Grandes Enigmas y Misterios de la Humanidad

 

Free English Language Course on Style Analysis

This on-line seminar might well be a class assignment for my students of next course and any institution or individual is welcome to join us.


The general objectives of the course consist of dwelling on the real use of written language, finding out the statistics of the different sentence types and clauses, their connectors and literary figures; an awareness which should improve students' skills to communicate.


Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code holds a very complex plot line; however, its short chapters often display an apparently simple use of syntactic structures which are perfect in length and degree of difficulty to study and analyze for both native speakers and English students.


My proposal would be:


First, get familiar with the grammar units, literary figures and codes we will research on by following this link.


Second, see for yourself the Prologue of The Da Vinci Code as an example of the statistics and the kind of output document we should be obtaining by the end of the two-week seminar.


Third, download the document to be used as a template.


Fourth, erase everything that you won't need,


Fifth, contact me for a chapter assignment,


Sixth, once you have been given the green light on one of the chapters, transcribe the paragraphs into the spreadsheet, one cell per grammar unit running from one full stop to another.


Seventh, mark those cells with the most relevant features for that text, type of sentence and verb, compound and complex sentences, literary figures, etc...


Eigth, count them (I will try to provide the tools for an automatic recount) and summarize your conclusions in an essay like this.


Nineth, send both documents to me,


Tenth, check out one of your colleague's chapters (to be assigned) and send your corrections to me as well,

and that's all. I will try to make all documents public for everybody to consult and use in school, college or conferences. However, if this material was to be published, part of the benefits should revert to those institutions or individuals taking part in a proportional way. Nevertheless, if by any chance, I did not have the time or resources to process all the information regarding these corrections, or could not publish documents or statistics, I will not be held resposible for it.

Syntactic and Style Analysis of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Syntactic and Style Analysis of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

PROLOGUE

Dan Brown required 88 sentences in his prologue of The Da Vinci Code to lure more than a hundred-million readers and hook them up to his mystery novel about the Holy Grail, the sacred femenine and the supposed marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. Obviously, all grammar and style features, however simple might seem at first, have successfully arisen everybody's interest:

• quite a few verbless noun phrases, (1)
• mostly copulative and intransitive verbs in simple or coordinate sentences,
• subordinate sentences linked with colloquial that, what, who, with very few other connectors like as, until, despite and one conventional conditional sentence, (2)
• one prepositional verb, (3)
• short and few direct speach occurrences,
• fifteen gerund clauses, (4)
• dislocation of complements, (5)
• frequent use of adjunts, (6)
• quite a few apparently naive repetitions, (7)
• only two passive sentences, (8)
• one comparative and one superlative expression,(9)
• numerous omissions of relative pronouns, even connectors and auxiliary verbs,(10)
• figures of speach reduced to little more than a personification.(11)

Most of these features are more common in spoken language and, therefore, confere the prologue a very colloquial -almost informal- style which eases up the reader's understanding of the action at the same time that it increases our curiosity about the reasons for the murder and the secret kept worthy of one's life. Likely, the most striking literary figure is the atmosphere of uncertainty about the murder, besides the reasons for it, accomplished by repetitve threats (12) and when his death looks innevitable, new questions strike us like the identity of the only person “to whom he could pass the torch” or what an agonizing fellow will intend to do in the last remaining minutes of his life.

Moreover, this colloquial style favors the readers' identification with the main character and victim in what stands for a general trait of the novel: the narrator will adopt the point of view of one different character in each chapter, that is, author and reader will be sharing all the characters's shoes by turns, thus, increasing their psychological depth.

The Da Vinci Code's prologue feels like a four-lane autoban where readers can't stop thumbing through pages, can't stop the raise of adrenaline one more mile, one more chapter. Or in other words, as if the main character, Robert Langdon, as the college professor he is, had left aside the usual academic jargon and, instead, used plain language to tease students one more class, confident in showing off his expertise by coordinating students's learning processes and passionate debates.

While style resources might seem simple, we will have to agree that the plot is extremely complex which together with the vast variety of topics researched or mentioned account for the tremendous success of the novel. Dan Brown has striken a cultural nerve, someone said; personally, I modestly think he has drawn from Jung's collective unconscious, that is, everybody's secret knowledge, convictions and dreams.

