文档介绍：English Writing
Diction
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Diction is the choice and use of words. The English language has a big vocaernment or political organization of a country, and
land is less precise but more literary and emotive than country.
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English is particularly rich in synonyms as a result of incorporating words from other language over the centuries.
But we should remember that it is difficult to find two words that are exactly the same in meaning and use. They may be different in stylistic level, in the degree of emphasis, in emotional coloring, in tone语气, and in collocation.
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different in stylistic level
Generally speaking, words of Anglo-Saxon origin are more informal than those of Latin or French origin. Look at these words:
ask time rise
question age mount
interrogate epoch ascend
In each group, the first word is from Anglo-Saxon and the second and third from French or Latin. The first one is clearly more informal or colloquial than the other two.
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different in emphasis
“Big” and “large” are both commonly used words,
but “large” is slightly more formal and may be used to describe things that are usually big, so it is more emphatic than “big”.
“Huge”, which is more literary than those two words, means extremely large, and is more emphatic than “large”.
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different in tone
“Modest” and “humble” both indicate a lack of pride,
but “modesty” is a virtue and “humbleness” is not.
“Humble” often connotes undue self-depreciation自我贬低.
So they are different in tone: one is laudatory and the other is derogatory.
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3. General and Specific Words
Comparatively speaking, some words are more general or more specific in meaning rather than others.
“Professionals”, for instance, is more general in meaning than “scientists, doctors, teachers, lawyers, journalists”, etc., all of which are more specific.
But “scientist