AP Lang Vocab Test-2

Allegory

A narrative in which characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance. Often a universal symbol or a personified abstraction.

Alliteration

The sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants, usually in closely proximate stressed syllables.

Allusion

A literacy, historical, religious, or mythological reference in a literacy work.

Anaphora

The regular repetition of the same words or phrases at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses.

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of sharply constrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure or ideas.

Aphorism

A concise statement designed to make a point or illustrate a commonly held belief.

Appeals to authority, emotion, logic

Rhetorical arguments in which the speaker claims to be an authority or expert in a field, or attempts to play upon the emotions, or appeals to the use of reason.

Apostrophe

An address or invocation to something inanimate

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually in successive or proximate words.

Asyndeton

A sytanctical structure in which conjuctions are omitted in a series, usually producing more rapid prose.

Attitude

The sense expressed by the tone of voice or the mood of a piece of writing; the author’s feelings toward his or her subject, characters, events, or theme. It might even be his or her feelings for the reader.

Begging the question

An argumentative ploy where the arguer sidesteps the question or the conflict, evades or ignores the real question.

Canon

That which has been accepted as authentic.

Chiasmus

A figure of speech and generally a syntactical structure wherein the order of terms in the first half of a parallel clause is reversed in the second.

Colloquial

A term identifying the diction of the common, ordinary folks, especially in a specific region or area.

Conceit

A comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem

Connotation

The implied, suggested, or underlying meaning of a word or phrase

Consonance

The repetition of two or more constonants with a change in intervening vowels

Critique

An assessment or analysis of something, such as a passage of writing, for determining what it is, what its limitations are, and how it conforms to the standard of the genre

Deductive reasoning

The method of argument in which specific statements and conclusions are drawn from general principles: movement from the general to the specific

Dialect

The language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group

Diction

The specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose or effect

Didactic

Writing or speech that has an instructive purpose or a lesson; often associated with a dry, pompous presentation

Elegy

A poem or prose that laments, or mediates upon the death of a person

Epistrophe

In rhetoric, the repetition of a phrase at the end of successive sentences

Epitaph

Writing in praise of a dead person, most often inscribed upon a headstone

Ethos

In rhetoric, the appeal of a text to the credibility and character of the speaker, writer, or narrator

Eulogy

A speech or written passage in praise of a person; an oration in honor of a deceased person

Euphemism

An indirect, kinder, or less harsh or hurtful way of expressing unpleasant information

Exposition

The interpretation or analysis of a text. Also, the opening section of a narrative or dramatic structure in which characters, setting, theme, and conflict can be revealed.