Professional Documents
Culture Documents
vs.
Example of Active Diction from Hard Times, by Example of Passive Diction from To Kill a
Charles Dickens: “Mr. Gradgrind walked Mocking Bird by Harper Lee: “John Hale
homeward from the school in a state of Finch was ten years younger than my
considerable satisfaction”(Pg 8). father” (Pg 5).
Concrete vs. Abstract
Tangible, Specific vs. Conceptual Philosophical
Example of Concrete Diction from Jane Example of Abstract Diction from Picture
Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: “Lady Lynn Perfect, by Jodi Piccoult: “It was the
was a large and stout personage of undisguised emotion in his eyes that
forty: very erect, very haughty-looking, made Cassie put her fear aside” (Pg
richly dressed in a satin robe of 341).
changeful sheen” (Pg 185).
Hyperbole vs. Understated
• “Bloody hell!”
~Ronald Weasley
From Harry Potter and
the Goblet of Fire by
J.K. Rowling
(statement indigenous
to the English)
Jargon
• Language specific to a field or position