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Demonstrative language

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Use of words like “this,” “that,” “these,” or “those” to point to specific elements within or beyond the poem

Detailed Definition
Demonstrative language uses words like “this,” “that,” “these,” or “those” to point directly to elements within the poem, creating immediacy and focus; by anchoring abstract ideas in the present moment (“this silence,” “that wound”), it enhances reader engagement and emotional proximity, functioning as a rhetorical tool to emphasize significance without abstraction.
Example
Example in poetry:
Demonstrative language points directly to experience using “this,” “that,” or “these,” as in Williams’ “This Is Just to Say”: “I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox”; In “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Williams uses demonstrative language: “so much depends / upon / this red wheel / barrow”; Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” opens with: “You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting”; Another: “This grief is heavier than stone; that memory, brighter than sun”
Additional Notes
Demonstrative language directly points to or emphasizes elements within the poem (“this sorrow,” “that tree”) to create immediacy and focus; enhances reader engagement by anchoring abstraction in the present moment.
Also Known As
Pointing phrase Indexical diction Presentational speech Deictic reference Deictic terms
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