Group Two

Reporter

Mio Bertolo Ambra

Members

Francesca Fiorin

Paola Rossi Erica

Objective

Sharing reflection on the language used in the extract from Son and Moon

In our group, all members agreed on the following points:

PART A

a) Let’s examine the children’s names

1) Do you think Sun and Moon are their real names or nicknames?

We think that Son and Moon are nicknames chosen by the writer to underline the difference between male and female genders in approaching the situations described.

2) The word son (a male child) is pronounced in the same way as sun. Does this provide an explanation as to the choice of the boy’s name?

3)Think of what the two words, sun and moon, refer to in the world of nature. Can you also find an explanation for the choice of the girl’s name

It could be related to the fact that Sun represents the male part that is rationality and a reserved behaviour. In nature, Sun and Moon are opposite because they represent day and night. In the same way, in the text the two children show different features (attitudes, reactions, behaviours): while Sun expresses rationality and a reserved behaviour, Moon personifies creativity, imagination and fantasy.

PART B

Sentences are mostly short and simple

"It's a picture, Min" said Nellie. "Come along and have a look." So they all went into the dining-room. Sun and Moon were almost frightened. They wouldn't go up to the table at first; they just stood at the door and made eyes at it.

Objects are described with unusual images

In the afternoon the chairs come, a whole big cart full of little gold ones with their legs in the air. And then the flowers come. When you started down from the balcony at the people carrying them the flower pots looked like funny awfully nice hats nodding up the path. - She never knew the difference between real things and not real ones.

All the lights were red roses.

Adults' actions and behaviour are described as though they were incomprehensible

“When Sun looked in a white-faced man sat at the piano-not playing but banging at it and then looking inside. He had a bag of tools on the piano and he had stuck his had on statue against the wall. Sometimes he just started to play and then he jumped up again and looked inside. Sun hoped he wasn't the concert.”

WORKING METHOD

During our work, every member of the group expressed her opinion.

After that we found common aspects and we provided answers.

TIME

We were able to keep to time.

Sometimes we had difficulties to translate our point of view and our ideas in English.

In the end of our workshop, the group agreed on the idea that the narrator adopts the point of view of a child.

The use of language in Katherine Mansfield’s extract is suitable to convey the way children express themselves. As a matter of fact children transform reality with language resorting to imagination, to their bewilderment in front of what they do not understand. So that, it can be said that they reinvent the world surrounding them in a way as it can make sense for them. This allows the reader to have a double perspective on the world described