Reflections on Benjamin Zephaniah, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Xiaolu Guo

On subtext and registers: 

In all these pieces what sticks out is the focus on language. Both the piece by Linton Kwesi Johnsonn and Benjamin Zephaniah specifically focus on the way words are said, and how much that changes the context of the piece, but also how we interact with it as a reader. For me, this way of speaking is unfamiliar, so it took me a little while to fully understand what was being said at times. By writing phonetically, it was as if I could hear the speaker’s intonations and where the stress is on syllables and words. The subtext of the pieces is built not only from the story but by creating a perspective just in the way it is written. In the piece by Xiaolu Guo there are also subtle differences that indicate the personal history of the speaker, but there is also more emphasis on the difference between English spoken by English people and English as the person was instructed to speak in school. You can sense frustration from the writer with the sense of difference and confusion. It adds to the overall story, and by grounding the piece in words and speech, there is so much you glean about the character beyond just what is written.