AP Lang Final 5/21

Alliteration

This rhetorical device references the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of successive words

Anaphora

This rhetorical device references repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds

Anadiplosis

Takes the last word of a sentence or phrase and repeats it near the beginning of the next sentence or phrase

Chiasmus

The repetition of ideas in inverted order

Conduplicatio

Takes an important word from anywhere in one sentence or phrase and repeats that word at the beginning of the next sentence or phrase

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance

Epistrophe

Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words

Parallelism

A repetition of sentences using the same grammatical structure emphasizing all aspects of the sentence equally

Polysyndeton

The use of many conjunctions that has the effect of slowing the pace or emphasizing the numerous words or clauses

Allusion

“I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

Colloquial

Barack Obama’s message about political ‘wokeness’ (2019)

This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff; you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities.

Connotation

“Black Men in Public Space” by Brent Staples (1986)

My first victim was a white woman, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, noninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man – a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket – seemed menacingly close.

Denotation

“Gender Equality is Your Issue Too” by Emma Watson (2014)

I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

For the record, feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

Didactic

“Advice to Youth” by Mark Twain (1882)

First, then. I will say to you my young friends — and I say it beseechingly, urgently — Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

Hyperbole

John F. Kennedy illustrated hyperbole during a speech made at a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel Prize winners. "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of human talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone," (Kennedy 1962)

Litotes

Abigail Adams to her husband John, who was the Second President of the United States. In her letter, she said “I cannot say that I consider you to be kind to the ladies.” 

Metonymy

Margaret Thatcher’s eulogy for Ronald Reagan (2004)

Yet his ideas, so clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion, yet he also sensed that it was being eaten away by systematic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow’s evil empire, but he realized that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from its dark corridors.

Personification

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

Dr. King stated, ''One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.'' 

Synecdoche

“Falling Down is Part of Growing Up” by Henry Petroski (1985)

We are transported across impromptu bridges of arms thrown up without plans or blueprints between mother and aunt, between neighbor and father, between brother and sister — none of whom is a registered structural engineer. We come to Mama and to Papa eventually to forget our scare reflex and we learn to trust the beams and girders and columns of their arms and our cribs.

Allusion

This rhetorical device is a reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history (usually historical, biblical, or cultural)

Colloquial

Characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech

Connotation

The set of associations implied by a word in addition to its literal meaning

Denotation

The literal meaning of a word, the dictionary definition

Didactic

Tone, instructional, designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration of a person, thing, quality, event to emphasize a point external to the object of exaggeration

Litotes

Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite

Metonymy

A figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated

Personification

Represents abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities, including physical, emotional, and spiritual; the application of human attributes or abilities to nonhuman entities

Synecdoche

The rhetorical substitution of a part for the whole

Alliteration

Ex: “face the fire at freedom’s front”

Anaphora

Ex: “I Have a Dream” speech - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Assonance

Ex: “His tender heir might bear his memory”

Anadiplosis

Ex: “In education we find the measure of our own ignorance; in ignorance we find the beginning of wisdom”

Chiasmus

Ex: “And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”

Conduplicatio

Ex: “This law destroys the fruits of thirty years of struggle, bringing us back to a less enlightened time. Law should be evolutionary, building up rather than tearing down.”

Consonance

Ex: “At the edge of the bridge, I stood, refusing to budge or even to acknowledge my predicament.”

Epistrophe

Ex: “For no government is better than the men who compose it, and I want the best, and we need the best, and we deserve the best.”

Parallelism

Ex: “Feed a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed a man for life.”

Polysyndeton

Ex: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”