AP English Language Glossary
Terms
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- Character
- those who carry out the action of the plot in literature. Major, minor, static, and dynamic are the types.
- Description
- The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to re-create, invent, or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader can picture that being described. Sometimes an author engages all five senses.
- Symbol
- generally, anything that represents, stands for, something else. Usually, a ___ is something concrete—such as an object, action, character, or scene—that represents something more abstract.
- Hyperbole
- a figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement
- Causal Relationship
- In __, a writer asserts that one thing results from another. To show how one thing produces or brings about another is often relevant in establishing a logical argument.
- Metaphor
- a direct comparison between dissimilar things. "Your eyes are stars" is an example.
- Figurative Language
- Writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and is usually meant to be imaginative and vivid.
- Pedantic
- An adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish.
- Sarcasm
- from the Greek meaning "to tear flesh," ___ involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. It may use irony as a device.
- Voice
- can refer to two different areas of writing. One refers to the relationship between a sentence's subject and verb (active and passive). The second refers to the total "sound" of the writer's style.
- Ambiguity
- an event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way.
- Narrative
- The telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events.
- Syntax
- The grammatical structure of prose and poetry.
- Verbal Irony
- In this type of irony, the words literally state the opposite of the writer's true meaning
- Mood
- This term has two distinct technical meanings in English writing. The first meaning is grammatical and deals with verbal units and a speaker's attitude. The second meaning is literary, meaning the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work.
- Satire
- A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and convention for reform or ridicule. Regardless of whether or not the work aims to reform humans or their society, ___ is best seen as a style of writing rather than a purpose for writing. The effect of __, often humorous, is thought provoking and insightful about the human condition.
- Alliteration
- The repetition of initial consonant sounds, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
- Parallelism
- refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity.
- Backing
- Support or evidence for a claim in an argument
- Explication
- The act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text. __ usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.
- Dramatic Irony
- In this type of irony, facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or a piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work
- Imagery
- The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. On a physical level, __ uses terms related to the five senses; we refer to visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory. For example, a rose may present visual __ while also representing the color in a woman's cheeks.
- Cacophony
- harsh and discordant sounds in a line or passage in a literary word.
- Genre
- The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama.
- Point of View
- In literature, the perspective from which a story is told.
- Theme
- The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Usually, __ is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction, the __ may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing.
- Cumulative
- Sentence which begins with the main idea and then expands on that idea with a series of details or other particulars
- Tone
- Similar to mood, __ describes the author's attitude toward his or her material, the audience, or both.
- Example
- an individual instance taken to be representative of a general pattern
- Logos
- an appeal based on logic or reason
- Argumentation
- The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader.
- Epigraph
- The use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that hints at its theme. Hemingway begins The Sun Also Rises with two. One of them is "You are all a lost generation" by Gertrude Stein.
- Chiasmus
- Arrangement of repeated thoughts in the pattern of X Y Y X. It is often short and summarizes a main idea.
- Asyndeton
- Commas used (with no conjunction) to separate a series of words. The parts are emphasized equally when the conjunction is omitted; in addition, the use of commas with no intervening conjunction speeds up the flow of the sentence. X, Y, Z as opposed to X, Y, and Z.
- Figure of Speech
- A device used to produce figurative language. Many compare dissimilar things. Examples are apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonomy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, and understatement.
- Connotation
- the interpretive level or a word based on its associated images rather than its literal meaning.
- Pathos
- an appeal based on emotion.
- Semantics
- The branch of linguistics that studies that meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another.
- Exposition
- The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion.
- Antecedent
- the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers.
- Paradox
- A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity.
- Homily
- This term literally means "sermon," but more informally, it can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice.
- Parody
- A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule.
- Anecdote
- A story or brief episode told by the writer or a character to illustrate a point.
- Rhetorical Modes
- The flexible term describes the variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing.
- Personification
- The assigning of human qualities to inanimate objects or concepts. An example: Wordsworth's "the sea that bares her bosom to the moon."
- Abstract Language
- Language describing ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people, or places.
- Euphony
- the pleasant, mellifluous presentation of sounds in a literary work.
- Prose
- One of the major divisions of genre, ___ refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms, because they are written in ordinary language and most closely resemble everyday speech.
- Infer
- To draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented.
- Periodic Sentence
- A sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end. The independent clause is preceded by a phrase or clause that cannot stand alone. The effect is to add emphasis and structural variety.
