AP English Language and Composition Rhetorical and Literary Terms

Vocabulary flashcards defining essential literary, grammatical, and rhetorical terms for the AP English Language and Composition Exam.

Satire

A work that targets human vices and follies, or social institutions and conventions, for reform or ridicule. It is best seen as a style of writing that employs devices like irony, wit, parody, caricature, hyperbole, understatement, and sarcasm.

Simile

An explicit comparison, normally using "like," "as," or "if."

Style

An evaluation of the sum of choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices, as well as the classification and comparison of an author to a group, historical period, or literary movement.

Subject Complement

The word (with accompanying phrases) or clause that follows a linking verb and completes the subject of the sentence by either renaming it (predicate nominative) or describing it (predicate adjective).

Subordinate Clause

A word group containing both a subject and a verb that cannot stand alone as a complete thought and depends on a main or independent clause to complete its meaning; also known as a dependent clause.

Syllogism

A deductive system of formal logic (from the Greek for "reckoning together") that presents a major premise and a minor premise that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion.

Symbol / Symbolism

Generally, anything concrete (such as an object, action, character, or scene) that represents or stands for something else, usually something more abstract.

Natural Symbols

Symbols that use objects and occurrences from nature to represent ideas commonly associated with them, such as dawn representing hope or a rose representing love.

Conventional Symbols

Symbols that have been invested with meaning by a group, such as religious symbols (a cross or Star of David), national symbols (a flag or eagle), or group symbols (skull and crossbones).

Literary Symbols

Symbols found in literary works that may be conventional across a variety of texts or more complex and specific, representing an abstraction within a particular work.

Syntax

The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences; it refers to groups of words, in contrast to diction, which refers to individual words.

Theme

The central idea or message of a work, offering insight into life; frequently stated as a "universal truth" about the human condition, society, or man's relation to nature.

Thesis

In expository writing, the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition.

Tone

The author's attitude toward his or her material, the audience, or both; similar to mood and reflects how a work would sound if read aloud.

Transition

A word or phrase that links different ideas and effectively signals a shift from one idea to another, especially in expository and argumentative writing.

Understatement

The ironic minimizing of fact that presents something as less significant than it is; the opposite of hyperbole.

Litotes

A figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by denying its opposite, using understatement for emphasis frequently with a negative assertion.

Meiosis

The Greek term for understatement or belittling; a rhetorical figure by which something very impressive is referred to with simplicity or in terms less important than it deserves.

Wit

In modern usage, intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights, using terse language to make pointed, humorous, and perceptive remarks.