealt with domestic abuse. The purpose of this is to make the reader feel the guilt that Celie feels because Nettie stood up for what she believed in and died because of it. Celie, however, did not take a stand against domestic abuse and submitted to it, yet she is still alive.
She took care of me. She didn’t have anybody else with her. And through her faith as a Christian, she helped me a whole lot. She died when I was about four or five. But it was her love for me that got me through a lot of things”). Consequently, pronominal AAE variants will contribute to an overuse of pronouns as is typically seen in the narratives of mainstream older adults (c.f., Ulatowska et al., 1986). Similarly, ellipses as with pronominal references, are commonly used in referential chains (e.g., “Years ago, when I was a little girl, my daddy believed in showing me the better things of life. Ø showed me the fun things of life, Ø took me to the circus, Ø took me to the zoo, Ø showed me a good
Overall, the types of themes used were consistent throughout both narratives. The topical themes of the subsequent clauses were not always related to the themes or rhemes of the preceding clauses, making it difficult to predict subsequent events. He was able to use conjunctions to link up events in a systematic order and use of reference to highlight characters, objects, and events. He was able to construct noun phrases, verb phrases, and prepositional phrases to make his narratives more elaborated. The extensive usage of adverbials demonstrate his ability to link sentences and explain how, when, where and why the actions took place. He was able to use topical words to express meaning. Although he possesses some knowledge about past tense verbs, he has yet to grasp the concept of irregular verbs.