Language Features and their effect
Language features and their effects
Use this checklist:
• to understand the ways in which writers gain impact in their writing
• to use various features in your own writing (creative and transactional, as well as for your oral presentations) in order to craft your writing and gain impact
• to help you achieve unit standards which require you to explore language and think critically about poetic / transactional / oral texts
Language feature Definition or explanation Example General effect
(you must decide on the specific effect relative to the text)
Rhyme The ends of words have the same sound. Usually at the ends of lines in poetry, but may be internal (within a line). That second day they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea.
Then Billy who was silly
Almost every other day… Makes the text memorable and can make poems amusing. Can tie together the middle and end of verses.
Rhythm A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. I went to town to buy a phone.
On the road there’s a girl with a bike. Makes the text as a whole more memorable and makes it flow better.
Alliteration Repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words – usually close in succession. Having heard the song, he sang it softly.
There came a ghost to Mary’s door
With many a grievous groan. Makes small sections of the text hang together and flow better. Draws our attention to this phrase. Creates a harder or softer mood in line with the meaning (hard consonants are b d k p q t, soft are f h j l m n r s v w y z, while c and g can be either hard or soft)
Assonance Vowel sounds are repeated at the beginning or middle of nearby words. Her early leaf’s a flower
But only so an hour.
There were excited bursts and swerves as the cattle stampeded. Makes small sections of the text hang together and flow better. Draws our attention to this phrase. Repetition of vowels generally gives a soft, quiet, calm mood unless the sounds are the short vowels, eg
Use this checklist:
• to understand the ways in which writers gain impact in their writing
• to use various features in your own writing (creative and transactional, as well as for your oral presentations) in order to craft your writing and gain impact
• to help you achieve unit standards which require you to explore language and think critically about poetic / transactional / oral texts
Language feature Definition or explanation Example General effect
(you must decide on the specific effect relative to the text)
Rhyme The ends of words have the same sound. Usually at the ends of lines in poetry, but may be internal (within a line). That second day they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea.
Then Billy who was silly
Almost every other day… Makes the text memorable and can make poems amusing. Can tie together the middle and end of verses.
Rhythm A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. I went to town to buy a phone.
On the road there’s a girl with a bike. Makes the text as a whole more memorable and makes it flow better.
Alliteration Repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words – usually close in succession. Having heard the song, he sang it softly.
There came a ghost to Mary’s door
With many a grievous groan. Makes small sections of the text hang together and flow better. Draws our attention to this phrase. Creates a harder or softer mood in line with the meaning (hard consonants are b d k p q t, soft are f h j l m n r s v w y z, while c and g can be either hard or soft)
Assonance Vowel sounds are repeated at the beginning or middle of nearby words. Her early leaf’s a flower
But only so an hour.
There were excited bursts and swerves as the cattle stampeded. Makes small sections of the text hang together and flow better. Draws our attention to this phrase. Repetition of vowels generally gives a soft, quiet, calm mood unless the sounds are the short vowels, eg