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Source-marking mood

Concept
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

A poetic tone that signals the origin, authenticity, or evidentiary basis of a statement, often implying witnessed truth, oral tradition, or authoritative testimony.

Detailed Definition
Source-marking mood is a poetic stance that explicitly signals the origin, reliability, or mediation of the speaker’s knowledge—using phrases like “they say,” “I heard,” or “according to legend”—to foreground the constructed nature of narrative and invite critical engagement with truth claims; this technique, common in ethnopoetics or documentary poetry, resists omniscience and highlights the role of testimony, rumor, or archival fragmentation in shaping poetic discourse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Source-marking mood: a poem citing its influences—“After Neruda” or “Homage to Gwendolyn Brooks”; Footnotes identifying sampled lyrics or speeches; A poem beginning “As Audre said…” to invoke lineage; Source-marking acknowledges intertextuality and community; It’s common in contemporary and feminist poetry.
Additional Notes
Source-marking mood signals the origin or authority of a statement (e.g., hearsay, myth). Related to witnessed mode. Look for phrases like “they say” or “legend tells”—reveals how knowledge is mediated in the poem.
Also Known As
Documentary mood Referential tone Source-based stance Evidential mood
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