AP Comp Vocab list for Final
Terms
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- _____ terms are words and phrases that represent qualities, ideas, generalities, or general classes. Examples: love, displeasure, art, literature, craftsmanship, wondering, thinking, and wealth
- Abstract terms
- _____ terms stand for objects that can be perceived physically or imagined vividly. Examples are book, telephone, chopping wood, walking, slap, and house
- Concrete terms
- An implied comparison or series of comparisons extended throughout a composition.
- Allegory
- The repetition of initial sounds in successive or closely situated words in a line or sentence.
- Alliteration
- A reference of presumably familiar person or place, or to a literary, historical, artistic, mythological, or scriptural source, event, or work
- Allusion
- A confused meaning resulting from the use of a term in a way that produces a doubtful or multiple meaning in context
- Ambiguity
- A form of comparison based on the assumption--sometimes false--that if two things are alike in several important particulars, they are alike in most others as well. They are usually found between an unfamiliar thing and something presumably familiar to t
- Analogy
- A brief, often humorous account of an incident which illustrates a general truth, some aspect of human nature, or something typical of a particular individual or situation.
- Anecdote
- The use of two contrasting words, phrases, or ideas grammatically balanced against each other.
- Antithesis
- Occuring most often in poetry, ______ is the direct address of an abstract or dead person, as if the person were actually present, an abstract idea or quality, or a non human being or inanimate object
- Apostrophe
- The repetition of vowel sounds within a series of words; e.g., the words "cry" and "side" have the same vowel sound
- Assonance
- Used to describe the prevailing emotional and mental climate of a literary work, especially when the environment in which the action takes place contributes to that climate.
- Atmosphere
- Applies to the time and physical surroundings in which a story takes place and to the circumstances of the story
- Setting
- The comprehensive story of a person's life told systematically and in terms of actual facts, events, and available written by someone else
- Biography
- The comprehensive story of a person's life told systematically and in terms of actual facts, events, and available written by the person himself
- Autobiography
- The depiction in writing of people involved in a story's action
- Characterization
- Any style, trite, or hackeyed expression that has lost its freshness through overuse.
- Cliché
- The point of greatest intensity of action, interest, emotion, or suspense in a literary work
- Climax
- It comes in two forms (both usually unintentional): a) dramatic ______ in which the climax is unexpected or not consistent with what it follows, or in which its impact is less that the reader would expect; b) rhetorical _______, occuring in sentences or
- Anticlimax
- The quality that links one part of a composition to the next in order to from a unified whole. Achieved through the use of transitional words and phrases and through an orderly progression of parts, from the beginning to middle to conclusion
- Coherence
- A method of clarification and illustration by showing similarities between two or more objects
- Comparison
- Clarifies by detailing the differences between things.
- Contrast
- The struggle or problem in a story situation resulting from the clash of two opposing forces.
- Conflict
- The associated or suggeted meaning(s) of a word beyond its literal meaning
- Connotation
- Consonant sounds are repeated in the middle of or at the end of words to produce a harmonious effect
- Consonance
- For a word, the other words surrounding it. It often gives a hint of, or even determines, a word's meaning in a particular instance
- Context
- A form of reasoning that moves from a general statement or truth to its manifestation in a particular instance or in partucular examples.
- Deduction
- A form of reasoning that draws inferences or truths from a set of particulars and formulating form a general truth
- Induction
- The literal or "dictionary" meaning of a word
- Denotation
- Writing that attempts to create through physical details and impressions.
- Description
- The facts revealed by an author or speaker that support the attitude or tone in a piece of poetry or prose
- Details
- The reproduction of the conversation of two or more characters.
- Dialogue
- The choice, arrangement, and use of words in a literary work
- Diction
- The intentional practice of attempting to instruct -- morally or otherwise-- through one's writing or preaching
- Didacticism
- In writing, the effective order and arrangement of words, sentences, paragraphs, and sections of a composition. Writing that is effective, forceful, and with the right stress on the right ideas
- Emphasis
- One of a progressive series of occurrences or significant events in a story or adventure
- Episode
- A word or phrase used to avoid the direct expression of an unpleasant act or idea, simply to avoid being direct.
- Euphemism
- A form of discourse that attempts to explain, define, or clarify its subject.
- Exposition
- Language marked by the various figures of speech, word devices used in a conscious attempt to achieve a freshnesss, vividness, or compactness of expression.
- Figurative language
- Words or phrases that describe one thing in terms of something else
- Figures of speech
- Changing the normal subject-verb-object order of a sentence for emphasis
- Inversion
- Omission of one or more words for consciseness and drama
- Ellipsis
- Repetition of the initial word or phrase in a series of clauses or phrases for emphasis and rhythm
- Anaphora
- Repetition of words or grammatical elements to achieve cumulative force and rhythm
- Extended parallelism
- One in which the writer builds suspense by beginning with subordinate elements and postponing the main clause
- Periodic sentence
- One in which the subordinate elements come at the end to call attention to them
- Cumulatve (or loose) sentence
- One in which two parallel elements are set off against each oher like equal weights on a scale
- Balanced Sentence
- A passage or section in a somposition that interrupts the logical time sequence in order to go back and relate an event that occurred earlier
- Flashback
- The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest future action
- Foreshadowing
- The structure, shape, or pattern that distinguishes one type of literature from another
- Form
- The matter and substance shaped or governed by the form of the work
- Content
- A deliberate exaggeration intended to produce emphasis without being taken literally
- Hyperbole
- The collective images, or word pictures, in a literary work
- Imagery
- The quality in writing that places the reader in the midst of teh action.