Now, a more extensive analysis of the rest of chapters should confirm -or not- these and other features of the novel.

Mingo Mendez

Terrassa, June 2011

NOTES.

1. Often related to inner thoughts and emotions caused by events: The truth, My stomach, An unbroken chain of knowledge.

2. ...man heaved the master piece toward himself until it tored from the wall...

now despite all the precautions.. despite all... Jacques Saunier was the only remaining link. There is also a second conditional sentence hidden behind a coordinate structure: Tell me where it is hidden and you will live.

3. Is is a secret you will die for?

4. Exluding their use as part of the conjugation, noun, adjective or adverb, ie. lying, painting, thinning and chillingly repectively.

5. Of course, to lead the reader and focus in on the main point of interest, Far off, the alarm began to ring.

6. Instinctively, Slowly, Almost cruelly,

7 and 12. “The albino drew a pistol from his coat and aimed the barrel through the bars, directly at the curator.” -sentence 15-, “The man leveled his gun at the curator's head” - s 28-, the man tilted his head, peering down the barrel of his gun. -s 31-, The attacker aimed his gun again, s 49-, then the gun roared... -s 55- and not being enough: The man now taking dead aim at Saunier's head. -s 58.

8. My work here is done. And this last one -it was framed in a circle of blood...- which however illogical might seem with the previous arguments, is intended to set Saunier -and the reader- at a distance from the seriousness of his lethal wound, which is also the purpose of the personification and comparison that follow, and then trigger our curiousity and credibility for the action in next chapter.

9. He lunged for the nearest painting... The curator's true identity (…) was almos as secret as...

10. Saunier closed his eyes, his thoughts (were) a swirling tempest of fear and regret.

11. A collection of the world's most famous paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends.

Statistics of Syntactic Structures in The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

 

Statistics on the Prologue

Click here to download the original spreadsheet and use it as a template for your own research

Sentence types

Minor Sentence Types 
(Examples taken from Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code).



Yes.
The others?
All three of them.
The truth.
my stomach.
"Pain is good monsieur."
An unbroken chain of knowledge.


Sentence type classified by structure


simple sentence ..............s        
I am still alive.

compound sentence.........cp   
The albino drew a pistol from his coat and aimed the barrel through the bars, directly at the curator's head.

complex sentence............cx
"I will tell you what you need to know"

compound-complex sentence ...........cpx

...the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the master piece toward himself until it tored from the wall and Saunier collapsed backwards in a heap beneath the canvas.

Sentence type classified by purpose

declarative......................d
Tonight the rightful guardians will be restored.

interrogative...................i
Is it a secret you will die for?

command .......................cm
Do not move.

exclamative.....................ex
It cannot be!

Simple sentence types

Copulative
 It was part of the protocol.

intransitive
 Saunier recoiled

transitive
 Almost cruelly, the bullet had missed his heart.

multitransitive


Connectors of compound sentences

and
but

Complex sentence types and connectors

Relative clauses.
that

which
who
whom

Time clauses and connectors

after
As
As soon as..
Before
Since
till
until
when
while
once
As long as
No sooner... than
whenever
Now that
gerund clause


Conditional sentences and connectors

Open or probable conditions
If I die, the truth will be lost forever.
(Tell me where it is hidden and you will live). 

Improbable conditions

Impossible conditions


If
If only
If + subject + should
(If omitted) had/should/were + subject + pp
In case
On condition that
Unless
Provided (that)
But for
So long as


Concession clauses and connectors

Though
Although
Even though
Even if
In spite of
Despite
Whatever
Much as

Adj/Adv + as/though + sentence

Whereas
While

Clauses of Reason and Cause and Connectors

because
for
since
gerund clause

Clauses of Result and connectors

so
so... (that)
Such a/an... (that)
As a result
Therefore,
then
thus

Purpose clauses and connectors


In order to
In order not to
So as to
So as not to
So that
In order that
In case
lest/that

for + ing-clause
for + Accusative + to-infinitive

Other clauses

Gerund clauses
Grabbing the guilded frame...
...barricading the entrance to the suite.
...turning his head slowly.
 Kneeling defenseless on the floor of the gallery.

pp clauses


phrasal/prepositional verbs

passive sentences
It was framed by a small circle of blood a few inches below his breastbone.

yes/no questions
wh- questions
subject questions

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