Tone!!!

1. Tone!!!

2. What is it? Tone is the speaker or author’s attitude toward the subject or audience, which is revealed by the words he or she chooses. Ex. Verbal tones- “I love you!”, “Shut up.”, “You’re late.”, “I understand.”

3. Why is it so important to get? To misinterpret tone is to misinterpret meaning. Ex. If a teacher says, “Sure, go ahead and be tardy tomorrow, it’s no big deal.” If you don’t pick up the sarcasm or irony, what happens?

4. Tone When you read stories, you do not have the benefit of voice inflection to decipher tone. The only way to discern tone is carefully look at word choice, details, and imagery. To misinterpret tone is to miss irony, to miss meaning.

5. Understanding tone is written prose or poetry is much more difficult; there’s no voice inflection. A student must look at the following things to figure out the tone: • word choice (diction) • Details • Imagery • language

6. Connotations determine tone ____________________________________________________________ Light heavy Friend, chum, comrade Laugh, chuckle, snear, roar House, home, hut, shanty, mansion Fat, corpulent, rollypolly, robust, voluptuous King, tyrant, ruler, leader You come up with one Handout- Need to know words

7. Images determine tone • “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” (restrained) • “An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king. (somber, candid) • “He clasps the crag with crooked hands.” (dramatic) • “If I should die, think only this for me. That there’s a corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” (poignant, sentimental) • “If I must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot.” (allusive, provocative)

8. Details determine tone • Which details did he deliberately include? • Which details were deliberately left out? You and another student are in a fight. • You are the one who are hurt, how would you tell the story • You are the one who hurt the other student.

9. You Decide? • “Smiling, the boy fell dead.” • “You do me wrong to take me out of the grave Thou are a soul in bliss But I am bound upon a wheel of fire That mine own tears do scald like molten lead.”

10. Word choice determine tone • Consider language to be the entire body of words used in a text, not a sample. • For example what kind of language is used on a graduation invitation? • What kind of language is used in a research dissertation from St. Jude?

11. Sentence Structure Determines Tone • The families of Northy and Yates would like cordially to invite you to the illustrious ceremony celebrating the bond of love between our children Alexandria Louise and Edgar Franklin, III. • Come out the the house, y’all, for the weddin’.

12. There are certain words that you need to know • Handout on language

13. What is the writer’s attitude toward his audience?What is the writer’s attitude toward his subject? “I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large and stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it.) From The Hobbit by J.R. Tolkein

14. What’s Steinbeck’s tone toward the doctor? “In his chamber the doctor sat up in his high bed. He had on his dressing gown of red watered silk that had come from Paris, a little tight over the chest now if it was buttoned. On his lap was a silver tray with a silver chocolate pot and a tiny cup of eggshell china, so delicate that it looked silly when he lifted it with his big hand, lifted it with the tips of thumb and forefinger and spread the other three fingers wide to get them out of the way. His eyes rested in puffy little hammocks of flesh and his mouth drooped with discontent. He was growing very stout, and his voice was hoarse with the fat that pressed on his throat Beside him on a table was a small Oriental gong and a bowl of cigarettes. The furnishings of the room were heavy and dark and gloomy. The pictures were religious, even the large tinted photograph of his dead wife, who, if Masses willed and paid for out of her own estate could do it, was in Heaven. The doctor had once for a short time been a part of the great world and his whole subsequent life was a memory and longing for France.” From The Pearl by John Steinbeck

15. Shift in Tone • Good authors are rarely monotonous. • The tone shifts!! • The attitude toward one thing in the story is different than another. The attitude of how he feels at one time is different than at another. • Read the poem and let’s identify the shifts.