- Immediacy
- A figure of speech in which the intended meaning of a statement is the opposite of its literal meaning
- Irony
- A story or tale about a national hero or folk hero, saint, tribe, people, or historical event that has been handed down through generations
- Legend
- A literay movement that developed in the United States in the decades immediately following the War Between the States
- Local Color
- A figure of speech that compares one thing with another by speaking of the one as if it were actually the other
- Metaphor
- The overall emotional atmosphere or feeling created in a literary work by its tone which reflects the writer's attitudes toward both his subject and readers
- Mood
- A circumstance or set of circumstances that prompts a character to act in a certain way or that determines the outcome of a situation or work
- Motivation
- A tale of a story that describes the deeds of gods and superman heroes
- Myth
- The account of an event or series of events related in generally chronological order
- Narrative
- The telling of a story in writing or speaking
- Narration
- One who narrates, or relates, a true or fictional story
- Narrator
- The quality in writing characterized by the author's impersonal, unbiased, or detached attitude toward the subject
- Objectivity
- The use of words that imitate andapproximate sound, action, or the idea they represent.
- Onomatopoeia
- A form of paradox that combines a pair of opposite terms into a single unusual expression
- Oxymoron
- A seemingly self-contradictory statement, but one tha tis actually based on truth or contains some degree of truth
- Paradox
- May be used singly or in various combinations including: a) giving numerous details and particulars; b) illustrating with at least one example; c) relating an incident or anecdote; d) offering reasons; and e) drawing comparison or showing contrast or bot
- Methods of Paragraph Development
- The use of identical or nearly identical grammatical construictions, sentence patterns, or paragraph structures in order to produce a balanced order and emphasis.
- Parallelism
- The restatement of a line, passage, or entire work, using different words and often a different form in order to clarify or amplify the original
- Paraphrase
- The consious, often exaggerated, imitaion of a recognizable literay style or individual work with the intention of achieving jumor through distortion
- Parody
- A figure of speech in which human qualities and characteristics are attributed to a non human or inanimate thing
- Personification
- The overall arangement of detail, iincidents, events, and elements of confilct in a literary work, aimed at reating the greatest possible literay effect
- Plot
- The standpoint which a literay work is written
- Point of View
- The study of sound and rhythm in poetry
- Prosody
- The central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem.
- Protagonist
- The play on words that are identical or similar in sound, but have sharply diverse meanings
- Pun
- The deliberate use of any element of language mroe than once - sound, word, phrase, sentence, grammatical pattern, or rhythmical pattern
- Repetition
- The art of effective speaking or writing, incorporating the rules, techniques, and devices of composition.
- Rhetoric
- The repetition of sounds in two or more phrases that appear close to each other in a poem
- Rhyme
- The use of verbal irony in which a person appears to be praising something that is actually insulting
- Sarcasm
- The use of ridicule, sarcasm, wit or irony in order to expose, set right, or destroy a vice, folly, breach of good taste, or soical evil.
- Satire
- A true, even noble feeling
- Sentiment
- Excessive or unwarranted feeling
- Sentimentality
- The time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem take place
- Setting
- Refers to a change or movement in a piece resulting from an epiphany, realization, or insight gained by the speaker, a character, or the reader
- Rhetorical Shift or Turn
- A figure of speech which makes a direct comparison of two things through use of such terms as like, as if, and so.
- Simile
- A brief, often light, literary or dramatic composition about a specific subject.
- Sketch
- Stylistic techniques that convey meaning through sound
- Sound devices
- The framework or organization of a literary selection
- Structure
- The writer's characteristic manner of employing language
- Style
- In writing, the quality wherein expression of personal feelings, tastes, and judgments is the author's primary concern
- Subjectivity
- The uncertainty, expectancy, or tension that builds up as the climax of a narrative approaches
- Suspense
- Any object, person, place, or action that has both meaning in itself and that stands for something larger than itself, such as quality, attitude, belief or value
- Symbol
- A form of metaphor
- Synecdoche
- The arrangement of words and the order of grammatical elements in a sentence
- Syntax
- The main or central idea in a literary work that forms the basis for discussion
- Theme
- It expresses the main idea, premise, or topic to be discussed in a written work
- Theme Statement
- The writer's or speaker's attitude toward a subject, character, or audience, and it is conveyed through the author;s choice of words and detail
- Tone
- It expresses the main point or idea developed within the paragraph
- Topic sentence
- It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is.
- Understatement
- The singleness purpose, theme, or topic which binds a somposition together
- Unity
- A word used to name a person, place, thing, or idea
- Noun
- A word used in place of a noun or of more than one noun
- Pronoun
- A word used to modify a noun or pronoun
- Adjective
- A word that expresses action or otherwise helps to make a statement
- Verb
- A word used to modify a verb, an adjective, or other adverb
- Adverb
- A word used to show the relationship of a noun or a pronoun to some word in the sentence
- Preposition
- A word that joins words or groups of words
- Conjuction
- A word that expresses emotion grammatical realtion to other words in the sentence
- Interjection
- The part of the sentence abouth which something is being said
- Subject
- The part of the sentence that says something about the subject
- Predicate