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In the book NightJohn, there is a different type of word choice used by the "author." It's a first person point of view from the main character Sarny, a 12 year old girl who is working on the plantation. She has no education, and she no sign of her real mother. She is having a pretty touch life working for the Waller Plantation, and things are starting to get worse. A man named NightJohn was sold to the Waller Plantation, and he came with his back almost torn off. He is an educated man that wants to help other learn as well, but no one really knows that. Sarny and him have a deal, if she gives him tobacco, he'll teach her how to read and write. Sarny, of course, is curious and she says yes. They have been secretly having their sessions at night when everyone else is dead asleep...
I think that since the book is from her perspective, it makes the book for realistic and interesting. The word choice of Sarny gave it a more serious tone that we are able to relate more. The words change the way we look at the people, and you can tell that it is starting to really effect Sarny with all of the problems that are coming up later in the book. You can tell that the meaning of some words are different to what they may mean to us today. They have different types of words that mean something that we may never understand. As soon as you start reading, you can tell the way the rest of the book is going to be like just by the first paragraph or two.
For the characters in the story, their word choice is all different according to their background, or race. If we were to look at Waller's word choice, it will differ from Sarny's or her mother's. In the story, Waller said "God damn you-don't you lie to me. I'll tie you to the spring house and get the truth out of you." The after that, Sarny said "Don't know nothing about writing." I bring up these two pieces because you can tell by Sarny's grammar that she isn't as educated as Waller. Although, NightJohn has pretty good grammar. He said once "That's the next letter. H. It sounds huhh, or hehh. It's a funny letter because it doesn't make a difference how it stands. Goes up, goes down, doesn't matter. It's the same." This shows that he does know what he is talking about, and he is educated unlike the other slaves on the plantation.
In the book that my social studies class is reading, all the characters have different word choice based on background and race just like you said in your last paragraph. I think that a lot of historical fiction books provide this. You did a great job explaining, good blog post!
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