“Foreshadowing: The technique of arranging events and information in a narrative in such a way that later events are prepared for or shadowed forth beforehand. A well-constructed novel, for instance, will suggest at the very beginning what the outcome may be; the end is contained in the beginning, and this gives structural and thematic unity.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“Nineteen Eighty-Four: A dystopian novel (1949) by George Orwell (1903-50). The book comprises a prophecy of the totalitarian future of mankind, portraying a society in which government propaganda and terrorism destroy human awareness of reality. It is generally thought that Orwell named the novel by reversing the last two figures of the year in which it was written, 1948, but an article by Sally Coniam in the Times Literary Supplement of 31 December 1999 proposed another theory. In 1934 Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, published a poem, ‘End of the Century 1984,’ in The Chronicle, the school magazine of Sunderland Church High School, where she had been a pupil in the 1920s. The poem was written to mark the school’s 50th anniversary, looking back then forward to the future and to the schools centenary in 1984. It seems likely that Orwell could have adopted the year accordingly, although for him it was a random date. Support for this lies in the poem’s mention of ‘telesalesmanship’ and ‘Telepathic Station 9,’ terms strangely modern for their time, which seem to prefigure Orwell’s own ‘Newspeak,’ teleprogrammes,’ and ‘telescreen.’
Following the publication of Orwell’s novel, the year 1984—until it came and went—was long regarded as apocalyptic, and as such was even entered in the Oxford English Dictionary. Appropriately enough, a film version entitled 1984 starring John Hurt and Richard Burton was released in 1984.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“Analogy (noun) A theoretical comparison or point-by-point correspondence between particulars of two different things, rather than a categorical likeness; resemblance in certain parallels; logical inference that if two things are alike in some respects, they will be alike in others. Adj. analogical, analogous; adv. analogously; n. analogousness; v. analogize.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“abstinence education: An educational program premised on the view that family life and sex education courses should teach students that sexual intercourse is inappropriate for young, unmarried people. Advocates say that adults must communicate an unambiguous that sex outside marriage is dangerous because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS. Critics of abstinence-only programs say the programs ignore the reality of widespread sexual activity among teenagers and deprive teens of information they need to protect themselves physically and emotionally.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“token economy: A behavior therapy procedure in which tokens (such as coins or poker chips) are given for desired behavior. The tokens can then be exchanged for privileges or treats.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Epithet (noun): A characterizing word or phrase, whether a singular descriptive adjective or special appellation for a person or thing; personally disparaging expression or label; slur. Adjective: epithetic, epithetical.
‘The British restrictions go back in part to a 1562 pronouncement of Commons that “no reviling or nipping word must be used.” Today’s guide prescribes rules of “good temper and moderation” for parliamentary debate and is an extension of Sir Thomas Erskine May’s 1844 treatise on parliamentary usage. The following epithets are expressly forbidden: lie, liar, villain, hypocrite, Pharisee, criminal, slanderer, traitor, hooligan, blackguard, murderer, cad, dog, swine, stool pigeon, bastard, jackass, puppy (or its extension, cheeky young pup), ruffian, rat, guttersnipe, member returned by the refuse of a large constituency. Permitted, on the other hand, are Parliamentary leper, purveyor of inexactitude, goose, and halfwit. Mario Pei, The Story of the English Language.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“John Buchan’s 1915 action novel has been filmed at regular intervals, following Alfred Hitchcock’s classic version with Robert Donat as buccaneering hero James Hannay. Buchan was famously inspired to write the novel by his daughter counting the stairs of the nursing home in Broadstairs, where he was convalescing. He turned the phrase into a key mystery of the novel, and Hannay’s eventual discovery of its meaning (it is the number of steps down a cliff path to a waiting yacht) helps keep Britain’s military secrets intact from the Germans.
Hitchcock significantly changed Buchan’s plot for his 1935 movie, writing a climactic music hall scene in which ‘Mr. Memory’ is asked ‘What are the 39 Steps?’ and is about to reveal the answer (‘The 39 Steps is an organization of spies collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of…’) when he is shot dead. An equally evocative twist was introduced in the 1978 film starring Robert Powell, where the thirty-nine steps turn out to be the number of stairs in the clock tower of Big Ben.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
“construction of meaning: The act of thinking about ideas, events, and texts and ascribing significance to them. Those who use this phrase typically assert that texts are cultural products that do not have a meaning in and of themselves; rather, the reader constructs their meaning, depending on his or her prior experience and knowledge, his or her emotional state at the time of the reading, and the political and social climate in which he or she lives. Or, put another way, the text has no necessary relationship to what its author intended. This popular literary theory encourages readers to avoid seeking the author’s purpose, since the author’s purpose is allegedly irrelevant; it also encourages readers to believe that a text says whatever a reader thinks it does, which is a highly narcissistic, solipsistic notion. Teachers who act on this belief encourage students to believe that what they feel about a text is more important than the text itself.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“strategy instruction: An important educational approach to working with students with a learning disability. It is based on an assumption that individuals with learning disabilities have significant deficits in the area of strategy development. These deficits may be the result of underlying language disabilities and skills deficits, or of problems in acquiring executive procedures and learning strategies.
In any case, a strategy instruction approach assumes that explicit instruction in learning strategies and executive procedures is a fundamental approach to helping students with learning disabilities achieve their potential.
Strategy instruction typically involves teaching procedures like SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review). Students learn to perform a sequence of specific activities geared toward a specific task and outcome, practice those procedures in a variety of contexts, and apply them independently.
Strategy instruction has proven effective, particularly in college situations where it allows students to meet course requirements independently.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Nominalization: 1. The process or result of forming a noun from a word belonging to another word class: writing/writings and shaving/shavings derived from write and shave and adding -ing; sanity derived from sane by the addition of the noun-forming suffix -ity; nominalization derived from nominalize by adding -ation. 2. The process or result of deriving a noun phrase by a transformation from a finite clause: their rejecting my complaint or their rejection of my complaint from They rejected my complaint.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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