English Short Answer Techniques

Background

• Gives context of location

• Can be out of focus, making main figure seem more important

 

Colour Symbolism:

• Red: anger and rage

• Blue: peace and tranquility

• Green: rejuvenation, regrowth, renewal

• Monochromatism, the lack of colour, no vitality

Foregrounding

Point of focus, command attention, make something stand out

Salience

Point of focus, commands attention, make something stand out, ie “salience draws readers eyes”

Vectors

• Visible and invisible lines, direct your eyes to something

• Allow viewers to embark on journey to most meaningful subject matter

Anaphora

• Words continuely repeated at beginning of sentence, used to emphases key ideas

Caesura

• Punctuation, leading to pause in middle, gives readers moment to pause

• Invites us into characters thoughts

Diacope

• Repitition of words with one in between, ie “to be or not to be”

• Emphasise something important

Enjambment

• Running from one line of poetry to another without pause

• Makes poem more fluid

• Can reflect speakers, craziness or incoherency

Epistrophe

• Phrase repeats at the end, ie “by the people, for the people”

• Emphasise something or create rhyme

Epizeuxis

• Reflects a speakers obsession with issue or topic

• A word is repeated immediately after, and without interuption

• ie ‘never, never, never give up’

Rhyme

• Creates cohesion and balance

• Connects and strengthen ideas

First Person Voice

• Invite readers into thoughts of characters

• Builds bonds

• Unreliable + retrospective narration

Metaphor

• Describing something as something else, but not comparing directly

• Extended metaphor, allow reader to understand a complex subject

Motif

• An important symbol, help mark change through story

Non Linear Structure

• Includes flashbacks and flashforwards, illuminate resonances or juxtapositions between different points

• Fluid boundary between past and present

Sensory Imagery

• Generate an authentic experience

• Visual

• Auditory

• Olfactory

• Tactile

Simile

• Likens seperate things togehter, creates bonds between unrelated things

Third Person Voice

• Place level of distance between reader and subject

• Represent with less subjectivity

• Omniscient third person narration, captures characters innermost feelings

Colloquial Language

• Ignite conversation with the reader

• Present ideas in texts as authentic and from personal experience

Intertextuality

• Refering to an existing text, able to demonstrate ideas as universal

• Add legitimancy to authors ideas, challening pre-existing notions

Jargon

• Legitimises an authors authority to comment on subject

• Indicate complexity of subject

• Contributes to logos, appeal to logical slide of readers mind

Listing

• Cumulative list to help embody breadth and diversity of subject

• Asyndeton (without conjunction), and polysyndeton (with conjunction), demonstrate being overwhelmed

Pathos

• Appeal to audience emotions, make care at deeper level

• ie “Look at these children suffering”

Ethos

• Characters experience and reputation, how does that effect things

Personal Anecdotes

• Used to hook at the start of nonfiction text, demonstrate authos’s engagement

Syntax

• Elongated syntax, such as long sentences reveal sense of confidence by the character

• Truncated syntax, suggest panic, excitment, shock or other abrupt emotion