Literary Texts and Narrative Techniques: A Comprehensive Guide

Types of Texts

Everyday Texts

Rules, instructions, application letters, forums, etc.

Academic Texts

Abstracts, drawings, reports, explanations of processes, etc.

Media Texts

News, chronicles, etc.

Literary Texts

Literary texts create imaginary worlds through words, born from human imagination.

Functions of Literature

  • Provide aesthetic enjoyment and pleasure.
  • Entertain and offer escape from reality.
  • Model securities or social and political injustices.
  • Enable identification with characters.
  • Encourage reflection on behavior.

Language Varieties

Humans communicate through verbal language, exchanging information formally and informally.

Linguistic Registers

Language varieties depend on the communicative situation.

Oral and Written Registers

  • Oral: Characterized by the physical presence of the interlocutor (except phone calls), lack of message planning, and limited ability to correct after delivery.
  • Written: Allows for planning and revision.

Summarizing and Outlining

Summary: A concise, rewritten version of a text’s fundamental concepts in one’s own words.

Outline: A structured organization of a text’s most important information.

Literary Language and Stylistic Devices

Metaphor

Identification of two different realities. Example: Day, round day / light orange, 24 segments.

Simile

Comparison of two realities using “like” or equivalent expressions. Example: The snow crunches like hotcakes.

Personification

Attributing human qualities to inanimate objects. Example: Do you know the winds their names?

Repetition Resources

Alliteration

Repetition of sounds at the beginning of words. Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Anaphora

Repetition of words at the beginning of successive lines or sentences.

Parallelism

Repetition of syntactic structure. Example: It is absent in your body / remained in his clothes.

Classes of Words

Nouns

Words describing objects, beings, or ideas. Preceded by articles (the, a, an). Variable in gender and number. Types: concrete/abstract, common/proper, individual/collective.

Adjectives

Words conveying qualities or characteristics of nouns. Agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.

Determinative Adjectives

Select the object being referred to.

  • Demonstrative: This, that, these, those.
  • Possessive: My, mine, your, yours, his, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs.
  • Cardinal Numbers: 1, 2, 3, etc.
  • Ordinal Numbers: First, second, third, etc.
  • Indefinite: A, some, any, several, all, few, etc.

Diacritical Marks

Used to distinguish monosyllables with the same form but different meanings.

Descriptions

Technical Description

Objective and factual.

Literary Description

Subjective and evocative.

Literary Genres

Narrative

Tells a fictional story.

Lyric

Expresses feelings, emotions, or states of mind, often in verse.

Drama

Designed for stage performance.

Verbs

Express actions or states in time (past, present, future).

Verbal Combinations

Verbs are conjugated.

Present Indicative Values

  • Present Tense: Actions occurring now.
  • Historical Present: Past events described as present.
  • Immediate Present: Actions happening shortly.
  • Present Value of Future: Future actions.
  • Habitual Present: Repeated actions.
  • Gnomic Present: Universal truths or definitions.

Accentuation

Diphthongs, Triphthongs, and Hiatuses

Diphthong: Two vowels in one syllable.

Triphthong: Three vowels in one syllable.

Hiatus: Two vowels in separate syllables.

Narrative

A sequence of events.

Literary Narratives

Fictitious events (legends, myths, folktales, fables).

Non-Literary Narratives

Real events (news, biographies).

Elements of Narrative

  • Narrator
  • Characters (primary and secondary)
  • Time (when, duration)
  • Space (where)
  • Plot (sequence of events)

Narrative Order

  • Linear: Chronological order.
  • Flashback: Jumping back in time.
  • Prolepsis (Flashforward): Jumping forward in time.

Pronouns

Words that replace nouns.

Adverbs

Invariable words expressing place, time, manner, quantity, affirmation, negation.

Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections

Prepositions and Conjunctions: Connect words.

  • Copulative Conjunctions: And, or.
  • Causal Conjunctions: Because.
  • Conditional Conjunctions: If.
  • Disjunctive Conjunctions: Or.
  • Adversative Conjunctions: But.
  • Concessive Conjunctions: Although.

Interjections: Invariable words expressing emotion, always exclamatory.