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A Streetcar Named Desire literary techniques and quotes
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A list of literary techniques; their definitions and example quotes from A Streetcar Named Desire
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A Streetcar Named Desire FrameworkLexical framework:
- Terms of address = A word/phrase used to address/refer to someone/something without
using his, her, or its name.1 Could be formal (Doctor, The Honorable, His Excellence) or
informal (honey, dear, you). Formal terms of address are often used to recognize
academic/professional accomplishments, while informal terms of address are often used
to show affection2 “Baby!” / “honey?” / “Precious lamb!”
- Sociolect = Dialect of particular social class. A form of language (non-standard dialect,
restricted register) or set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, a profession,
an age group or other social group.3 “Naw! We gotta have odds!” / “‘cause nothing’s
left here.” / “One-eyed jacks are wild.”
- Idiolect = Speech habits peculiar to a particular person. A person’s specific, unique way
of speaking.4 “ge th’ew at ‘er?” / “sight of the nigger th’owing the corn”
- Register = Often refers to the degree of formality of language, but in a more general
sense it means the language used by a group of people who share similar
work/interests, such as doctors/lawyers.5 “Just water, baby, to chase it!” / “Anything
wild this deal?”
Grammatical framework:
- Choice of word class: adjectives (word naming an attribute to a noun) “rickety” /
“raffish” / “lurid”; adverbs (word/phrase that modifies/qualifies an adjective, verb/ other
adverb/word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause,
degree) “quaintly” / “lordly” / “sharply” ; pronouns (word that functions as a noun
phrase used by itself and refers either to the participants in the discourse or to someone
or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse) and verbs (word used to describe
an action, state, or occurrence, & forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence).
“Intermingling” / “bathing” / “tosses”
- Sentence length & construction in the dialogue = lists (look at the order in which the
points are listed, if they lead up to the most important item at the end, there’s a build up
to a climax) “a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and hat”; short
sentences (may be used to build up tension) “She’s terribly upset.”; longer sentences
(explanation) or exclamation (indicates a strong emotional reaction) “You can’t beat a
woman an’ then cell ‘er back!”. Syntax is the ‘normal’ word order of a sentence: subject >
verb > object. Inversion is the reverse of syntax: object > verb > subject. It is often used
in order to place emphasis on a particular word. Minor sentence is an incomplete
sentence that still makes sense. “You, Mitch?” It might be a word/phrase used as a
sentence but which doesn’t have all the grammatical parts of a sentence. It might be
used informally, to reflect speech, to suggest urgency, emotion/tension. Juxtaposition
(stresses contrast between ideas) and ellipsis (indicate something more could be
added).6
1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/term_of_address
2 https://www.thoughtco.com/term-of-address-1692533
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolect
4 https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/idiolect
5 https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/register
6 https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zs9gtyc/revision/2
, - Tense the characters speak in = Verb tenses tell us how an action relates to the flow of
time. There are three main verb tenses in English: present, past and future. The present,
past and future tenses are divided into four aspects: the simple, progressive, perfect and
perfect progressive.7 “I’ve been half crazy, Stella!” / “making flying visits here and
there.”
Speech framework:
- Non-fluency features = Including false starts (occur when an utterance is started one
way, is unfinished & then completely abandoned for another structure) “It’s just - well -”,
fillers (used to give a speaker thinking time)” “Well,” , hesitation (occurs in the middle of
a structure where no punctuation would occur) “I - haven’t investigated.”, repetition
(unintentional and involves the repetition of identical words and structures next to each
other) “And so I told him, I said to him,” and self corrections/repairs (when speaker
realises they have made a mistake and correct it). “Stella DuBois. I mean - Mrs Stanley
Kowalski.” 89 Normal non-fluency features are common, clearly distinguishing between
written and spoken language. The more formal the tenor, the less likely they are to be
examples of hesitancy and slips of the tongue, etc. 10
- Incomplete utterances = left to dangle in the air - e.g. “...so I didn’t...it was just that…” -
these are a feature of spoken interaction because some things just don’t have to be said,
either because of pre-existing knowledge/ paralinguistic aspects of the interaction11 “I
don’t see what it -”
- Unintentional repetition = Repetition is an instance of using a word, phrase or clause
more than once in a short passage - dwelling on a point. Needless/unintentional
repetition is a kind of clutter that may distract or bore the listener.12 Perseveration is
common - it occurs when an individual repeats an utterance/gesture in the absence of a
stimulus, or fails to recognise that one has already produced an utterance/gesture.13
“What does - what does he do?”
- False starts = Act of beginning an utterance & subsequently aborting it prior to
completion. An idea or train of thought. Aren’t as common as repetitions/corrections.
“I’ve got to write it down first - the message, I mean…” They occur most often when a
conversation becomes intense, with many speakers speaking at once, or after a speaker
is interrupted. They can also occur when a speaker becomes excited and begins to skip
from one topic to another.14
- Self repairs = In conversation analysis, repair is the process by which a speaker
recognises a speech error and repeats what has been said with some sort of correction.
A linguistic repair may be marked by a hesitation and an editing term (such as, “I mean”)
and is sometimes regarded as a type of dysfluency.15 “People don’t see you - men don’t”
7 https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/introduction-to-verb-tenses-everyday-grammar/3123576.html
8 https://study.com/academy/lesson/spoken-language-features-types-examples.html
9 https://getrevising.co.uk/diagrams/non_fluency_features
10 https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/spoken-language-%E2%80%93-technical-terms-defined/
11 https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/spoken-language-%E2%80%93-technical-terms-defined/
12 https://www.thoughtco.com/repetition-language-and-rhetoric-1691887
13 https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/40366/1/pdfcorrectedversionofthesis.pdf
14 https://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/Verbmobil/trllex_e_html/projects/false_start.html
15 https://www.thoughtco.com/repair-speech-1692044
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