Lesson: 19/11/2010

Analysing the Language and Style of ‘Wuthering Heights’:


This lesson, our starter encouraged us to think about the language features that we could use in an essay about ‘Wuthering Heights.’ All of the ideas we came up with as a class were big, grand, “Hollywood features” (to quote Mr Sadgrove) – features that always stand out and are generally the first things we write about in an essay.
We chose things like:
• Josephs Yorkshire dialect
• Names (Heath – cliff vs. Lock – wood)
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Semantic fields/lexical clusters

We were then given a grid of linguistic features that are much more hidden within the text, and are perhaps not noticed by us at first glance, but still have a huge impact on the way we read the novel. We also looked at a passage from the novel and tried to identify some of the features used in it.

Here are some examples of the features we looked at in detail:
• Pronoun use --> Use of different types of pronouns (e.g. personal, inclusive, removed) have a different effect on our reading and interpretation of the characters and text as a whole – For example; when Nelly is talking about Catherine she repeatedly uses “I” and “She” to separate both of them and remind us that she is the narrator.
• Dynamic verbs --> These are verbs that express action. They give the text a more energetic and realistic/tangible effect. For example; Cathy’s actions are often described using dynamic verbs such as “bounding” which shows she is at the centre of the action and is an energetic character, whilst Nelly describes herself using verbs like “watching” and “listening” which shows that she takes a step back from the action.
• Modification --> This is when adjectives, adverbs or verbs are added before or after a noun to make the text richer – it used for descriptive passages or phrases. For example; “sweet, warm, sunshine”
• Nouns --> Nouns used on their own (without modification) tend to make the text seem more real and less exaggerated.
• Sentence length --> Writers will use a combination of short, simple sentences and long, complex sentences. Sentences of a shorter length are commonly used to deliver powerful messages or ideas or increase the pace of the text whilst sentences of a longer length are good for descriptions and can reflect a characters disorganised state of mind (e.g. Lockwood and Heathcliff)
• Semantic fields --> We may find groups of words with similar meanings or connotations in a certain passage – Remember the exercise we did in a previous lesson to compare the semantic fields in the descriptions of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
• Figurative Language --> This includes the use of metaphors, similes and personification which can make the text richer, poetic and romantic. They help the writer to get across a picture of how they imagine the character being or acting. They also exaggerate important characteristics in a character or place.
• Dialogue V narration --> Dialogue (reported conversation/speech) can make a text seem more realistic and also introduce the views or different characters apart from the narrator and the course of the narration.


To consolidate all of what we had learnt about language features we then split into groups/pairs to look at separate extracts from ‘Wuthering Heights’ and try to find language feature within these and the effect they have.


Homework:

“The language and style of ‘Wuthering Heights’ makes it a Gothic novel” Discuss this view...