AP Language & Comp Terms flashcards

Flashcards: AP Language & Comp Terms

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mrcoia on September 20, 2011

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englsih

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120 rhetorical terms for AP Language and Composition.

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Mr. Alvarado Kubasaki HS

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Flashcards: AP Language & Comp Terms

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Abstract

Refers to language that describes concepts rather than concrete images (ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people, or places)

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Terms	Definitions
Abstract	Refers to language that describes concepts rather than concrete images (ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people, or places)
Ad Hominem	In an argument, this is an attack on the person rather than on the opponent's ideas.
Allegory	The underlying meaning may be moral, religious, political, social, or satiric.
Alliteration	Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close to one another
Allusion	A reference to a well-known person, place, or thing from literature, history, etc.
Analogy	Comparison of two similar but different things, usually to clarify an action or a relationship, such as comparing the work of a heart to that of a pump.
Anaphora	Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row.
Anecdote	A short, simple narrative of an incident; often used for humorous effect or to make a point.
Annotation	Explanatory notes added to a text to explain, cite sources, or give bibliographical data.
Antithesis	The presentation of two contrasting images. The ideas are balanced by word, phrase, clause, or paragraphs.
Aphorism	A short, often witty statement of a principle or truth about life.
Apostrophe	The device of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction.
Argumentation	Writing that attempts to prove the validity of a point of view or an idea by presenting reasoned arguments.
Assonance	Repetition of vowel sounds between different constonants.
Asyndeton	Commas used (with no conjunction) to separate a series of words. Takes the form of X, Y, Z as opposed to X, Y, and Z.
Cacophony	Harsh, awkward, or dissonant sounds used deliberately in poetry or prose
Caricature	Descriptive writing that greatly exaggerates or distorts, for comic effect, a person's physical features or other characteristics
Colloquialism	A word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversation and informal writing but that is often inappropriate in formal writing
Coherence	Quality of a piece of writing in which all the parts contribute to the development of the central idea, theme, or organizing principle
Concrete Language	Language that describes specific, observable things, people, or places, rather than ideas or qualities.
Connotation	Implied or suggested meaning of a word because of its association in the reader's mind
Consonance	Repetition of identical consonant sounds within two or more words in close proximity, as in boost/best; it can also be seen within several compound words, such as fulfill and pingpong
Conundrum	A riddle whose answer is or involves a pun; it may also be a paradox or difficult problem
Deduction	The process of moving from a general rule to a specific example
Denotation	Literal meaning of a word as defined
Description	The picture in words of something or someone through detailed observation of color, motion, sound, taste, smell, and touch; one of the four modes of discourse.
Diction	Word choice, an element of style; Diction creates tone, attitude, and style, as well as meaning. Different typres and arrangements of words have significant effects on meaning.
Didactic	Writing whose purpose is to instruct or to teach; Usually formal and focuses on moral or ethical concerns; May be fictional or nonfictional that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides model of correct behavior or thinking.
Discourse	Spoken or written language, including literary works; the four traditionally classified modes are description, exopsition, narration, and presuasion.
Dissonance	Harsh or grating sounds that do not go together.
Dramatic Irony	When the reader is aware of an inconsistency between a fictional or nonfictional character's perception of a situation and the truth of that situation.
Emotional Appeal	When a writer appeals to readers' emotions (often through pathos) to excite and involve them in the argument.
Epigraph	The use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that hints at its theme.
Ethical Appeal	When a writer tries to persuade the audience to respect and believe him or her based on a presentation of image of self through the text.
Euphemism	A more acceptable and usually more pleasant way of saying something that might be inappropriate or uncomfortable.
Euphony	A succession of harmounious sounds used in poetry or prose.
Example	An individual instance taken to be representative of a general pattern.
Explication	The art of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text.
Exposition	The immediate revelation to the audience of the setting and other background information necessary for understanding the plot.
Extended Metaphor	A sustained comparison, often used to as a conceit.
False Analogy	When two cases are not sufficiently parallel to lead readers to accept a claim of connection between them.
Figurative Language	Language that contains figures of speech, such as similies and metaphors, in order to create associations that are imaginative rather than literal.
Figures of Speech	Expression, such as similies, metaphors, and personifications, that make imaginative, rather than literal, comparisons or associations.
Forshadowing	The use of a hint or clue to suggest a larger event that occurs late in the work.
Freight-Train	Sentence consisting of three or more very short independent clauses joined by conjunctions.
Generalization	When a writer bases a claim upon an isolated example or asserts that a claim is certain rather than probable.
Genre	A type of literary work, such as a novel or a poem; there are also subgenres, such as science fiction or sonnets, within the larger genres.
Hubris	The exessive pride of ambition that leads a tragic hero to disregard warnings of impending doom, eventually causing his or her downfall.
Humor	Anything that causes laughter or amusement.
Hyperbole	Deliberate exaggeration in order to create humor or ephasis.
Image	A word or words, either figurative or literal, used to describe a sensory experience or an object perceived by the sense.
Imagery	Words or phrases that use a collection of images to appeal to one or more of the five senses in order to create a mental picture
Induction	The process that moves from a given series to a generalization
Inference	A conclusion that one can draw from the presented details
Interior Monologue	Writing that records the conversation that occur inside a character's head
Invective	A verbally abusive attack
Inversion	Reversing the customary (subject first, then verb, then complement) order of elements in a sentence or phrase
Irony	A situation or statement in which the actual outcome or meaning is opposite to what was expected
