Word Choice and Connotation
Introduced| English |
|---|
| connotative and denotative meanings/kɒnəˈtætɪv ænd dɪˈnəʊtətɪv ˈmiːnɪŋz/ |
Ambitious or expensive?
- Call a policy ambitious and the reader leans one way; call it expensive and they lean the other.
- No fact changed between the two sentences.
- That gap between what a word refers to and what it carries is where diction analysis lives.
Calling a fee “modest” does not shrink the bill; it changes the expression on the reader’s face.
Denotation and connotation
- Words have both connotative and denotative meanings 内涵义与外延义.
- Denotation is what a word refers to; connotation is what it carries with it.
- Two words with the same denotation can produce opposite dispositions in a reader.
Same denotation, different connotation
Sort each pair member by the disposition it carries.
Connotation is...
Denotation refers; connotation carries. Two words can share the first and differ in the second.
Descriptive words carry a perspective
- Descriptive words — adjectives and adverbs — not only qualify or modify what they describe.
- They also convey a perspective toward it.
- So a modifier is never neutral: choosing one is taking a position, however quietly.
Adjectives and adverbs modify what they describe without conveying a perspective.
The CED says descriptive words also convey a perspective — a modifier is never neutral.
"The writer uses strong diction" earns nothing. Diction analysis requires naming the connotation — what the chosen word carries that a neutral synonym would not — and saying what that does to the reader's disposition.
Select all that precise word choice does.
An inflated word used slightly wrongly reads as a loss of control.
Precision
- Precise word choice reduces confusion and helps an audience perceive the writer's perspective.
- Precision is not the same as sophistication — the exactly right common word beats an impressive wrong one.
- An inflated word used slightly wrongly reads as a loss of control, which examiners notice.
To analyse a loaded word, ask what its ____ synonym would have been.
The difference between the two is exactly what the writer added.
Match each pair to what the choice adds.
Where denotation is shared, everything that differs is a rhetorical choice.
Analysing diction
- Find a loaded word and ask what a neutral synonym would have been.
- The difference between the two is exactly what the writer added.
- Say what that addition does to the reader's disposition — that is the analysis.
A writer calls the supporters determined in one paragraph and unyielding in the next. Both denote persistence; the first approves and the second obstructs. The facts described did not change — the reader's sympathy did.
Denotation is what a word refers to; connotation is what it carries. Descriptive words convey a perspective as well as modify, and precise word choice helps a reader perceive it. To analyse diction, name the neutral synonym and say what the writer's choice added.