AP Comp Literary and Rhetorical Terms
Terms
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- anaphora
- repetition of a word, phrase or cluase at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row.
- annotation
- explanatory notes added to a text to explain, cite sources, or give bibliographical data.
- antithesis
- a balancing of two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses
- assonance
- repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity
- asyndeton
- commas used (with no conjunction) to separate a series of words.
- authority
- arguments that draw on recognized experts or person with highly relevant experience are said to rest on authoritative backing or authority.
- backing
- support or evidence for a claim in an argument
- causal relationship
- where a writer asserts taht one thing results from another
- chiasmus
- arrangement of repeated thoughts in a pattern of XYYX
- common knowledge
- shared beliefs or assumptions
- concrete language
- language that describes specific, observable things, people or places, rather than ideas or qualities
- conventional
- following certain conventions or traditional techniques of writing
- consonance
- repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity
- deconstruction
- a critical approach that debunks single definitions of meaning based on the instability of language.
- didactic
- a teaching on a moral lesson
- dramatic irony
- when the reader is aware of an inconsistency between a fictional or nonfictional charater's perception of a situation and the truth of that situation.
- elliptical
- sentence structure taht leaves out something in the second half.
- emotional appeal
- when a writer appeals to an audience's emotions
- epigraph
- a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of a theme
- equivocation
- when a writer uses the same term in two different senses in an argument
- 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.
- example
- individual instance taken to be representatie of a general pattern.