more Carole Maso

Remember that we'll be meeting in Savery 138 again

Today we'll focus on language itself and how it can support or challenge our notions of fiction and of the world at large: diction, syntax, grammar, transparency vs translucency vs opaqueness, purple prose vs beige prose vs academic prose, and any other aspects of prose style you'd like to add.

Reread

Carole Maso, Break Every Rule Download Break Every Rule

Carole Maso, selection from Aureole Download selection from Aureole

Optional

In order to have a fruitful discussion, we need to use a shared vocabulary. If you fear you don't remember what the parts of speech are or the names of various types of sentences and clauses, please take a look at the refreshers below.

Although you may have previously been told that certain grammatical structures are always wrong, I use any grammatical terms descriptively, not proscriptively. Any type of grammatical or syntactical structure can be used intentionally and effectively!

For example, in class on April 8, we talked briefly about run-on sentences. In The Everyday Writer, Andrea A. Lunsford Links to an external site. defines these as sentences that "result from joining [at least] two independent clauses with no punctuation or connecting word between them." Related to the run-on, the comma splice "results from placing only a comma between [independent] clauses." Although Lunsford goes on to say that run-ons "must either be divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation" (emphasis mine), I would never say "must." I'll admit that I do view standard sentence structures as a sort of default, but I am completely open to--excited by, in fact--the use of other structures, like the run-on, depending on context, audience, and artistic intentions.

Parts of Speech Download Parts of Speech

Questions that adjectives and adverbs answer Download Questions that adjectives and adverbs answer

Types of Sentences (flow chart) Download Types of Sentences (flow chart)

Types of Sentences (identification) Download Types of Sentences (identification)

Structures of the Sentence Download Structures of the Sentence

Recommended

If you are intrigued by Maso's thoughts on language, I suspect some of her thinking grew out of the work of French feminists active in the 1980s, in particular the essays "The Laugh of the Medusa" by Hélène Cixous and "When Our Lips Speak Together" by Luce Irigaray.