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UNIT 33. THE DESCRIPTIVE TEXT. STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERISTICS, 5.…

- - - - There are 3 elements considered in the structure of a text:
        1) Obligatory elements: belong to the same type of text
        2) Optional elements: typical, but not always present in the same type of texts
        3) Interactive elements: optional or obligatory elements that occur more than once in the same text.
- - - - Purpose = to describe, represent or reveal a person/object, either abstract or concrete.
        
        Some overlap between description/definition AND description/explanation. A description includes definition but ALSO other info (eg father example). In a how to text (e.g. instruction manual) there’ll be an explanation about how object works + description of the parts. The explanation could be considered as a description of the process.
        
        MEDIUM: scientific writing, songs, brochures, newspapers, novels etc. Often as fragments subordinated to other types eg narrations (novels, short stories), dictionaries, tourist guides, textbooks, a conversation, adverts.
        Can be powerful & vivid so big presence in lit/poetry. Narration & description complement & combine in literary works. Brilliant narration dependent on some description.
- - - - Physical descriptions - aim to create mental picture of what it looks like
        
        Place descriptions - connected to feeling. Can also include an evaluation on the part of the speaker: preferences, likes & dislikes
        
        Person description - physical features AND behaviour, attitudes, possessions, personality….so a physical, moral or psychological description of the person.
  - - - Outdoor descriptions from front to back (like a walk around) or giving a bird's view
        
        Indoor descriptions - usually like a walking tour, often have point of reference: ”from where I was sitting I could see a fireplace”
        
        Experience - temporal structure - start from present & move backwards or viceversa.
        
        Feeling or emotion = more complex - must create the same mood or feeling that the writer wants to convey.
        
        Animal - general → specific OR be freer, with features that most attract our attention being highlighted. Eg - description of shark in Hemingway's “The Old Man and the Sea” - enormous size of jaws highlighted to contrast with its beauty.
  - - - Attempt the exclusion of emotional bias
        
        Main language function = referential. Communicate ideas, facts, opinions, info in a neutral way.
        
        Medium: technical & scientific texts (handbooks, textbooks & reference books)
        
        Lexicon = specific and concrete.
        
        Aim = give readers a clear & thorough vision of thing being described ∴ factual & impersonal.
        
        AKA denotative description.
    - - Describe an impression
        
        Main language function = expressive. Used to add author’s feelings & opinion towards the thing being described. Figurative language - similes, metaphors, personifications etc - make it vivid & alive (+ convincing?)
        
        AKA connotative description
  - - - Syntactic features: stative verbs, existential sentences, relative sentences, passives & comparisons. prepositional phrases as post modification to nouns, adverbial, appositions. + presence of adverbs of manner so reader conjures a visual picture of the action
        
        Lexis: Vividness is achieved a) by concrete (more common) or abstract (less common)nouns AND b) by action verbs - may imply something about nature of the person or item to be described (shouted, whispered..) As descriptive texts are often aimed at precision & clarity the words are also often precise.
        
        Literary writing characterised by connotative descriptions to transmit subjective sensations. Vivid verbs his deep voice hammered its way through the river or vivid nouns I could hear the loud snuffing of Old Dan...
        
        The kind of description results in stylistic variations: informal/formal, more/less precise lexical items, more/less syntactical care & use of idiomatic English, ironical style etc author can show certain disrespect to the object/person described) evocative style (generate an emotional response), persuasive style (aims to influence the receiver - eg in advertising) & a technical style like in scientific descriptions.
- - - - Can include social statuses, weather, historical period, & immediate surroundings.
        
        Can be real or fictional (or combo)
        
        Some v specific (Wulfhall in Wiltshire England, 1500), while others are descriptive & more general (a boat out on the ocean).
        
        Most lit. includes various settings, either as narrative progresses through time or to include different character’s points of view.
        
        Setting = extremely important aspect of almost every piece of fiction (often in poetry too).
        
        Sometimes it can act almost as a nonhuman character, affecting Cs in many different ways. Many plot lines are so tied to their settings they couldn't be put in other places, time periods, or socioeconomic environments. E.g.- Gaskell’s N&S.
      - EXAMPLES
        
        East of Eden by John Steinbeck: The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay.I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer—and what trees and seasons smelled like—how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odours is very rich.
        
        The Salinas Valley plays an important role. Novel starts with this description & valley later described in much greater length. Plot based on story of Adam & Eve in Garden of Eden, so v imp that setting echoed paradisiacal nature of the Garden of Eden.
        
        One reason for success of HP is depth & intricacy of Rowling’s settings. Stark contrasts - Dursley’s ordinary / oppressive suburban home vs Hogwarts (a character in itself)
        
        Charles Dickens was a master at mood-filled settings. Dickens’ London is almost a character in itself in Great Expectations (1861) and Nicholas Nickleby (1861).
        
        Setting also supplies symbols. Eg in LotR each geographical area has own landscape reflecting the character of its inhabitants. Shire = green, rolling hills, Mordor = sulphur pits and jagged mountain ranges.
  - - - Direct presentation (or characterization) -What the speaker / narrator directly says or thinks about a character. Reader ∴ told what the character is like. Eg "I present him to you: Ebenezer Scrooge....the most tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!"
        
        Indirect presentation = what C says/does. Reader then infers what C like (sometimes incorrect!) Like real world, as we can't get inside their heads
        
        Some ways (Direct or Indirect) in which a C Can Be Revealed: a) psychological description b) physical description c) What s/he says or d) HOW s/he says it. e) what s/he does. f) what others say about him/her. g) his or her environment. h). reaction to others or i) reaction to him/herself
  - - - Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
        MARC ANTONY: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
        I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
        Example of metonymy - part refers to whole - “ears” refers to the entirety of their attention. 1 example of how figurative language used to build emotional appeal & connect with audience
        
        The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe.
        Uses personification to describe the diabolical bird, which takes on emotions eg loneliness & concepts like a soul, as well as ability to speak. Bird ends up being a window into the narrator’s mind as he begins to go a bit insane. The personification shows that not all is right with the narrator’s world.
        
        Imagery can help create mood & is important to understand the symbolism.
        Eg MacBeth refers to 3 witches as the “thunder, lightning [and] rain” & the “fog & filthy air - creates mood of foreboding. Symbolises both the storm that is already taking place in Scotland & the one that is about to begin
  - - - BUT - many writers like unending descriptions, esp from 18th & 19th C, when descriptions of places = v imp. Descriptions CAN condition whole narrative & set off chain reactions - eg need to describe leads to intro of such & such character, to setting him in such and such situation etc.