Review: Analyzing Word Choice in a Passage

Combine connotation, figurative language, and tone to explain how word choice shapes meaning.

Analyzing word choice means explaining how specific words create meaning, feeling, and tone. Use this passage: 'The new mall squats on what used to be the meadow. Its parking lot, a gray sea of asphalt, stretches where wildflowers once nodded in the breeze. Progress, they call it. ' Start with connotation: 'squats' suggests something heavy, ugly, and unwelcome, far more negative than 'stands'.

Next, figurative language: 'a gray sea of asphalt' is a metaphor emphasizing size and lifelessness, while 'wildflowers once nodded' personifies the meadow as gentle and alive. The contrast between dead gray and living flowers is deliberate. Then tone: 'Progress, they call it' is verbal irony; the writer does not think it is progress at all. Put it together: the author uses negative connotation, contrasting imagery, and irony to create a regretful, critical tone toward the development.

That is a full analysis: quote the words, name the technique, explain the effect.

• 1Check connotation, figurative language, and tone.
• 2Quote the word, name the technique, explain the effect.
• 3Combine the pieces into one claim about the author's attitude.