Iain Crichton Smith's style of writing is very descriptive. He's taken great
care over his choice of words, and this gives his writing clarity. He uses
adjectives and adverbs to provide specific details, and figures of speech
to create vivid imagery. When you're writing about the way language is used
in the book, you'll have to address these aspects of the author's style
and the effect they have. To help you feel more confident talking and writing
about language, try the following exercise.
Read the following extract from Chapter 9. Then click on the underlined
parts of the text to examine the use of language more closely. If you don't
understand some of the terms used, remember you can look them up in the
toolbox.
Seen
from above she was a diminutive figure in black plodding
steadily across the moor alive with yellow and wine-red, her shoes
sinking into the moist earth. To the south of her there rose gently
lazy smoke from the village, a thin blue into a bluer sky. In the distance
she could hear someone hammering, perhaps repairing a fence. But she
was alone on the moor. Not quite alone, for she came suddenly upon an
object which at first she took to be a piece of dirty cloth. As she
approached it she could hear a
thick buzzing sound which puzzled her, a buzzing as
of a great number of flies, almost like
the sound of a sleepy saw sawing fresh wood. When she came to the
object she looked down and almost turned away with disgust and sickness.
It was the carcass of a thin sheep, soiled white with a black head,
one of the Highland sheep of which people owned one or two. But nevertheless
she
stayed there for a while, fascinated with feelings of revulsion and
pity. The sheep stared up at her, both its sockets empty and yet
liquid
as if with tears. The crows could have done that and indeed as she
looked she saw a crow some yards off, staring at her stonily with fixed
eyes as if there was real intelligence behind them. There was a gash
in the sheep's side at which the flies were buzzing in
a domestic sort of way. In fact it all looked very homely. The buzzing
reminded her of the humming of Sunday pots on boil.
When you've
finished this section you can choose to study more about language
or use the navigation bar below to select another area. |
 |
