Diction (Latin: dictionem (nom.

dictio) "a saying, expression, word"),

[1]

in its original, primary meaning, refers to the

[2]

writer's or the speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story.

A secondary,

common meaning of "diction" is more precisely expressed with the word enunciationthe art of speaking clearly so that each word is clearly heard and understood to its fullest complexity and extremity. This secondary sense concerns pronunciation and tone, rather than word choice and style. Diction has multiple concerns; registerwords being either formal or informal in social contextis foremost. Literary diction analysis reveals how a passage establishes tone and characterization, e.g. a preponderance of verbs relating physical movement suggests an active character, while a preponderance of verbs relating states of mind portrays an introspective character. Diction also has an impact upon word choice and syntax. Diction comprises eight elements: Phoneme, Syllable, Conjunction, Connective, Noun, Verb, Inflection, and Utterance. In a language or dialect, a phoneme (from the Greek: , phnma, "a sound uttered") is the [1] smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances. A syllable (Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated CONJ or CNJ) is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical operator) is a symbol or word used to connect two or more sentences (of either a formal or a natural language) in a grammatically valid way, such that the compound sentence produced has a truth value dependent on the respective truth values of the original sentences. In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition (or put more simply, a noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing or abstract idea).
[1]

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word (part of speech) that in syntax conveys an action (bring,read, walk, run, learn), or a state of being (be, exist, stand). In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive. In many languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense,aspect, mood and voice. In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood,grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case. Conjugation is the inflection of verbs; declension is the inflection of nouns, adjectivesand pronouns. An utterance is a complete unit of speech in spoken language. It is generally but not always bounded by silence. It can be represented and delineated in written language in many ways. Note that utterances do not exist in written language, only their representations do. In phonetics, enunciation is the act of speaking. Good enunciation is the act of speaking clearly and concisely. The opposite of good enunciation is mumbling or slurring. See also pronunciation which is a component of enunciation. Pronunciation is to pronounce sounds of words correctly.