- Third Person Limited Omniscient
- This type of point of view presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character, presenting only the actions of all remaining characters
- Either-or reasoning
- When the writer reduces an argument or issue to two polar opposites and ignores any alternatives.
- Ellipsis
- Indicated by a series of three periods, the __ indicates that some material has been omitted from a given text.
- Rhetoric
- from the Greek for "orator," this term describes the principle governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively.
- Oxymoron
- From the Greek for "pointedly foolish," ___ is a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms. Simple examples include "jumbo shrimp" and "cruel kindness."
- Begging the Question
- Often called circular reasoning, __ occurs when the believability of the evidence depends on the believability of the claim.
- Argument
- A single assertion or a series of assertions presented and defended by the writer
- Equivocation
- When a writer uses the same term in two different senses in an argument.
- Transition
- a word or phrase that links one idea to the next and carries the reader from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph.
- Synecdoche
- . a figure of speech that utilizes a part as representative of the whole. "All hands on deck" is an example.
- Deduction
- The process of moving from a general rule to a specific example.
- Deconstruction
- a critical approach that debunks single definitions of meaning based on the instability of language. It "is not a dismantling of a structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself."
- Conflict
- a clash between opposing forces in a literary work, such as man vs. man; man vs. nature; man vs. God; man vs. self
- Antithesis
- the presentation of two contrasting images. The ideas are balanced by phrase, clause, or paragraphs. "To be or not to be . . ." "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times . . ." "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country . . ."
- Narrative Device
- This term describes the tools of the storyteller, such as ordering events to that they build to climatic movement or withholding information until a crucial or appropriate moment when revealing in creates a desired effect.
- Third Person Omniscient
- In ___, the narrator, with a godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all characters.
- Analogy
- a literary device employed to serve as a basis for comparison. It is assumed that what applies to the parallel situation also applies to the original circumstance. In other words, it is the comparison between two different items.
- Narration
- The purpose of this type of rhetorical mode is to tell the story or narrate an event or series of events.
- Authority
- Arguments that draw on recognized experts or persons with highly relevant experience.
- Diction
- the author's choice of words that creates tone, attitude, and style, as well as meaning
- Syllogism
- From the Greek for "reckoning together," a __ is a deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion.
- Denotation
- the literal or dictionary meaning of a word
- Euphemism
- a more acceptable and usually more pleasant way of saying something that might be inappropriate or uncomfortable. "He went to his final reward" is a common __ for "he died." They are also used to obscure the reality of the situation.
- Invective
- an emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language.
- Comic Relief
- the inclusion of a humorous character or scene to contrast with the tragic elements of a work, thereby intensifying the next tragic event.
- 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."
- Attitude
- the relationship an author has toward his or her subject, and/or his or her audience
- Didactic
- writing whose purpose is to instruct or to teach. A ___ work is usually formal and focuses on moral or ethical concerns.
- Irony
- The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. The difference between what appears to be and what actually is true.
- Anaphora
- repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer's point more coherent.
- Annotation
- explanatory notes added to a text to explain, cite sources, or give bibliographical data.
- Consonance
- Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity.
- Allegory
- A work that functions on a symbolic level
- Onomatopoeia
- a figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. Simple examples include such words as buzz, hiss, hum.
- Repetition
- The duplication, either exact or approximate, or any element of language, such as sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern.
- Dialect
- the recreation of regional spoken language, such as a Southern one. Hurston uses this in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
- Assonance
- Repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity
- Understatement
- the opposite of exaggeration. It is a technique for developing irony and/or humor where one writes or says less than intended.
- Metonomy
- a term from the Greek meaning "changed label" or "substitute name" __ is a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. For example: a news release that claims "The White House declared" rather than "The President declared"
- Balance
- a situation in which all parts of the presentation are equal, whether in sentences or paragraphs or sections of a longer work.
- Stream-of-consciousness
- This is a narrative technique that places the reader in the mind and thought process of the narrator, no matter how random and spontaneous that may be.
- Colloquial
- the use of slang in writing, often to create local color and to provide an informal tone. Huckleberry Finn in written in a __ style.
- Situational Irony
- a type of irony in which events turn out the opposite of what was expected.
- Allusion
- A reference contained in a work
- Style
- an evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices.
- 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.
- Wit
- In modern usage, intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. Usually uses terse language that makes a pointed statement.
- Ethos
- an appeal based on the character of the speaker. An __-driven document relies on the reputation of the author.
- Thesis
- The sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition.