1-2 Lecture
WRITING WITH DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE
|
Page updated:
24-Aug-2009 03:14 PM |
By the end of this first
week week, you should
understand the following writing
concepts:
- objective
description
-
subjective description
-
denotative language
-
connotative language
|
- tropic
language
- simile,
metaphor, hyperbole, personification
- dominant
impression
-
organization method
|
One of the basic elements
that marks good from mediocre writing is the writer's ability to communicate a
word picture of her thoughts, so that involves using clear and precise
details to convey the writer's message. Our textbook talks about objective
and subjective descriptive details, and they are pretty much the opposite of
each other. Objective details involve communicating just the facts without
investing the details with any opinion. Journalists do their best to use
objective description when they report information so that they do not bias the
reader. On the other hand, subjective descriptive details are infused with
opinion and therefore carry a layer of meaning in addition to the factual detail
they also are describing. People who write op/ed articles for a newspaper
frequently use a mix of objective and subjective description because they are
trying to go beyond just stating the facts. They are trying to persuade.
All writing to some degree is persuasive prose because the writer usually wants
to move her audience to think differently about a topic or perhaps commit to
some type of action.
Like objective details,
denotative language expresses ideas in literal language that is as
free of opinion and bias as possible. Legal documents, for example are
perhaps the best example of denotative language. The contract you sign in
which you promise to pay back the money you borrow with your credit card should
be very clearly written with no ambiguities or language that contains
duplicitous meanings. On the other hand, connotative language is
deliberately meant to be suggestive and carry multiple meanings and multiple
interpretations. It often is ambiguous; though, it does not have to be.
At this extreme is creative and expressive forms of writing, such as poetry and
fiction. Connotative language works in subjective description.
When you think about
connotative language, try to remember the term, tropic language.
The "o" vowel is pronounced like the letter "o" in throw. Tropic is an
adjective form of the word, trope, which just means a figure of speech.
Tropic language, then, is just another name for figurative language, a category
you are probably more familiar with. And you already know some familiar
forms of figurative speech: simile, metaphor, hyperbole and personification.
These you learned in high school.
Usually, descriptive writing
draws upon all of these elements of denotative and connotative language to
create a word picture I mentioned above. In the "hands" (Is the use of
"hands" denotative or "figurative"?) of a careful writer, she can skillfully
mold and--most importantly--control the picture she creates in your mind.
That's the power of language and why even at a descriptive level why it can be a
useful persuasive tool.
Consider the following
example. After brainstorming a list of details about our classroom, your
list might contain some of the following descriptions:
-high tech equip (VCR, DVD, LCD proj., computer,
ethernet ports
-air/con humming sound
-pencils moving across paper
-stained carpet/ debris all around (first week already)
-empty walls |
-a few maps
-4 speakers
-holes in tiles
-light housing about to break off
-exposed wired
-stained ceiling tiles |
Notice that these details
are all objective; they don't involve any subjective response or opinion beyond
stating factual information. However I can form a subjective response
based on the sorts of details I find. Two possible reactions are that the
classroom is a high tech environment conducing to learning; however, the other
reaction is completely opposite--that the room is so dilapidated and boring that
the room is a challenging learning environment. Depending on which point
of view I want to stress, I would have to be selective about which details I
employ in my paragraph on this room. If for example, I want to convince
the college vice president that the campus needs to invest more money into
updating the room so it is more inviting to students, I would really want to
stress how dilapidated the surroundings are. So part of the process of
deciding what to write about is to decide on a focus.
In writing courses, you will
encounter several terms about "focus" that are all very similar. When we
talk about descriptive writing, teachers refer to a "dominant impression."
It's dominant because, although there may be others, the dominant one is what
the writer is really trying to get across to his readers. Other terms that
mean the same thing as dominant impression include "main idea," "central idea,"
"thesis," "topic sentence," (these last two have a very specific meaning and
place in which they are used in the essay, and we will cover them next week).
Method of Organization
Finally, because we do not
want the thoughts in our paragraph to appear haphazard, we need to apply some
method to organize our thoughts. In the case of the room, we could use a
spatial order by starting at the front of the classroom and describing the
environment in a clockwise (or counter clockwise direction). An
alternative might be to start at the ceiling, then the walls, and the floor.
But at all costs, avoid just random details: that will confuse the
reader and destroy the dominant impression you are trying to create for the
reader. Describing the classroom in terms of space is not the only method
of organization either. For example, the writer's reaction to the room
could be organized around the 5 senses (or as many that were used). The
writer could also use chronological order if a narrative structure is needed. Depending on the writer's purpose, he might want to contrast the objective
description with a subjective response. The main point, of course, is to
be sure there is some orderliness about the details that the reader can follow
because otherwise the writing will be cluttered and confusing to the audience.
|
