词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Don't Parrot Cliches

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: We continue our discussion with University of Delaware English Professor Ben Yagoda about his recent book called "The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing."

RS: He based the book on interviews he had with more than 40 writers who he considers to have a strong personal style. And Ben Yagoda says a distinctive¹ voice begins with originality² in what the writer has to say.

BEN YAGODA: "The worst possible thing is to use the phrases that everyone else is using because then you just sound like everyone else. So trying to become aware of the cliches in the language and the ones you use yourself. Being aware of vocabulary so that, at the very least, you're using the word that you intend to use and not something else. So really it's like a clearing away of the underbrush that I think is the first step.

"Reading your work out loud, I think, is probably the best single piece of advice. We talk about 'voice' and 'hearing your writing.' Those are all metaphors⁴. But if you can make that literal by reading aloud, that can certainly help."

AA: "That actually raises a good question that a lot of people have, which is: Are you writing for the ear, or are you writing it for the eye? Should there be a conscious difference between the two?"

BEN YAGODA: "That's a great question, and in fact one of my conclusions in this book, and looking at all different kinds of writers who are distinctive, is that, of the different things that differentiate⁵ writers' styles, probably the one I'd think of as most important is the extent to which that writer is more of a spoken writer or a written writer. I mean, on the one hand, you have Elmore Leonard -- spoken, detective writer. Or Hemingway. On the other hand, (there is the writer) Henry James, and everywhere in between.

"And pretty much everybody has a mix, and either one can work. Certainly, if you're writing a hard-boiled detective novel you don't want to sound like Henry James, and if you're writing a dissertation⁶ for tenure⁷, you don't want to sound like Elmore Leonard. So the kind of thing you're writing necessitates⁸ part of it. But even within any genre⁹ or form of writing, there's a lot of room for stylistic differentiation¹⁰."

RS: "What can students of English as a foreign language learn from reading -- "

BEN YAGODA: "Oh God ... "

RS: " -- different styles in English?"

BEN YAGODA: "They can learn everything, and certainly that's -- my students, who are mostly native speakers, usually quite bright and interested and all that, but the biggest problem in their writing stems from the fact they haven't read enough. So reading as much, as you can and as many different kinds of writing as you can, is the single best thing for improving your own writing, whether you're a native speaker or learning English as a second language."

RS: "So that promotes what in the learning process?"

BEN YAGODA: "It promotes awareness¹¹ of the way different writers work, of vocabulary, of different rhetorical effects like irony¹² and metaphor³. And some of it is conscious: you say, 'Oh I see the way Kurt Vonnegut uses irony.' But more of it is unconscious or subliminal¹³.

"When you read these things carefully, you absorb it. And then, when you're sitting looking at your blank piece of paper or your computer screen, the things that you've read suddenly become part of your array of options in your own writing. And then it gets bigger and bigger, and richer and richer."

RS: "One last question, has your style changed after writing this book?"

BEN YAGODA: "I would say I'm more aware of my style. I was looking at a piece I wrote 15 or 18 years ago, and it sounded too fancy. There were too many big words. I'm a fan of big words when they serve a purpose. But it seemed like it was a little too literary for not necessary reasons. So I think whether it's because of this book or maturity¹⁴ or whatever, my style has become a little bit simpler over time."

AA: University of Delaware English Professor Ben Yagoda is author of the book "The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing." We asked him to recommend a few other books noteworthy for their style and voice.

RS: He suggested works like "Cat's Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut, "The White Album" and "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" by Joan Didion, and "The Right Stuff" and "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe.

AA: And that's Wordmaster for this week. All of our segments can be found online at voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is。。。。。。。。。。。With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

 

1 distinctive   

adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的

参考例句：

• She has a very distinctive way of walking.她走路的样子与别人很不相同。
• This bird has several distinctive features.这个鸟具有几种突出的特征。

2 originality   

n.创造力，独创性；新颖

参考例句：

• The name of the game in pop music is originality.流行音乐的本质是独创性。
• He displayed an originality amounting almost to genius.他显示出近乎天才的创造性。

3 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

4 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

5 differentiate   

vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同

参考例句：

• You can differentiate between the houses by the shape of their chimneys.你可以凭借烟囱形状的不同来区分这两幢房子。
• He never learned to differentiate between good and evil.他从未学会分辨善恶。

6 dissertation   

n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文

参考例句：

• He is currently writing a dissertation on the Somali civil war.他目前正在写一篇关于索马里内战的论文。
• He was involved in writing his doctoral dissertation.他在聚精会神地写他的博士论文。

7 tenure   

n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期

参考例句：

• He remained popular throughout his tenure of the office of mayor.他在担任市长的整个任期内都深得民心。
• Land tenure is a leading political issue in many parts of the world.土地的保有权在世界很多地区是主要的政治问题。

8 necessitates   

使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The increase in population necessitates a greater food supply. 人口的增加需要更多食物供应。
• Your proposal necessitates borrowing money. 你的提议使借款成为必要。

9 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

10 differentiation   

n.区别，区分

参考例句：

• There can be no differentiation without contrast. 有比较才有差别。
• The operation that is the inverse of differentiation is called integration. 与微分相反的运算叫做积分。

11 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

12 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

13 subliminal   

adj.下意识的，潜意识的；太弱或太快以至于难以觉察的

参考例句：

• Maybe they're getting it on a subliminal level.也许他们会在潜意识里这么以为。
• The soft sell approach gets to consumers in a subliminal way.软广告通过潜意识的作用来影响消费者。

14 maturity   

n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期

参考例句：

• These plants ought to reach maturity after five years.这些植物五年后就该长成了。
• This is the period at which the body attains maturity.这是身体发育成熟的时期。