Flash cards linguistic devices

Context

The circumstances, atmosphere, attitudes, and events surrounding a text.

Form

The type of writing or text type.

Audience

The listener, viewer, or reader of a text.

Purpose

The writer or speaker’s intention or objective. Remember PIER: Persuade, Inform, Entertain, Review.

Tone

A writer’s attitude toward the subject and audience, mainly conveyed through diction, point of view, syntax, and formality.

Register

The level of formality or informality of language.

Ambiguity

Having more than one possible meaning; unclear or open to multiple interpretations.

Colloquial

Informal language that resembles everyday spoken language.

Connotation

The emotional associations or feelings connected to a word beyond its literal meaning.

Denotation

The direct, literal, dictionary meaning of a word.

Genre

A category of artistic composition, such as film or literature, identified by its style, form, or content.

Mood

The emotion or feeling evoked by a text.

Cause and Effect

A structure showing how one event or action causes another event to happen.

Chronological Order

Organizing events according to when they happen in time.

Compare/Contrast

Examining the similarities and differences between two or more subjects.

Parallel Structure

Using the same grammatical structure between parts of a text to show equal significance.

Diamond Structure

A text begins with a narrow focus, expands to a broader focus, and then narrows back to a specific focus.

Circular Structure

A text begins with a particular topic or idea and ends by returning to that same topic or idea.

Voice

The distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or narrator.

Alliteration

Repetition of an initial consonant sound.

Allusion

A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, event, or work.

Analogy

A comparison between two similar situations or ideas used to explain something.

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences.

Antithesis

A contrast between opposing ideas expressed through parallel structures.