| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Unreliable Narrator | a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted |
| Alliteration | the repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words |
| Abstract Language | Language describing ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people, or places. |
| Concrete Language | Language that describes specific, observable things, peoples or places, rather than ideas or qualities. |
| Active Voice | the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is performing the action or causing the happening denoted by the verb |
| Passive Voice | the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb |
| Ad Hominem | In an argument, this is an attack on the person rather than on the opponent's ideas. It comes from the Latin meaning "against the man." |
| Allegory | a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another |
| Allusion | A referance in a literary work to a person, place, historical incident, or another work of literture. |
| Analogy | drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect |
| Anaphora | repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines |
| Anecdote | a very brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something. |
| Antimetabole | Repitition of words in succussive 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 | opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced of parallel construction |
| Aphorism | A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. |
| Apostrophe | a turn from the general audience to a specific group, person, or thing ("For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him." Shakespeare) |
| Appeals | implicit or explicit arguments used to get the attention of the audience. Focuses on perceived desires or deficits |
| Assonance | The repetition of internal vowel sounds in nearby words that do not end the same. E.g. 'asleep under a tree' |
| Asyndeton | lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses or words |
| Cacophony | loud confusing disagreeable sounds |
| Euphony | any agreeable (pleasing and harmonious) sounds |
| Chiasmus | A term from classical rhetoric that describes a situation in which you introduce subjects in the order A, B, and C, and then talk about them in the order C, B, and A. |
| Clause | an expression including a subject and predicate but not constituting a complete sentence |
| Colloquialism | an expression that is usually accepted in informal situations and certain locations. |
| Connotation | the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase |
| Deduction | something that is inferred (deduced or entailed or implied) |
| Denotation | the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression |
| Dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area. |
| Didactic | Pertaining to teaching. |
| Diction | A writer's choice or words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning. |
| Ellipsis | omission of one or more words, which are assumed by the listener or reader ("The American soldiers killed eight civilians, and the French eight.") |
| Encomium | a formal expression of praise, a lavish tribute |
| Enthymeme | claim + reason |
| Epiphora | Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses. ex. Of the people, by the people, for the people |
| Ethos | appeal to authority |
| Tautology | needless repetition of meaning, using different words to say the same thing twice |
| Hyperbole | exaggeration ("I could eat a horse") |
| Hypophora | Raising questions and answering them (""What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.") |
| Archaism | use of an older or obsolete form of language ("thee", "thou") |
| Climax | arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power |
| euphemism | substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant |
| Litotes | a form of understatement; when a certain statement is expressed by denying its opposite ("Not bad." "I am not amused.") |
| Metonymy | when a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept ("a man of the cloth", "pen mightier than the sword") |
| Syllepsis | use of a word with two others, with each of which it is understood differently ("We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately." Ben Franklin) |
| Synecdoche | the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part (50 head of cattle; San Antonio lost to Dallas) |
| Zeugma | the joining of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun, employing ellipsis ("You held your breath and the door for me.") |
| Idiom | a phrase whose meaning cannot be determined by the literal definition of the phrase itself, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use ("piece of cake", "chip on shoulder" |
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-Stephanie Gatica(PINK)
