LL1 EXAMPREPARATIONL.O: To examine different approaches tostructuring exam questions.
WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR ANSWER overview (Content/Context) structure and form narrative stance grammar/ sentence structure lexis and imagery Phonology and sound patterning Orthography and punctuation Ideally you would write a paragraph comparing the texts use of features in each area.
OVERVIEW (CONTENT/CONTEXT) CONTENT; What are the texts about? CONTEXT; When were the texts written? How has this had an effect on their content? ATTITUDES; Does the writer have a particular attitude to the subject they are writing about? PURPOSE; Does the writer have a particular reason for writing this piece? TONE; What is the overall tone of the texts? THEMES; What are the overall themes of the text? How are the poems linked?
STRUCTURE AND FORM Structure and Form Terminology to use: Genre, dialogue, verse type e.g. sonnet (Petrarchan/Shakespearean), ballad, lyric, free verse, epistolary form, prose/verse Order of content; development of ideas/argument, chronology, juxtaposition of content, chapters, flashback, stanza structure (couplet; quatrain, sestet, octave, enjambment, caesura, volta) rhyme scheme, metre, scansion, enjambment, turn- taking, pausing, non-fluency, overlapping, latching. Questions to ask: What type of poem (or text) is this? How does the structure relate to the themes and ideas in the poem (or text)? How are the ideas in the poem (or text) organised?
NARRATIVE STANCETechnology: first person, second person address, third person. Narrative stance simply refers to: The sense we get from the writer that he is taking a particular view about something, from the way in which he tells his story. The techniques he uses to achieve that. It will be helpful for you to think about the use of register in conjunction with your thinking about stance. What information does the writer appear to be giving us/What is it that hes focusing on at this point? What parts of the "narrative" - the events/experiences the writer is sharing with us - seem more like opinions than facts? What are the words which clue us into that? What "stance" does he appear to be taking, from the evidence you have gathered?
GRAMMAR/ SENTENCE STRUCTURE Terminology to use: Sentence types Syntax (word order) (especially: parallelism, foregrounding; end focus; nonstandard features) Mood (Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative) Tense, Standard/Non-standard features/Dialect Ellipsis Questions to ask: What types of sentence structures are used? Are sentences used to create a particular effect? Is syntax used to create a particular effect?
LEXIS AND IMAGERY Terminology to use: Simile, metaphor, personif Noun: common/concrete; ication, pathetic proper; collective; fallacy, allusion, symbolism abstract, verb: dynamic; , euphemism, conceit. stative; auxiliary, adjective, adver b, pronoun, conjunction: subordinating, co- ordinating, preposition, art icle, lexical Questions to ask: sets, connotations, vocativ What types of words are used by the es, hyperbole, litotes, non- poet? standard Is the poem written in a particular style? lexis, archaisms, orthograp What literary devices have been used hy, double and why? negative, superlatives, com pound adjectives.
PHONOLOGY AND SOUND PATTERNING Phonology and Sound Patterning Terminology to use: Accent/Pronunciation e.g. elision, phonemes, plosives, fricatives, sibilants, IPA, Received Pronunciation, regional accents. Prosodic features (loudness, stress, pitch, intonation, etc.) Sound alliteration, assonance, rhyme (couplets, masculine, half-rhyme, eye rhyme), rhythm, iambic and trochaic feet, sound effects, onomatopoeia ) Questions to ask: Does the poem have a particular accent or dialect? Is sound used for effect? Are there any patterns in the sounds of the poem?
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PUNCTUATION Terminology to use: Typography –Font (Particulary in non-fiction texts) Punctuation Orthography Graphemes <> Pictorial elements, Use of colour Questions to ask: Are punctuation marks used in the poem to tell the reader how to interpret the text? Is it used for particular effect? What other features are there? e.g. graphemes
APPLYING THIS TO TEXTSText A: The War-Song of DinasVawr (1829)Thomas Love Peacock
OVERVIEW Thomas Love Peacock Born in 1785, in Dorset, at Weymouth. He was the son of a glass merchant, who died three years after he was born. He was raised at his grandfathers house in Chertsey, by his mother. His formal schooling ended early (he never attended a university) He read widely in five languages throughout his lifetime. When he could no longer support himself without working, he took a job in 1819 with the East India Company. The next year, he married Jane Gryffydh, daughter to a Welsh rector. Peacock mixed with many of his contemporary Romantic poets including Shelly. His best known work is his satiricle prose. His novels consist chiefly of witty conversation with sparse action. The characters were often burlesque, but subtle imitations of famous men of his day. In 1866, Peacock died in his library at Halliford-on- Thames, after refusing to leave his precious books to burn.
OVERVIEW (CONTENT/CONTEXT) Context - Poem appears within the comic novel The Misfortune of Elphin. Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was a friend of Shelley the poet. Married a welsh woman who Shelley called ‘the milk-white antelope of Snowden’. Content –The title with anglicised spelling of a fortress of bogus history invented by the poet in the comic novel The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829). A poem within the novel, ‘The War-Song of Dinas Vawr’, portrays the delight of Welshmen in stealing sheep; later set to music it has almost the status of a folksong. Although Peacock does not posit a Welsh original, it should be dinas fawr (mawr) [big fort]. Audience - Welsh community[on Nationalist web- site], male audience as it is a war chant. Purpose - It is a Welsh Gothic war chant about stealing cattle and land – meant to entertain – not a serious poem.
NOW USE THE COMPARATIVE FRAME The poem is text A. Read it through use the guidance on the slides to find a couple of features for each section.
HINTS Form - Written in ballad form with abab rhyme scheme Lexis/imagery - violent lexis (quelld, killd, fierce, struggle, conquer] Feudal landscape. Welsh iconography. Grammar - Welsh place name Dyfed (proper noun) used, superlative richest Phonology – pounding rhythm like a chant