AP Language and Composition Glossary of Literary and Rhetorical Terms
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Created by:
Faraday13 on September 28, 2007
Classes:
AP Language and Composition Wilson High School, PenPushers, AP Lang & Comp, AP Language-McGee
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80 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Abstract Language | Lauguage descirbing ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people or places. |
| Active voice | The subject of the sentence performs the action. |
| Allusion | An indirect reference to something with which the reader is supposed to be familiar. |
| Ambiguity | An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way. |
| Analogy | A comparison to a directly parallel case. |
| Anecdote | A brief recounting of a relevant episode. |
| Annotation | Explanatory notes added to a text to explain, clarify, or prompt futher thought. |
| Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. |
| Apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. The effect may add familiarity or emotional intensity. |
| Attitude of the author/tone | A writer's attitude toward his subject matter revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization. |
| Classicism | Art or literature characterized by a realistic view of people and the world; sticks to traditional themes and structures. |
| Concrete Language | Language that describes specific, observable things, peoples or places, rather than ideas or qualities. |
| Diction | Word choice, particularly as an element of style. |
| Colloquial | Ordinary or familiar type of conversation. |
| Connotation | Implied meaning rather than literal meaning. |
| Denotation | the literal, explicit meaning of a word, without its connotations. |
| Jargon | The diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity. |
| Vernacular | Language or dialect of a particular country, language or dialect of a regional clan or group, plain everyday speech. |
| Didactic | A term used to describe fiction, nonfiction or poety that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking. |
| Adage | A folk saying with a lesson |
| Allegory | A story, fictional or non fictional, in which characters, things, and events represent qualities or concepts. |
| Aphorism | A terse statement which expresses a general truth or moral principle. |
| Homily | This term literally means "sermon," but more informally, it can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice. |
| Ellipsis | The deliberate omission of a word or phrase from prose done for effect by the author. |
| Epigram | A short poem with a clever twist at the end, or a concise and witty statement. |
| Epigraph | A quotation or aphorism at the beginnning of a literary work suggestive of theme. |
| Euphemism | A more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts. |
| Explication | The act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text. |
| Figurative Language | The opposite of "literal language"; writing that is not meant to be taken literally |
| Hyperbole | Exaggeration |
| Idiom | A common, often used expression that doesn't make sense if you take it literally. |
| Metaphor | Making an implied comparsion, not using "like," "as," or other such words. |
| Simile | Using words such as "like" or "as" to make a direct comparison between two very different things. |
| Genre | The major category into which a literary work fits. |
| Gothic | Writing characterized by gloom, mystery, fear and/or death. |
| Imagery | Word or words that create a picture in the reader's mind. |
| Invective | An emotionall violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language. |
| Irony | When the opposite of what you expect to happen does. |
| Verbal irony | When you say something and mean the opposite/something different. |
| Dramatic irony | When the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn't and would be surprised to find out. |
| Situational irony | Found in the plot of a book, story, or movie. |
| Juxtaposition | Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison. |
| Mood | The atmosphere created by the literature and accomplished through word choice. |
| Objectivity | An author's stance that distances himself from personal involvement. |
| Oxymoron | When apparently contradictory terms are grouped together and suggest a paradox. |
| Paradox | A seemingly contradictory statement which is actually true. |
| Parallelism/parallel structure | Sentence construction which places equal grammatical construction near each other, or repeats identical grammatical patterns. |
| Anaphora | Repetition or a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. |
| Antithesis | Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure. |
| Parenthetical idea | An idea that is set off from the rest of the sentence. |
| Parody | An exaggerated imitation of a serious work for humorous purposes. |
| Passive voice | The subject of the sentence receives the action. |
| Pedantic | Observing strict adherence to formal rules or literal meaning at the expense of a wider view. |
| Persona | The fictional mask or narrator that tells a story. |
| Rhetoric | The art of effective communication. |
| Rhetorical question | A question not asked for information but for effect. |
| Romanticism | Art or literature characterized by an idealistic, perhaps unrealistic view of people and the world, and an emphasis on nature. |
| Sarcasm | A generally bitter comment that is ironically worded. |
| Satire | A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of life to a humorous effect. |
| Sentence | A group of words (including subject and verb) that expresses a complete thought. |
| Appositive | A word or group or words placed beside a noun or noun substitute to supplement its meaning. |
| Clause | A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. |
| Simple sentence | Contains one independent clause. |
| Compound sentence | Contains at least two independent clauses but no dependent clauses. |
| Complex sentence | Contains only one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. |
| Compound-complex sentence | contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. |
| Balanced sentence | One in which two parallel elements are set off against each other like equal weights on a scale. |
| Loose sentence | A complex sentence in which the main clause comes first and the subordinate clause follows. |
| Periodic sentence | When the main idea is not completed until the end of the sentence. |
| Declarative sentence | States an idea |
| Imperative sentence | Issues a command. |
| Interrogative sentence | Sentences incorporating interrogative pronouns. |
| Style | The choices in diction, tone, and syntax that a writer makes. |
| Symbol | Anything that represents or stands for somthing else. |
| Syntax/sentence variety | Grammatical arrangement of words. |
| Theme | The central idea or message of a work. |
| Thesis | The sentence or groups of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition. |
| Transition | Smooth movement from one paragraph (or idea) to another. |
| Understatement | the ironice minimizing of fact, presents something as less significant than it is. |
| Litotes | A particular form of understatement, generated by denying the opposite of the statement which otherwise would be used. |
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