Mar
4
Dialect
March 4, 2008 | Tagged character, characterization, dialect, mood, subtext, tone | Leave a Comment
Objectives:
- Know what dialect is
- Understand how dialect creates effects mood
Warm-up:
Pretend each person in the following situations asks you how you are feeling. Write a sentence or two, appropriate for the situation, answering the question.
- Your at a black-tie ball, and a waiter politely asks…
- Your at a concert, and that person you’ve noticed all night finally comes over to ask…
- Your walking down the street of an unfamiliar part of town, when you become aware of a slow persistent squeal come to a halt as a rusted van with “candy” spray painted on the side stops beside your path. As you walk nervously by, a greasy haired man rubs his hand across the scratchy stubble of his neck and chin as he asks…
- It’s your twenty-first birthday, and your best friend and you just celebrated by skydiving out of an airplane for the first time. When you land, your friend still euphoric from the adrenaline rush, comes in bounding skips to celebrate, yelling…
- Your worried father, who told you he’d rather you not go out on such a night, walks into your hospital room as you begin to come-out of anesthesia from the surgery resulting from a car accident. His first words, as he takes your hand in one of his and uses the other to brush your hair from in front of your eyes, are to ask…
Mini Lesson:
- Consider all the information carried in the way we say our words…not only our emotions, but possibly our region, our age, our education, our gender and so much more.
- Sometimes we even change these aspects of our voice or vocabulary to fit-in or to keep from drawing attention to us.
- Think about all the baggage we carry in our dialect…and how much an author can communicate about a character just by giving him/her a specific dialect!
- Rather than tell us about a character’s background, a good author can lead us to assume so much about a character…assumptions that can quickly develop a character, or twist the plot.
Listen to this 1947 song called Cigaretes & Whusky by The Sons of the Pioneers. Here’s the lyrics.
Guiding Questions:
- How is dialect used in the song?
- What purpose might the author be intending?
Discussion
Application: (according to your classroom/curricular needs)
As always, please suggest:
- other songs that would work well
- modifications to the lesson
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