ap lang

Foreshadowing

When an author gives hints about what will occur later in a story

Imagery

Word or words that create a picture in the reader's mind

Invective

A long, emotionally violent, attack using strong, abusive language.

Irony

When the opposite of what you expect to happen does.

Verbal Irony

When you say something and mean the opposite/something different

Dramatic Irony

When the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn't and would be surprised to find out.

Situational Irony

Found in the plot (or story line) of a book, story, or movie. Sometimes it makes you laugh because it's funny how things turn out.

Juxtaposition

Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison.

Mood

The atmosphere created by the literature and accomplished through word choice (diction).

Pacing

The speed or tempo of an author's writing.

Paradox

A seemingly contradictory situation which is actually true.

Parallelism

Sentence construction which places equal grammatical constructions near each other, or repeats identical grammatical patterns.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences or clauses in a row.

Chiasmus

When the same words are used twice in succession, but the second time, the order of the words is reversed.

Antithesis

Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure.

Parody

An exaggerated imitation of a serious work for humorous purposes.

Persona

The fictional mask or narrator that tells a story.

Pun

When a word that has two or more meanings is used in a humorous way

Sarcasm

A generally bitter comment that is ironically or satirically worded.

Satire

A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of life to a humorous effect.

Syntax

the grouping of words, , a reader should examine the length of sentences (short or long). How does sentence length and structure relate to tone and meaning. Are they simple, compound, compound-complex sentences? How do they relate to one another?

tone

A writer's attitude toward his subject matter revealed through diction, figurative language and organization.

understatment

The ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be humorous

conditional statement

is an if-then statement and consists of two parts, an antecedent and a consequent. “If you studied hard, then you will pass the test.” (premise of an arguement)

deductive argument

argument in which it is thought that the premises provide a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion. (impossible to be false)

inductive argument

argument in which it is thought that the premises provide reasons supporting the probable truth of the conclusion. (unlikely to be false)