Tone, Bias and Inference

1. Tone, Bias and Inference Functional Skills

2. Learning Outcomes • 1. Define tone. • 2. Develop an understanding of tone in speaking. • 3. Recognise the different types of tone in writing. • 4. Define bias. • 5. Recognise bias in writing. • 6. Define inference.

3. Why tone? • Learning to recognise an authors tone in a text can help you to gain better understanding of what an author is trying to say, identify their stance on the subject and to also know if everything they are saying is 100% reliable. Learning outcome 1: Define Tone.

4. What is tone? • The majority of all texts will have a certain tone. • You can recognise the tone/attitude by the language and word choices the author uses. • The language will reveal their perspective/opinion about the subject. Learning outcome 1: Define Tone.

5. While journalistic writing theoretically has a tone of distance and objectivity, all other writing can have various tones. • Do you agree with the above statement? • Are the tones used by journalists within newspaper articles objective? • What does objectivity mean?

6. Tone in spoken language • Tone is about how you say or what you appear to mean by your body language. Does it seem angry, sympathetic, sarcastic/ironic, informed, professional, caring, uninterested or bored? These are all things that can make a difference to the tone of your communication: • In spoken communication, various factors contribute to the tone: Learning outcome 2: Develop an understanding of tone in speaking.

7. Tone Activity Take a card from the pack. Shushhhh it’s a secret. In pairs act out that sentence in the tone provided Can your partner guess the tone?

8. Tone Example: • The girls were playing in the pond, splashing each other and trying to catch fish with their hands. They were having fun, but kept looking over the shoulders at the looming forest. The long grass of the field kept moving and they felt like they were being watched. About a half hour passed and still the girls kept checking the field for movements. It seemed like a pair of dark eyes were on them. They even considered going back inside but that would mean homework time. So they continued splashing but now with caution. Their eyes hardly left the field. • What tone is this? • The tone of this passage suggests fear. Words such as ‘caution’ ‘dark’ and ‘looming’ lead the reader to this tone. Learning outcome 3: Recognise the different tones in writing.

9. Example Continued: • Finally, one of the girls pointed to the grass and giggled “meow”! A cat sat on the edge of the field and licked it’s paw. They did indeed have company! The girls ran over to the cat and pet his belly. They laughed and the cat purred against their legs. • What is the tone of the rest of the passage? • The tone is happy and content as there was a successful, happy resolution to the problem. Learning outcome 3: Recognise the different tones in writing.

10. Task Match up the correct paragraph with the correct tone. Learning outcome 3: Recognise the different tones in writing.

11. Bias • Bias is a prejudice, preference or an inclination that inhibits fair judgement. • Bias is being subjective as apposed to being objective. • We all have biases. Learning outcome 4: Define bias.

12. Bias in writing • Can you think of any types of text that are bias? • What about the media? E.g. news reports? • What about persuasive writing? • We can recognise bias in writing by the following: Learning outcome 5: Recognising bias in writing.

13. Bias Explained • How is it that eleven people can witness the same accident – all with their eyes open – and each account will be different despite the fact they all saw the same thing? • Your biases may be linked to your past experiences e.g. how you were reared as a child/previous learning/experiences. • This is why two people can look at the same thing and describe it differently. Learning outcome 4: Define bias.

14. One last thing…Inference • Once bias, opinion and fact have all been recognised within a text, we are able to reach conclusions based upon evidence and reasoning. • These conclusions take into account the various elements of texts. • That’s what we mean by Inference. Learning outcome 6: Define inference.

15. Conclusion • Have we met all the learning outcomes? 1. Define tone. 2. Develop an understanding of tone in speaking. 3. Recognise the different types of tone in writing. 4. Define bias. 5. Recognise bias in writing. 6. Define inference.