A Stylistic Analysis of What Is Poverty

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A Stylistic Analysis of What Is Poverty

作者：吴丽娟

来源：《新教育时代》2015年第14期

摘要：The paper examines the stylistic features of the passage What Is Poverty in the points of diction， syntax and rhetorical devices to reach the conclusion that the appropriate style serves the successful expression of the theme.

关键词：stylistics What Is Poverty diction； syntax rhetorical devices

1.Introduction

The essay What Is Poverty talks about what life is like without money from a poor mother‘s perspective， who has three children. The whole essay is full of common words and simple short sentences （loose sentences），which imply the poor education ―I‖ have received. Both the first person and the second person are used. The first person is used when talking about the misery poverty has brought to ―me‖， and the second person （including imperative sentences） to pull the audience close to the miserable life ―I‖ am experiencing so that the audiences are able to have sympathy with

―me‖. The main stylistic features will be analyzed in terms of diction （choice of words）， syntax （choice of sentences） and rhetoric （figures of speech）.

2.Stylistic Analysis of the Passage

2.1 Diction

The diction of this passage is the use of common and colloquial words in English. For example，in the first paragraph， such words like dirty， smelly， stench， and in the second paragraph，privy， illness-stained， long-cooked etc. Numerous words of this category are used. The reasons why the authors use these words are： first，to imply the poor education ―I‖ have received； the other is to indicate ―my‖ status – a poor mother who is full of anger and complaint –so that from such a point of view，the meaning of poverty is more vivid and convincing because ―I‖ am suffering fro m this kind of miserable life by ―myself‖.

2.2Syntax

The syntax is the use of simple and short sentences （loose sentences）. For instance， in 14 paragraphs （there are 15 paragraphs in the whole passage.） there is a short and simple sentence as the topic sentence to summarize the central idea of the paragraph. Another feature of syntax is the use of imperative sentences. As is the case in the first paragraph：―Listen to me.‖ ―Listen without pity.‖ ―Listen with understanding.‖ There are four se ntences of this kind out of the total of 9. Thus， in this way we can easily feel that ―I‖ in the passage am talking face to face with the readers so that it can