Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

Activity

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POINT OF VIEW
Because of its length and the breadth of its coverage, Mick Short’s reading in D5
‘doubles up’ as a useful follow-up reading for this section. As well as addressing the
‘Issues to consider’ section posted there, it is also worth following up the second of
the three exercises suggested for Deirdre Burton’s reading in the previous unit. For
example, do your rewrites of 
The Bell Jar
passage make use of any of the modal
frameworks suggested in C7? And to what extent is it possible to make a connection
between patterns of transitivity and patterns of modality in narrative fiction?
With reference to this thread on point of view, three types of point of view modal-
ities were proposed. In terms of your own reading experience, do you think three
categories are enough? Can you think of a genre of writing which is marked by a
modal profile that is different from the three types proposed here?
Finally, what about the modality of ‘second person’ narratives, as embodied in
Italo Calvino’s postmodern novel 
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
(1981) or Ray
Bradbury’s science fiction short story ‘The Night’ (1948)? What is there about fiction
written in the second person that is different from both first and third person 
narratives? And how can we go about accommodating such fiction in a model of
narrative style?
SPEECH AND THOUGHT PRESENTATION
Key to activities in unit A8
Here are the suggested solutions to the practice examples posted in unit A8:
a
‘I know this trick of yours!’ (FDS)
I know this trick of yours! (FDS – freest form)
She said that she knew that trick of his. (IS)
She knew that trick of his! (FIS)
She spoke of his trickery. (NRS)
b
‘Can you get here next week?’ (FDS)
Can you get here next week? (FDS – freest form)
He asked if she could get there the following week. (IS)
Could she get there the following week? (FIS)
He enquired about her plans for the next week (NRS)
c
‘Why isn’t John here?’ (FDT)
Why isn’t John here? (FDT – freest form).
She asked herself why John wasn’t there. (IT)
Why wasn’t John there? (FIT)
She pondered John’s absence. (NRT)
11
111
11
111
S P E E C H A N D T H O U G H T P R E S E N T A T I O N
195
D7
D8