Voice

=__Literary Terms - Voice__= Sarah Yen


 * [[image:non.JPG width="205" height="6"]]Voice, also defined as viewpoint, narrarator and persona:**

There are many variations and combinations but three basic ones may be distinguished:
 * View point:** The position of the narrator in relation to his story; thus the outlook from which the events are related.

__Omniscient__ - The author moves from character to character, place to place, and episode to episode with complete freedom, giving himself access to his characters' thoughts and feelings, providing information whenever he wishes and chooses.

__Third person__ - The author chooses a character and the story is related in terms of that character in such a way that the field of vision is confined to him or her alone. Voice can be third-person omniscient, which is quite rare, or third-person objective, which is journalistic and, as the name implies, completely objective.

__First person narrative__ - Here the story is told in the first person by one of the characters.

//Example: __Chronicle of a Death Foretold__ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a first person narrative.// __Participant__ - Meaning he/she is the protagonist or a participant in any action that has taken place in the story.[example]
 * Narrarator:** Is the one who tells the story, He/She is the speaker of a work. Usually the narrator is not the same person as the author, but it can be. The narrator can be one of three types of characters in a work:

//Example: Meursault is the narrator of __The Stranger__, and is also the protagonist - therefore directly involved in the story.// __Observer__ - Meaning someone who is indirectly involved with the story.[example]

//Example: the unnamed narrator of __Chronicle of a Death Foretold__ is indirectly involved with the story; he is Mercedes' fiance and friend of Santiago Nasar// __Non-Participant__ - Meaning someone who is not at all involved with the story.[example]

The narrator is used as a direct window into a piece of work. Depending the character of the narrator the narrator can express bias thoughts and narrations when presenting a piece of work.
 * Persona:** In literature, the persona is the storyteller or narrator of the work created by the author. The persona is not the author, but a creation of the author, he/she is the character which the author speaks through. This person could be a participant, and observer or a non-participant. The persona's importance is that he/she relays the story in a genuine manner, with a sense of knowledge and emotion only one with a firsthand view of the action could depict.


 * [[image:non.JPG width="163" height="10"]]Voice is also characterised by colloqialism, dialect, vernacular, and regional colour.**


 * Colloqialism:** informal words, or phrases of conversational language that brings colour to writing.


 * Dialect:** A distinctive variety of a language, spoken by members of an identifiable regional group, nation, or class. For example, Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, spoken by those originating from Guangdong province; it is not a language separate from Chinese, but a variation of it.


 * Vernacular:** informal type of language, can be slang; a characteristic language of a particular group. For example, modern teenage vernacular features slang that wouldn't be used by older people.


 * Regional Colour:** Somewhat similar to, or featuring, vernacular/colloqialism. Voice in a work can be characteristic of a certain way of speaking, slang, or tone of a particular region. For example, a Southern novel with regional colour can feature dialogue with dropped 'g's or other variations of Southern speech; regional colour is not necessarily restricted to local informal slang (vernacular) or dialect.

[|www.mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/reading/glossary.shtml][|] [|wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn]

Baldick, Chriss. __Literary Terms__. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 1-2.