Discussing fine-grained meaning in a passage
• For either option below: choose a passage of between 100 and 200 words from some news story or novel. – Please do not choose a poem or a song! – The 200 words do not count against your 3 page max – Do include the passage at or near the beginning of your homework – Please make sure you do not choose the same passage as anyone else, as far as you are aware
Your goal is to evaluate the balance between literal and non-literal meaning in this passage.
1. Identify two places in that passage in which the meaning is not literal. • Say what the literal meaning is. • Comment on any details in the context or in the text that help you decide that the intended meaning is not literal • Explain what the range of possible non-literal meanings is. – If you think the example is metaphorical, explain how the metaphor corresponds to the situation being described in the passage – Are there any alternative interpretations? If so, what leads you to favor one interpretation over the others? 2. Speculate on why the author may have chosen to use a non-literal expression. Is it to avoid repetition, to be entertaining, to enhance deniability, to add additional extra information by means of metaphorical overloading, or for some other reason, or all of these? • Comment on any unintended associations that the non-literal expression might create. • What is the rhetorical effect of the non-literal expression? Does the author intend for the non-literal use to create certain emotions, or to bias the reader to form a particular opinion, or to take certain actions?
