Tone The authors attitude toward the subject toward

Tone • The author’s attitude toward the subject, toward himself, or toward the audience. • Tone is reflected in the author’s “voice. ” • Elements of tone include: Diction, Imagery, Syntax, etc. • Remember writers rarely use only one tone; an author’s tone will often shift within a work.

Tone: Diction • The connotation of the word choice. • Consider: What words does the author choose? How does writer’s word choice compare to another? • Laugh vs. snicker; Old vs. mature.

Connotation and Denotation • Connotation represents the social, cultural, or emotional meanings associated with a word. Ex. “Hollywood” connotes glitz, glamour, celebrity, stardom. • Denotation represents the explicit, literal meaning or dictionary definition. Ex. “Hollywood” denotes an area of Los Angeles, known as the center of the movie industry.

Ways to Classify Diction (cont. ) Denotative (dictionary): • Journalist • Law Officer • Intelligence analyst • Soldier of fortune Connotative (emotion): • Newshound • Cop • Spy • Assassin

Tone Pots rattled in the kitchen where Momma was frying corn cakes to go with vegetable soup for supper, and the homey sounds and scents cushioned me as I read of Jane Eyre in the cold English mansion of a colder English gentleman. ” – Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings • What is Angelou’s attitude toward her life and Jane Eyre’s life? • How does diction contribute to the tone?

Tone: Syntax • How structure affects the reader’s attitude. • Consider: What are the sentences like? Simple? Multiple phrases? Choppy? Flowing? What emotional impressions do they leave? Is there a variety or pattern to sentence beginnings? • Also consider punctuation.

Syntax: Sentence Structure • Syntax: the way words are arranged within sentences. • Length: – Short sentences: imply straightforward, passionate, intense – Long sentences: imply greater thought; descriptive, detailed, reflective, abstract

Syntax: Sentence Structure • Type/Function – Declarative (statement): She waited. Nobody came. – Interrogative (question): Why did she wait? Why didn’t anybody come? – Imperative (command): Wait. Go to her. – Exclamatory (exclamation): She waited and nobody came! – Run-ons – Fragments

Syntax: Sentence Structure • Arrangement of ideas: – Parallel: the phrases or clauses balance each other in likeness or structure, meaning and/or length; interconnected emotions, feelings, ideas Together we planned the house, together we built it, and together we watched it go up in smoke. – Natural order: subject comes first followed by the predicate. Oranges grow in California.

Syntax: Sentence Structure • Arrangement of Ideas: – Inverted order (cues reader to pay attention): the predicate comes before the subject. In California grow oranges.

Tone “It has been called the House of God. It has been called the High One. The Cold One. The White One. On close acquaintance by climbers, it has been called a variety of names rather less printable. But to the world at large it is Kilimanjaro, the apex of Africa and one of the great mountains on the earth. ” - James Ramsey Ullman, “Kilimanjaro”. • What is the author’s attitude toward Kilimanjaro? • How does the sentence structure help establish this tone?