LITERARY LANGUAGE: CHARACTERISTICS AND ELEMENTS - LITERATURE - 2025

The literary language is the one used by writers in order to convey an idea, but more beautiful and aesthetic to capture the attention of the reader manner. Depending on the structure and content, the literary language can be found in the lyrical, narrative, dramatic and didactic-essay genres.

This type of language can be used in prose or verse. Likewise, it can also be verbal and used in daily communication. Literary language is a special language insofar as it prioritizes the way of transmitting the message rather than the message itself.

It is obvious that a literary message stripped of its form, loses or changes its meaning, loses its connotative potential and with it, its literary character. Making use of this form of expression inexorably implies creative activity.

The use of this dialect of the language used to be very popular in the Middle Ages to create a dramatic effect. Therefore, it is very present in liturgical writings. Today it is common to find it in poetry, poetry and songs.

Literary language is malleable enough to intrude on other non-literary writing such as memoirs and journalistic pieces.

Characteristics of literary language

1- Originality

Literary language is an act of conscious creation in which the writer can have the freedom to write in an original and unpublished way, considering the proper meaning that he gives to words and thus moving away from common language.

2- Artistic will

The final intention of what is written is to create a work of art, that is, that through words convey beauty. The style and way of saying the message over the content itself is privileged.

3- Special communicative intention

Language is a communication car and it is what gives meaning to it. Therefore, literary language does have a communicative intention, which is to communicate literary beauty above a practical purpose.

4- Connotative or subjective language

Dressing the originality and fiction characteristics of literary language, the writer is sovereign in giving the meaning to the words he wants and gives his polyvalent discourse and multiple meanings (as opposed to a technical or non-literary text), that is, plurisignification. In this way, each receptor will have a different assimilation.

5- Use of fiction

The message creates fictitious realities that do not have to correspond to external reality. The writer can be very versatile and transport the reader to other dimensions almost identical to real life, but unreal after all.

This fictional world is the result of the author's particular vision of reality, but at the same time it generates in the receiver his own life experiences that specify in reading the horizon of expectations with which a text approaches.

5- Importance of shape

The relevance of form in literary language leads the writer to take care of the "texture" of the language as such, such as the careful selection of words, their order, musicality, syntactic and lexical construction, etc.

6- Poetic function

Pursuing an aesthetic purpose, literary language takes advantage of all available expressive possibilities (phonic, morphosyntactic and lexical) to produce curiosity and attention on the part of the reader.

7- Use of rhetorical figures or literary figures

We will understand here by <>, in its broadest sense, any type of resource or manipulation of language for persuasive, expressive or aesthetic purposes.

Figures of speech are ways of using words in an unconventional way to surprise the reader and give the text more meaning. Of these resources we find a wide variety in two main categories: diction and thinking.

8- Appearance in prose or verse

It is chosen based on the needs of the author and the chosen genre. Literary language can be present in both forms of language: prose or verse.

In prose, which is the natural structure that language takes, we appreciate it in fables, stories and novels. It serves to enrich the description of the texts.

In the case of verse, its composition is more careful and demanding because lyrical works measure the number of syllables (measure), the rhythmic accents in the verses (rhythm) and, the relationship between the verses and the rhyme (stanzas).

We can appreciate this form in poems, poetry, hymns, songs, odes, elegies or sonnets.

Elements that participate in literary communication

They are the aspects that constitute the general communication process but operate differently when it comes to literary communication.

1- Issuer

It is the agent that seeks to generate emotions or stimulate the imagination, a more sensorial message in relation to the issuer of the communication that focuses on the content.

2- Receiver

He is the one who receives the message. It is not a specific person, but a hypothesis required by the text itself.

Let us remember that literary language is an expression of artistic communication, and without the assumption that "someone" will receive the message (even though it is sensorial) that the author wishes to convey, it would lose its meaning.

3- Channel

It is the means by which the literary message is communicated. It is usually written, although it can be verbal when a poem is recited, a monologue is related, or it is sung.

4- Context

The context in general refers to the temporal, spatial and sociocultural circumstances in which the message is circumscribed but in the case of literary language, the freedom of the writer to give free rein to his imagination causes the context of the literary work (in reality, that of any literary work) is itself.

5- Code

They are the signs that are going to be used to deliver the message but in this case, it is not used in the same way because there is no unambiguous interpretation of the text but rather the explained multiple meaning.

Examples of literary language

Below are some examples of literary language in different narrative genres.

Novel

Excerpt from the work Sin noticias de Gurb (1991) by Eduardo Mendoza:

«The alien ship lands in Sardanyola. One of the aliens, who goes by the name of Gurb, takes the bodily form of a human individual named Marta Sánchez. A professor from the University of Bellaterra boards him in his car. Gurb disappears, while the other alien tries to find his companion and begins to get used to the body shapes and habits that humans have. The search for Gurb has just begun, an alien lost in the urban jungle of Barcelona ».

Poem

Excerpt from Rhymes and Legends (1871) by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

«I swim in the emptiness of the sun / I tremble in the bonfire / I throb in the shadows / and I float with the mists».

Story

Rapunzel (1812) excerpt from the Brothers Grimm.

And, at dusk, he jumped over the wall of the witch's garden, hastily plucked a handful of verdezuelas and brought them to his wife. She immediately prepared a salad and ate it very well; and she liked them so much that, the next day, her eagerness was three times more intense. If he wanted peace, the husband had to jump back into the garden. And so he did, at dusk. But as soon as he had put his feet on the ground, he had a terrible start, for he saw the witch appear before him.

References

1. English Oxford Living Dictionaries. (2017, 7 6). LIterary Language. Retrieved from English Oxford Living Dictionaries: en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/literary-language
2. García Barrientos, JL (2007). Presentation. In JL García Barrientos, The rhetorical figures. THE literary language (pp. 9-11). Madrid: Arcos.
3. Gómez Alonso, JC (2002). Amado Alonso: from stylistics to a theory of literary language. In JC Gómez Alonso, La stylísitca de Amado Alonso as a theory of literary language (pp. 105-111). Murcia: University of Murcia.
4. González-Serna Sánchez, JM (2010). Literary texts. In JM González-Serna Sánchez, The thematic varieties of the text (pp. 49-55). Seville: Classroom of Letters.
5. Herreros, MJ, & García, E. (2017, 7 6). Unit 2. Literary texts, Characteristics and features. Recovered from Don Bosco Secondary Education Institute: iesdonbosco.com.
6. Sotomayor, MV (2000). Literary language, genres and literature. In F. Alonso, X. Blanch, P. Cerillo, MV Sotomayor, & V. Chapa Eulate, Present and future of children's literature (pp. 27-65). Cuenca: Editions of the University of Castilla-La Mancha.