Comprehensive Study Notes on Close Reading, Diction, Syntax, and The Decline of Grammar

Principles of Close Reading and Talking with the Text

• Active Reading:

  • Close reading requires active engagement between the reader and the text to find deeper meaning.

  • Re-reading is just the first step.

  • True close reading means "talking back" to the text by asking questions and making comments as you read.

• Asking Questions (Interrogating the Text):

  • Ask targeted questions about why the writer chose specific words (diction) or sentence structures (syntax).

  • You do not need immediate answers; asking questions itself helps you understand the author's choices.

Debate on Linguistic Correctness: Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism

• Geoffrey Nunberg's "The Decline of Grammar":

  • Published in the Atlantic Monthly in $1983$.

  • Written by linguist Geoffrey Nunberg.

  • Explores the conflict between two views on language:

  • Prescriptivists: Believe strict, fixed rules determine correct grammar.

  • Descriptivists: Believe correct grammar changes based on common everyday usage.

• Analyzing Complaints About Language Decay:

  • Sunday Essay Complaints: Arguments about language getting worse rely on weak, anecdotal evidence.

  • Sources of Examples: Complaints rarely target famous novels or plays. Instead, they complain about ads, scholarly papers, and college memos.

  • Historical Comparison: Ads and memos from the past are usually forgotten. We judge past language based only on the best literature, while forgetting past bad writing.

  • Baseball Analogy: Claiming overall language decay without hard proof is like saying modern sports stars like Hank Aaron and Pete Rose are worse than older legends like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

• Language Evolution and Change:

  • Linguistic Neutrality: Most linguists agree that language change is neither progress nor decay.

  • Historical Shifts: Language changes naturally over time like continental drift:

  • Indo-European became Germanic.

  • Germanic became Anglo-Saxon.

  • Anglo-Saxon became the English of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Henry James.

  • Structural Stability: Major language structures resist fast changes; even the Norman invasion changed core English structure very little.

  • Landscape Gardener Analogy: Grammarians trying to stop language change are like gardeners trying to stop Alaska from drifting into Asia.

• Short-Term Concerns vs. Long-Term Realities:

  • Survival of English: English will survive daily use and creative writing despite complaints.

  • Critique of Detachment: Relying only on long-term survival ignores daily communication needs (citing economist John Maynard Keynes).

  • Verbs from Nouns: Turning nouns into verbs (like gift or impact) faces resistance today, just as using contact as a verb was once criticized.

  • Human Action: Citing Ignazio Silone: human dignity comes from resisting historical trends rather than accepting them passively.

• The Homiletic Tradition:

  • Linguistic Manners: Good speech and writing reflect good social manners, helping personal self-improvement.

  • Moral View of Language: Since the eighteenth century, writers (like Addison, Swift, Johnson, Arnold, James, Shaw, Mencken, and Orwell) have treated good prose as a moral responsibility.

Rhetorical Analysis and Questioning Frameworks

• Rhetorical Questions in Nunberg's Essay:

  • Allusion to George Orwell: Opens with a reference to Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" (p. $1033$), targeting an educated audience.

  • Sentence Structure: Uses direct questions and em-dash phrases to clarify the scope.

  • Latin Phrases: Includes extra judicium to establish an academic tone.

  • Sports Analogy: Uses famous baseball players to make abstract ideas easier to understand.

  • Perspective: Uses an "Olympian point of view" for a broad historical perspective.

  • Literary References: Mentions classic writers to ground the argument in literary history.

• Diction Analysis Categories:

  • Word Choice: Notice specific parts of speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives).

  • Abstraction Level: Look at abstract vs. concrete words.

  • Register and Tone: Identify formal, informal, colloquial, or slang language.

  • Figurative Language: Identify metaphors, similes, personification, and hyperbole.

  • Connotation: Look for words with strong emotional weight.

• Syntax Analysis Categories:

  • Word Order: Standard (subject-verb-object) vs. inverted order.

  • Sentence Types:

  • Periodic Sentences: Build up to the main point at the end.

  • Cumulative Sentences: Start with the main idea and add details after.

  • Complexity: Use of simple, compound, and complex sentences.

  • Pacing: How fast or slow details are revealed to build tension.

• Textual Evidence:

  • All claims about diction and syntax must be supported with specific evidence from the text.