Language in Use 85-86
This unit is concerned with one of the basic problems facing the writer of
fiction: how to write dialogue so that his readers will accept it as an adequate
representation of natural speech. The aim is to develop an awareness that
what is put down on paper as dialogue is, in fact, a highly conventionalised
form of what people would actually say.
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[1] For this session, each member of the class needs to write an early passage for a short story or novel in which characters reveal themselves (for the first time) through dialogue. The characters should be strongly marked in some way like age, or nationality, or place of origin, or social status. The aim is to write the dialogue in such a way that these features are revealed solely through dialogue. Circulate the passages and explore with the class what they can deduce from the dialogue about the characters in the passage before them.
[2] In this session, the class return to the passages used in session
[1] and consider, in detail, how they tried to achieve the representation of
character that they wanted. The discussion should focus on such points as:
(a) attempts at representing dialect
(b) words and phrases indicating such things as age or social status
(c) the degree of formality used
(d) modifications in the grammar intended to suggest the incompleteness of speech
(e) use of representing pauses, hesitations, interruptions (f) use of repetitions
and colloquialisms.
[3] For this session, the class need a small collection of passages from novels and short stories in which character is reflected through dialogue. Circulate the passages and ask the class, working in small groups, to find out how the writers concerned handle the problems that they attempted for session [1]. The list of points in session [2] should be used as a guide. After the findings of the groups have been discussed, ask one or two of them to react out a passage to dialogue. Then consider how 'realistic' it sounds when read. Explore any discrepancy between the class's acceptance of the 'naturalness' of the dialogue on the page, and their reception of it when read out.