How does diction contribute to the tone of the novel?

• A. The mix of teen vernacular and formal courtroom language creates a tone that shifts from intimate to analytical.
• B. The author uses archaic high diction throughout, creating a distant, scholarly tone.
• C. The diction relies entirely on slang with no formal language.
• D. The narrative uses no dialogue, making tone flat.

Answer: (A)

Diction shapes tone by signaling how close the narrator is to what’s happening and how the story asks you to think about it. In this novel, the author shifts between teen vernacular and formal courtroom language, and that combination creates a tone that can feel intimate in personal moments and analytical in official ones. The teen speech gives the reader immediacy, emotion, and a sense of real voices—you hear how the characters speak, their slang, their blunt honesty. When the scene moves into courtroom language, the diction becomes precise, detached, and scrutinizing, which invites a more measured, critical mood. The contrast between these two styles mirrors the book’s themes: the raw experience of a tragedy versus the juried, public handling of it. It shows how a teen’s perspective interacts with larger systems of justice.

Using only slang would flatten the tone and miss the formal weight of the courtroom scenes, while constant archaic or formal diction would feel out of place for a contemporary teen narrative. And a narrative with no dialogue would lose much of the tonal variation that diction provides.