The Language of Fiction: An Introduction to Stylistics
List all of the noun phrases in the passage, including the pronouns. After you have studied the list write an essay on how the noun phrases contribute to the text. How do they relate to what is being described in the extract?
In Lindsey Davis’s Ode to a Banker, there are many uses of the noun phrase. The noun phrase is a phrase that contains a noun as well as other constituents (Yule 2010, p291). The noun can stand on its own as the noun phrase or include the use of articles and modifiers to enhance its effect on the reader. The following essay will look at how, through the use of noun phrases, Davis creates a sense of instability and allows her audience to experience it on a personal level through her characterisation of the narrator.
The key element that allows Davis to personally reach her audience is her extensive use of 1st and 3rd person personal pronouns. Personal pronouns are substitutes for nouns- their forms depend on their role in a sentence (Carter et al 2001, p187). Davis’s use of them allows for differentiation between speakers and listeners (Crystal 1996, p148); they allow us to decipher relationships- in the case of this extract whilst we are the listeners we are also the speaker. The extract opens with the 3rd person personal pronoun they. This immediately evokes the question within Davis’s audience of “who is this person or group of people”. We are invited to assume that they are outsiders; the enemy, and identify ourselves with the narrator, as the narrator continues on to use the 1st person personal pronoun my in her narration of events. This creates hostility straight away from us as readers towards the narrator’s “them”. Davis varies her use of both the 1st and 3rd person personal pronouns in her text. These variants include: I, me, my, they, he, his, him, them, their, these and those. She also uses the indefinite pronouns: anyone, someone and somebody- which further adds to the arising tension between the narrator (the audience) and the
In Lindsey Davis’s Ode to a Banker, there are many uses of the noun phrase. The noun phrase is a phrase that contains a noun as well as other constituents (Yule 2010, p291). The noun can stand on its own as the noun phrase or include the use of articles and modifiers to enhance its effect on the reader. The following essay will look at how, through the use of noun phrases, Davis creates a sense of instability and allows her audience to experience it on a personal level through her characterisation of the narrator.
The key element that allows Davis to personally reach her audience is her extensive use of 1st and 3rd person personal pronouns. Personal pronouns are substitutes for nouns- their forms depend on their role in a sentence (Carter et al 2001, p187). Davis’s use of them allows for differentiation between speakers and listeners (Crystal 1996, p148); they allow us to decipher relationships- in the case of this extract whilst we are the listeners we are also the speaker. The extract opens with the 3rd person personal pronoun they. This immediately evokes the question within Davis’s audience of “who is this person or group of people”. We are invited to assume that they are outsiders; the enemy, and identify ourselves with the narrator, as the narrator continues on to use the 1st person personal pronoun my in her narration of events. This creates hostility straight away from us as readers towards the narrator’s “them”. Davis varies her use of both the 1st and 3rd person personal pronouns in her text. These variants include: I, me, my, they, he, his, him, them, their, these and those. She also uses the indefinite pronouns: anyone, someone and somebody- which further adds to the arising tension between the narrator (the audience) and the