Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity. It is one of four
rhetorical modes
The rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse) are a broad traditional classification of the major kinds of literary language, formal and academic writing (including Public speaking, speech-writing) by their rhetorical (persuasive) purpo ...
(also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with
exposition
Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to:
*Universal exposition or World's Fair
*Expository writing
*Exposition (narrative), background information in a story
* Exposition (music)
*Trade fair
* ''Exposition'' (album), the debut alb ...
,
argumentation
An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persu ...
, and
narration
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
.
Fiction writing
Fiction writing specifically has modes such as
action
Action may refer to:
* Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person
* Action principles the heart of fundamental physics
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video gam ...
, exposition, description,
dialogue
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...
, summary, and transition. Author
Peter Selgin refers to ''methods'', including action, dialogue, thoughts, summary,
scenes, and description.
Description is the mode for transmitting a mental image of the particulars of a story. Together with dialogue, narration, exposition, and summarization, it is one of the most widely recognized of the fiction-writing modes. As stated in ''Writing from A to Z'', edited by Kirk Polking, it is more than the amassing of details; it is bringing something to life by carefully choosing and arranging words and phrases to produce the desired effect.
Purple prose
A purple patch is an over-written passage in which the writer has strained too hard to achieve an impressive effect, by elaborate figures or other means. The phrase (
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
: "purpureus pannus") was first used by the Roman poet
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...
in his ''
Ars Poetica'' (c. 20
BC) to denote an irrelevant and excessively ornate passage; the sense of irrelevance is normally absent in modern usage, although such passages are usually incongruous. By extension, purple prose is lavishly figurative, rhythmic, or otherwise overwrought.
Philosophy
In philosophy, the
nature of description has been an important question since
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
's classical texts.
See also
*
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
*
Cliché
A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being b ...
*
Diction
Diction ( (nom. ), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a piece of writing such as a poem or story.Crannell (1997) ''Glossary'', p. 406 In its c ...
*
Grammatical modifier
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...
*
Grammatical voice
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...
*
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
s
*
Noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
s
*
Objectification
In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire, is a subset of objectification, as is self-objectification, th ...
*
Personification
Personification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person, often as an embodiment or incarnation. In the arts, many things are commonly personified, including: places, especially cities, National personification, countries, an ...
*
Referential density Referential density is a concept of ficto-narrative theory put forward by Thomas G. Pavel in his 1986 book, ''Fictional Worlds''. The concept refers to the referential relationship of a text to a fictional world, the ontology of which can be esta ...
*
Relevance
Relevance is the connection between topics that makes one useful for dealing with the other. Relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive science, logic, and library and information science. Epistemology studies it in gener ...
*
Rhetorical device
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device, persuasive device, or stylistic device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading them towards considering a topic from a perspective, ...
s
*
Simile
A simile () is a type of figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes are often contrasted with metaphors, where similes necessarily compare two things using words such as "like", "as", while metaphors often create an implicit c ...
*
Species description
A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it diff ...
*
Verisimilitude
In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be close ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Rozakis, Laurie (2003). ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, 2nd Edition''. Alpha.
*
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