What is the difference between diction and tone

Other than the choice of words a person or character uses, an overall attitude, pitch and volume also gives insight of the literary work or character. Tone shows the attitude of the writer towards the subject and the audience. Tone could be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, guilty, condescending, etc. Each piece of literature has at least one theme and how the theme is approached within the work is known as the tone.

Tone is created using diction, syntax, imagery, details and figurative language. Difference Between Diction and Tone. Key Difference: Diction has two different meanings. The accent, inflection, intonation, and speech-sound quality manifested by an individual speaker, usually judged in terms of prevailing standards of acceptability.

Example: Diction formal: I have not seen him. Vocal sound; the sound made by vibrating muscular bands in the larynx. In these languages the different tones of the same word changes the meaning.

These are called tonal languages. Some tonal languages are Somali and Japanese. Somali has just one tone per word. Similarly, Japanese is also considered a tonal language because of the low and high pitches or tones. In other modern languages, tones are used to emphasize a particular mood.

If someone is angry, sad, in pain, or happy, the tone of the person used is different. The same sentence spoken can mean something else when one is in pain or one is happy. Summary: Diction has two different uses. The distinctive style used by a writer or speaker is called diction. It includes vocabulary and the choice of words used to express emotions. The second use is the way the words are pronounced, the tone of the person, and the way he pauses while talking.

Tone, however, refers to the pitch of the person. It is the way in which the writer communicates the feelings or attitudes of a character. Some languages are called tonal languages which have different tones of the same word and it changes its meaning. However, diction never changes the meaning of the word no matter how it is spoken.

These terms can reveal a pattern in the speaker's thought processthe creepy speaker aims for his goal of love through murder, and had some conscience when it comes to morality, but who knows where it went? Using diction like that makes the speaker's personality more advanced. You could tell that 2 has some paradoxical meaning to it, which implies that there was probably a mental conflict within the speaker's head with regards to the murder.

Because of line 60, we might imply that God played a role in the speaker's mental conflictthere is a good chance that the speaker had at least considered that he would be punished if he murdered the lover, but at the same time, wanted to murder her to try to preserve her beauty. We can take this as a contrast between the speaker's tone and the poet's tone :.

Although the speaker ultimately decides upon murder and carries it out, Browning perhaps included the wariness of the speaker's actions, as well as the realization that God didn't "[say] a word" 60 , to impose his own message that discourages murdering your loved one.

In other words, for Porphyria's Lover , the poet's tone is quite opposite to the speaker's tone. Therefore, you have two different tones going on in the same poem. Why didn't he just say "I love you"? Well, it wouldn't have a very nuanced tone if he just said that. In this form, we know more about the speaker, and potentially even the poet's view on the speaker's topic. What is the difference between diction and tone? Truong-Son N.