| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Anadiplosis | The repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause. "Mental preparation leads to training; training builds muscle tone and coordination; muscle tone and coordination, combined with focused thinking, produce athletic excellence." |
| Anaphora | The repetition of a group of words at the beginning of successive clauses. "Exercise builds stamina in young children; exercise builds stamina in teenagers and young adults; exercise builds stamina in older adults and senior citizens." |
| Anecdote | A brief narrative offered in a text to capture the audience's attention or to support a generalization or claim. |
| Antimetabole | The repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order- "you can take the boy out of the country , but you can't take the country out of the boy" |
| Antithesis | The juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas, often in parallel structure. "Place your virtues on a pedastal; put your vices under a rock" |
| Appositive | A noun or noun phrase that follows another noun immediately or defines or amplifies its meaning. "Sonia, the girl, is happy." |
| Asyndeton | The omission of conjunctions between related clauses- for example "i came, i saw, i conquered" |
| Begging the Question | The situation that results when a writer or speaker constructs an argument on an assumption that the audience does not accept. "Animal rights are fine, but humans are more important than animals, and humans have a right to alter ecological habitats to suit their own needs." |
| Climax | The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing number or importance. "Excellent athletes need to be respectful of themselves, their teammates, their schools, and their communities." |
| Climbing the ladder | a term referring to the scheme of climax |
| connotation | The implied meaning of a word, in contrast to its directly expressed "dictionary meaning" |
| Deductive Reasoning | Reasoning that begins with a general principal and concludes with a specific instance that demonstrates the general principal |
| Epistrophe | The repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses. "They saw no evil, they spoke no evil, they heard no evil." or "To become a top-notch player, I thought like an athlete, I trained like an athlete, I ate like an athlete." |
| Hyperbole | An exaggeration for effect |
| Inductive Reasoning | Reasoning that begins by citing a number of specific instances or examples and then shows how collectively they constitute a general principle. |
| Irony | Writing or speaking that implies the contrary of what is actually written or spoken. "Their center is over 7 feet tall- where do they come up with these little pipsqueaks?" |
| Jargon | The specialized vocabulary of a particular group. |
| Litotes | Understatement. (For example: "Her performance ran the gamut of emotion from A to B") |
| Metonymy | An entity referred to by one of its attributes or associations. "The admissions office claims applications have risen." Or "The central office announced today new regulations for sports night." |
| Oxymoron | Juxtaposed words with seemingly contradictory meanings. "Jumbo Shrimp." Or "When you have to face your best friend in competition, whoever wins feels an aching pleasure." |
| Parallelism | A set of similarly structured words, phrases, or clauses that appears in a sentence or paragraph |
| Periphrasis | The substitution of an attributive word or phrase for a proper name, or the use of of a proper name to suggest a personality characteristic. "Pete Rose- better known as 'Charle Hustle'- admitted his gambling problem." or "That young pop singer thinks she's a real Madonna, doesn't she?" Or "The NY Rangers and the NY Islanders vie to be the best hockey team in the Big Apple." |
| Major Premise | The first premise in a syllogism. The major premise states an irrefutable generalization. "All creatures of the earth play a natural role in maintaining the ecological stability of an area." |
| Minor Premise | The second premise in a syllogism. The minor premise offers a particular instance of generalizition stated in the major premise. "Animals such as deer, raccoons, and skunks, as creatures of the earth, deserve a stable ecological habitat in which to live, as do humans." |
| Pun | A play on words. "The spoiled turkey meat was fowl most foul." |
| Syllogism | Logical reasoning from inarguable premises. |
| Symbol | In a text, an element that stands for more than itself and, therefore, helps to convey a theme of the text. |
| Synecdoche | A part of something used to refer to the whole. "50 head of cattle" - referring to 50 complete animals. Or "We decided we could arrange the gym equipment if everyone would lend a hand". |
| Sarcasm | The use of mockery or bitter irony. |
| Anataclasis | Words that sound alike but behave different meanings. (For example: "The spoiled turkey meat was fowl most foul.") |
| Paranomasia | Words alike that in sound but different in meaning. "When Sybil's two boyfriends started fighting, her friends referred to it as 'The Sybil War' or 'The War Between The Dates'.") |
| Syllepsis | A word used differently in relation to two other words it governs or modifies. "Bright lights attract flies and celebrity watchers" |
Combine with other sets
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace