Making guesses about the author’s tone and intention

Produced by socially situated writers, texts induce meanings, which come about through the complex interaction between the author’s intention and the reader’s ability to decode it. In most cases, users of language bring with them different dispositions toward language; it follows that the text you read is written from a particular point of view, which shapes or influences possible responses. Sometimes the narrator’s opinion will be made clear in a direct address to the reader with an objective and omniscient voice; sometimes it will emerge through the tone of the narrative, its attitude to the given subject (tone can be viewed as an expression of attitude). In any case, the key items in the making of tone are the following: who it is who tells the story, from what perspective, with what sense of distance orcloseness, with what possibilities of knowledge, and with what interest.

Writers purposefully use tone to express the message or the point of the excerpt. It suffices to look at the sentence structure (syntax) and word choice (diction) in order to figure out whether the passage is neutral (objective, explanatory, detached) or opinionated and emotional (subjective). If the text is clearly subjective, it is possible to decide if the author is positive (approving, sympathetic) about the subject matter or negative (disapproving) about it. The author’s tone tends to be biased in many ways; it suggests his predisposition to influence the reader through emotional appeal and\or slanted presentation material. Biasmay also be revealed through highly emotional statements, name-calling, stereotyping or over generalization, faulty assumption based on weak or inaccurate information, and contradiction.

The arrangement of the textual segments in the written text is determined by the author’s intention seen as a specific junction of the writer’s psychological, linguistic and stylistic potentials, based on a direct rendering or veiled address to the reader. This kind of address is a synthesized product of the author’s attitude to the described events and immediate inclusion of the reader into the presented situation, exerting most effective emotional influence on the reader’s logical and sensuous potentials.

Follow up tasks:

1. How do the author’s intention and the reader’s ability to decode interrelate?

2. How can the tone be revealed in a text?

3. Expand on the author’s tone being neutral, opinionated, emotional; positive, negative, biased.

4. In what way are the reader’s logical and emotional responses triggered?

Reading strategies:

- Look at the title (headings and subheadings) and make sure that you see the purpose of the text.

- Make guesses to work out intention of the writer.

- Locate particular factual information.

- Locate opinionated information.

- Focus on the words that express the author’s idea explicitly or implicitly.

- Decide whether the information contained is biased or unbiased.

- Find proper clues in the first and last paragraphs to support your guesses about the author’s intention.

- Remember that it is important to figure out the author’s tone so as to understand subtleties of meaning.

- Keep in mind the writer may not mean you take all the words literally, but may be using the figuratively.

Study skills:

- identify explicit conclusions;

- trace the development of argument for the issue presented;

- recognize the attitudes, opinions and emotions of the writer;

- understand structural and lexical appropriacy in terms of genre and register;

- identify biased language.

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