Jargon	The special language of a profession or group
Logic	The process of reasoning
Logical Fallacy	A mistake in reasoning
Lyrical	Songlike; characterized by emotions, subjectivity, and imagination
Metaphor	A figure of speech in which one thing is referred to as another
Metonymy	A figure of speech that uses the name of an object, person, or idea to represent something with which it is associated
Mode	The method or form of a literary work; the manner in which a work of literature is written
Mood	Similar to tone, it is the primary emotional attitude of a work (the feeling of the work; the atmosphere)
Moral	The lesson drawn from a fictional or nonfictional story. It can also mean a heavily didactic story
Motif	Main theme or subject of a work that is elaborated on in the development of the piece; a repeated pattern or idea
Narration	The telling of a story in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama
Negative-Positive	Sentence that begins by stating what is NOT true, then ending by stating what is true
Non-sequitor	Latin for "it does not follow." When one statement isn't logically connected to another
Objectivity	An impersonal presentation of events and characters. It is a writer's attempt to remove himself or herself from any subjective, personal involvement in a story
Onomatopea	The use of words that sound like what they mean, such as "hiss," "buzz," "slam," and "boom"
Oversimplification	When a writer obscures or denies the complexity of the issues in an argument
Oxymoron	A figure of speech composed of contradictory words or phrases, such as "wise fool," "bitter-sweet," "pretty ugly," "jumbo shrimp," "cold fire"
Pacing	The movement of a literary piece from one point or one section to another
Parable	A short tale that teaches a moral; similar to but shorter than an allegory
Paradox	A statement that seems to contradict itself but that turns out to have a rational meaning
Parallelism	The technique of arranging words, phrases, clauses, or larger structures by placing them side by side and making them similar in form
Parody	A work that ridicules the style of another work by imitating and exaggerating its elements
Pathos	The aspects of a literary work that elicit sorrow or pity from the audience. An appeal to emotion that can be used as a means to persuade
Pedantic	A term used to describe writing that borders on lecturing. It is scholarly and academic and often overly difficult and distant
Personification	The attribution of human qualities to a nonhuman or an inanimate object
Persuasion	A form of argumentation, one of the four modes of discourse; language intended to convince through appeals to reason or emotion
Point of View	The perspective from which a story is presented
First person narrator	A narrator, referred to as "I," who is a character in the story and relates the actions through his or her own perspective, also revealing his or her own thoughts
Stream of Consciousness	like a first person narrator, but instead placing the reader inside the character's head, making the reader privy to the continuous, chaotic flow of disconnected, half-formed thoughts and impressions in the character's mind
Omnicscient narrator	third person narrator, referred to as "he," "she," or "they," who is able to see into each character's mind and understands all the action
Limited Omniscient narrator	a third person narrator who reports the thoughts of only one character and generally only what that one character sees
Objective narrator	a third person narrator who only reports what would be visible to a camera; thoughts and feelings are only revealed if a character speaks of them
Polysyndeton	Sentence which uses and or another conjunction (with no commas) to separate the items in a series
Protagonist	The main character of a literary work
Red Herring	When a writer raises an irrelevant issue to draw attention away from the real issue
Reductio ad Absurdum	The Latin for "to reduce to the absurd." This is a technique useful in creating a comic effect and is also an argumentative technique. It is considered a rhetorical fallacy because it reduces an argument to an either/or choice
Regionalism	An element in literature that conveys a realistic portrayal of a specific geographical locale, using the locale and its influences as a major part of the plot
Repetition	Word or phrase used two or more times in close proximity
Rhetoric	The art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse; it focuses on the interrelationship of invention, arrangement, and style in order to create felicitous and appropriate discourse
Rhetorical Modes	Exposition, description, narration, argumentation
Rhetorical Question	One that does not expect an explicit answer. It is used to pose an idea to be considered by the speaker or audience.
Sarcasm	Harsh, caustic personal remarks to or about someone; less subtle than irony, but more mean-spirited. Generally how Coia talks
Satire	A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of human behavior by portraying it in an extreme way
Setting	Time and place of a literary work
Simile	A figure of speech that uses like, as, or as if to make a direct comparison between two essentially different objects, actions, or qualities
Speaker	The voice of a work; an author may speak as himself or herself or as a fictitious persona
Stereotype	A character who represents a trait that is usually attributed to a particular social or racial group and who lacks individuality
Straw Man	When a writer argues against a claim that nobody actually holds or is universally considered weak.
Style	An author's characteristic manner of expression
Subjectivity	A personal presentation of evens and characters, influenced by the author's feelings and opinions
Syllogism	A form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is drawn from them. Is in the format of a formal argument that consists of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.
Symbolism	The use of symbols or anything that is meant to be taken both literally and as representative of a higher and more complex significance
Synecdoche	A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent a whole
Syntactic Fluency	Ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or simple and varied in length
Syntactic Permutation	Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. They are often difficult for the reader to follow
Syntax	The grammatical structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words in a sentence
Theme	The central idea or "message" of a literary work
Thesis	The main idea of a piece of writing. It presents the author's assertion or claim
Tone	The characteristic emotion or attitude of an author toward characters, subject, and audience
Tricolon	Sentence consisting of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses
Understatement	The opposite of exaggeration. It is a technique for developing irony/or humor where one writes or says less than intended
Voice	The relationship between a sentence's subject and verb or the total "sound" of a writer's style
Second person narrator	A character, "you," who tells the story and necessarily has a limited point of view
Third person narrator	A form of storytelling in which the narrator relates all action in third person, using third person pronouns such as "he" or "she." Third person point of view may be omniscient or limited.