Descriptive discourse

Descriptive discourse

1. 1. Awareness of the communicative setting

   • Final goal: Creation of a mental image
     • - Sketching a situation - Portraying a person or group - Depicting a psychological condition

2. 10. Descriptive techniques III

3. 2. Suportive role of descriptive discourse

   • Main function: Auxiliary device

4. 9. Repetition as stylistic choice

5. 3. Objective and subjective description

   • Technical
     • Just expository description of facts
   • Artistical
     • writer’s and reader’s sensations are mixed up with the perception of facts.
       • *Full of life, strength and freshness = vividness (appeal to the senses)

6. 8. Descriptive techniques II

   • Technique of detailed accounts
   • Contrast as a descriptive technique (antonymy, oxymoron, paradox...)
   • Thematic preferences: key words become the centre

7. 5. Visual experience

   • Chronologies - Age - Period of time
   • Posographies: Representation of the physical aspects of a person
   • Etopeias: Representation of moral qualities
   • Portraits: Combination of posographies and etopeias
   • Topographies -Places - Metaphors

8. 7. Descriptive techniques I

   • Denotation and connotation of words
     • Literal meaning
     • Stylistic meaning
       • *Stylistics examines the techniques used to exploit the descriptive potential of language
     • Textual meaning

9. 4. Appeal to the senses

   • Synaesthesias: synthetical combination of sensations

10. 6. Appropiate use of words

    • Use of suitable linguistic devices: vividness
      • Details
      • Captivating images: "reification"
      • Condensed (attributes) and expanded adjectives (relative clauses)