Rhetorical Terms English I Honors

grammar

Systematic logic and labels used to explain the function of different types

of words within a language

syntax

The sequence of words within a given sentence that help cue a reader’s

understanding of the specific grammatical and/or rhetorical roles those

words are meant to play in that sentence.

rhetoric

is language intended and arranged to

persuade or to produce some other deliberate effect for or upon an

audience.

aesthetic

To do with artistic or sensory feelings, impressions, especially with a sense of what

constitutes the “beautiful” versus the “ugly.”

representation

In verbal contexts, the use of language to call to mind the appearance of

and relations among objects, people, phenomena (happenings), ideas.

tone

Emotional quality and/or attitude projected by a voice,

mood

The emotional atmosphere projected

onto a scene or situation that is described or developed in a given cultural

text or situation

style

A pattern of emphases or de-emphases within the received norms or range

of a language’s grammar, syntax, and/or vocabulary that is perceived by

readers to be “individual” or otherwise distinctive when compared to that

norm or range.

diction

Uses of language that mark it as formal or informal (or somewhere in-

between), or suited to a specific speaking occasion or writing situation.

discourse

Uses of language understood to be shaped by changing (and sometimes

contending) historical and social cultural influences.

genre

A commonly recognized type of literary or other cultural text or work, such

as “novel,” “play,” “poem,” etc

convention

A stylistic or symbolic device, dramatic situation, character type, reading

practice, etc. that recurs again and again in literary and other cultural texts.

prose

Ordinary linear form or mode of most modern (1700s to present) written

language, in which the sentence and the paragraph (rather than verses or

other graphic devices) are the most prominent visual markers of completed

and differentiated ideas. Rhyme and/or meter are not foregrounded formal

features of everyday prose.

verse

A common form or mode of ancient sacred and poetic language, but almost

exclusively a “poetic” form in modern language, in which sequences of

words are arranged metrically and set in lines of deliberate lengths

according to some conventional rule or design.

non-fiction

A mode of writing describing or discussing some aspect of the ACTUAL

world, past or present.

fiction

A mode of writing that narrates or dramatizes IMAGINED events or persons

that do not exist in the actual world, past or present, even if these imagined

events or persons appear plausibly “realistic.”.

narration/narrative/narrate

Writing or speaking that tells a story or recounts a sequence of

events, fictional or actual, primarily through prose or verse, though many

narratives also include dialogue.

novel

A lengthy (usually well over 100 pages) fictional narrative written in prose.

history

A lengthy NON-fictional account of past events, usually written in prose.

account

Narrative record of an event or situation, usually understood to reflect a

particular vantage point rather than a comprehensive picture,

anecdote

A brief account or narrative of an interesting or humorous event, which

may be revealing or engaging, but is based on casual observations or

indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis or information

gathering.