When you speak and listen, you
can hear the tone
of your voice as well as the tone of the person to whom
you are speaking. But how do you catch tone in writ-
ing? How do you know how the writer wants his or her
words to sound? “Sure” by itself doesn’t tell us whether
you should whisper or shout it. You need to look at the
context surrounding that
word to find clues about the
proper tone to use.
Think about how tone is created in speech. When
you say “sure,” the tone changes according to how
loudly or softly you say the word and how slowly or
quickly you say it. Tone is also conveyed (or supported)
by the speaker’s expressions and body language. In
writing, of course, you do not have these visual
resources, but you do have plenty of clues to help you
determine tone. Those clues
come from the elements of
language and style that you’ve studied so far: point of
view, diction, and style.
H o w To n e I n f l u e n c e s M e a n i n g
It may help you to think of a sentence as a collection of
ingredients (words and phrases) that result in a dish
(idea). These elements of language and style are like the
spices that you need to give that
sentence a certain fla-
vor. Different spices will result in a different flavor
(tone).
Look at the following two letters. Both convey
essentially the same information, but they have two
rather different tones.
Letter A
Dear Client:
Thank you for your letter. We will take your
suggestion into consideration. We appreciate your
concern.
Letter B
Dear Valued Customer:
Thank you for your
recent letter regarding our
refund policy and procedure. We are taking your
suggestion quite seriously and truly appreciate your
concern.
Which of these letters has a more positive tone? As
you can see, letter B is more positive. Why? What do
you notice about letter B that is different from letter A?
List your observations below:
Example: I noticed that letter A is addressed “Dear
Client,” while letter B is addressed “Dear Valued
Customer.”
Perhaps you noticed that letter B uses key words
like “
valued customer” and “
truly appreciate.” Letter B
also refers to the specific contents of the reader’s letter,
thus letting the reader know
that his or her letter has
been read. Furthermore, letter B tells the reader not just
that the company “will take your suggestion into
consideration”—which sounds a bit like an empty
promise—but that the writers are taking the suggestion
“quite seriously.”
You may also notice that
the sentences in letter B
are longer than those in letter A, whose sentences are
shorter and somewhat choppy. If you read those short
sentences out loud, how do they sound? They’re not
very inviting, are they?
They sound somewhat mechan-
ical and empty of any feeling.
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