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VICEnglishQuick questions
Unit 3: Reading and creating texts
Quick questions on Metalanguage for textual analysis: VCE English Unit 3 Area of Study 1
15short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is narrative metalanguage?Show answer
Point of view. First-person retrospective, first-person present, close third, omniscient, second person.
What is structural metalanguage?Show answer
Macro structure. The whole-text shape. Linear, dual timeline, frame narrative, choral rotation, fragmented vignettes.
What is language metalanguage?Show answer
Diction. Word choice. The general lexical level.
What is figurative metalanguage?Show answer
Metaphor. A direct comparison treating one thing as another.
What is point of view?Show answer
First-person retrospective, first-person present, close third, omniscient, second person.
What is focalisation?Show answer
Whose consciousness the narration is anchored in. Distinct from point of view. A close third narration can shift focalisation from one character to another without changing person.
What is free indirect discourse?Show answer
Third-person narration that slides into the character's idiom without quotation marks. ("She would not go. She had said so.")
What is narrative distance?Show answer
The closeness or remoteness of the narration to the consciousness it tracks.
What is narrative voice?Show answer
The distinctive sound of the narration. Voice is built from diction, syntax and tonal range.
What is narrative reliability?Show answer
Whether the reader can trust the narrator's account. An unreliable narrator is a specific structural choice; do not use the term unless the text earns it.
What is macro structure?Show answer
The whole-text shape. Linear, dual timeline, frame narrative, choral rotation, fragmented vignettes.
What is analepsis?Show answer
Flashback. A scene that returns to an earlier time.
What is prolepsis?Show answer
Flashforward. A scene that anticipates a later time.
What is narrative ellipsis?Show answer
A deliberate gap in time the text refuses to fill.
What is juxtaposition?Show answer
Two scenes, voices or registers placed next to each other for contrast.