Syntactic Devices.ppt

Building sentences for rhetorical effect Syntax句法 ?(?s?nt?ks) the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences?in a language. Simply put, syntax is the way sentences and phrases are built. Syntactic devices are a kind of rhetorical device where sentence structure is manipulated操作 to create a certain effect on the reader. For example, this could mean altering the length, complexity, or looseness of a sentence. Short sentences usually make language sound choppy and awkward. “I live in an apartment. It is nice there. There are two bedrooms. I live alone.” Normally we would want to make these short, simple sentences into one longer one. “I live alone in a nice two-bedroom apartment.” However, short sentences can sometimes be used by writers to express a certain mood or sense of timing. “Dick Boulton looked at the Doctor. Dick was a big man. He knew how big a man he was. He liked to get into fights. He was happy.” –Hemmingway “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife” Here the short sentences give a sense of the power and simplicity 朴素of the character. “She sat in the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.” –Joyce “Eveline” Here the short 3 word sentence following the two long ones emphasizes the extreme tiredness of this character. Legal, scientific, or government documents tend to have more long sentences than other types of writing. These types of documents need to be extremely clear and specific, not leaving any room for misunderstanding. In literary writing, long sentences can be used to describe actions occurring in quick succession, to describe more than one thing happening at the same time, or to express a close cause and effect relationship. “The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in horse’