1. Tone
What is Tone?

2. Tone
What is Tone?
The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject, character, or audience
Conveyed through the author’s choice of words, detail, imagery, and language

3. Tone
In order to understand tone, we must understand how our choice of words (or Diction) effects the tone

4. Diction
What is diction?

5. Diction What is diction?
Diction is word choice intended to convey a certain effect

6. Diction What is diction?
Diction is word choice intended to convey a certain effect
To communicate ideas and impressions
To evoke emotions
To convey your views of truth to the reader

7. Diction Levels of Diction High or Formal Diction Neutral Diction
Low or Informal Diction

8. Words to Describe the Language
Jargon
Slang
Colloquial
Formal
Informal
Concrete
Abstract
Connotative
Esoteric
Plain
Detached
Pedantic
Pretentious
Ordinary
Learned
Simple
Bombastic
Grotesque
Poetic
Picturesque
Provincial
Obscure
Exact
Vulgar
Insipid
Precise
Artificial
Literal
Emotional
Euphemistic
Sensuous
Exact
Symbolic
Figurative
Obtuse
Moralistic
Idiomatic
Cultured
Scholarly

9. Types of Diction Monosyllabic (one syllable)
Polysyllabic (more than one syllable)

10. Types of Diction
Concrete – specific words that describe physical qualities or conditions
Abstract – language that denotes ideas, emotions, conditions, or concepts that are intangible

11. Types of Diction
Slang – a group of recently coined words (informal and goes out of style)
Jargon – words and expressions characteristic of a particular trade, profession, or pursuit (Moby Dick)
Dialect – nonstandard subgroup of a language with its own vocabulary and grammatical features; it often reveals a person’s economic or social class (The Skin I’m In)

12. Types of Diction Denotation – the exact, literal definition of a word
Connotation – the suggestions, associations, and emotional overtones attached to a word (house/home)

13. Types of Diction Figurative Language
Simile – compares 2 things using ‘like’ or ‘as’
The warrior fought like a lion

14. Types of Diction Figurative Language
Metaphor – compares 2 things without using ‘like’ or ‘as’
Time is money

15. Types of Diction Figurative Language
Personification – a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics
The wind cried in the dark

16. Types of Diction Figurative Language
Onomatopoeia – the use of words that mimic the sounds they describe
hiss, buzz, bang

17. Types of Diction Figurative Language
Alliteration – beginning several consecutive or neighboring words with the same sound
The twisting trout twinkled below

18. Types of Diction Figurative Language
Idioms – an expression that means something different than its literal meaning
He kicked the bucket

19. Levels of Diction

20. Levels of Diction

21. Levels of Diction

22. What Level of Diction? Ordinary? Informal? Formal? Informal? Formal?

23. Levels of Diction

24. Diction List the Clock Exercise
Presented with a vague or general word such as “house,” and you generate a list of specific words to replace that word
home, domicile, castle, residence, etc.

25. Diction
Funny

26. Diction
Sad

27. Diction
Happy

28. Diction
Upset

29. Writing Exercise Respond to the prompt Write a minimum of one page
DO NOT use the same word more than once in the entire page

30. Prompt
If you could become an expert in any profession, sport, or activity, what would you choose and why? OR
Write about jealousy. Tell a story about yourself; write about someone you are jealous of. Give jealousy a voice.
Explore the subject of illness. Select a moment of personal experience of being sick or being a caregiver.