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 Ling 131: Language & Style
 

 Topic 8 - Discourse structure and point of view > Linguistic indicators of point of view > Task F > Our answer

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Session Overview
Discourse structure and point of view
Discourse structure of 1st and 3rd person novels
Being the author!
Different kinds of point of view
Linguistic indicators of point of view
Ideological viewpoint
Point of view in a more extended example
Point of view checksheet
Topic 8 'tool' summary
 
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Linguistic indicators of point of view

Our answer to task F

'Her head ached' and 'she stared' are structures with perception verbs (feeling and sight perception) of which Ida, or a part of her is subject. So effectively we are being given her perceptions. In 'for a moment she didn't know where she was' the 3rd-person narrator is not just telling us a fact. We are given a representation of her cognitive state. This becomes even clearer with 'It came slowly back to her', where the proximal spatial deictic verb 'come' is being used metaphorically to represent Ida's memory of the night before returning to her. The fact that Ida is subject to verbs of perception and cognition quickly establishes her viewpoint, and the fact that we also see what she sees and understand what she thinks effectively helps us to sympathise with her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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