Topic 10 (session A) - Prose analysis > Bilgewater: Foregrounding > Task D > Our answer

Bilgewater: Foregrounded features

Task D - our answer

The word 'air' here clearly means 'outward appearance' or 'manner'. But this word is being used in a way which is semantically deviant, because it is related to an inanimate physical object, a decanter, rather than to people or abstractions related to people (fro example, we talk normally of people having 'airs and graces' or having 'a refined air'; and we talk normally of people having 'an air of authority'). So the decanter is being personified here, which foregrounds an 'unnecessary' detail in the scene, helping to promote the idea we have already discussed - that the candidate is hyper-aware of her surroundings.

The fact that the decanter's air is neglected, which suggests a lack of care for material things which is part of the stereotype that we have for academics, and which is reinforced by the reference to the fact that the interviewers in the second interview are 'all in old clothes' (i.e. not on their 'best behaviour sartorially, even though they are conducting a formal interview), a phrase we have already looked at in relation to connotation when we looked at some of the lexical aspects of the passage.

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