Rhetorical Terms/Strategies AP Lang

Allegory

A narrative representing abstract concepts, often with moral, social, or political significance.

Alliteration

Repetition of initial sounds in words.

Allusion

A brief reference to a person, event, or work (often biblical or mythological).

Anadiplosis

Repetition of a word ending one clause and starting the next.

Analogy

Comparison assuming shared qualities; often used for reasoning or explanation.

Anaphora

Repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.

Anastrophe

Inversion of normal word order for emphasis.

Antecedent

The noun a pronoun refers to.

Anticipating Audience Response

Addressing counterarguments before they are voiced.

Antithesis

Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas with parallel structure.

Aphorism

Concise principle or precept.

Apostrophe

Addressing an absent or imaginary entity.

Appositive Phrase

Noun phrase modifying another noun.

Arrangement

Organization of a text (e.g., narration, description, exemplification).

Asyndeton

Omission of conjunctions.

Attitude

The author's perspective or feeling underlying the tone.

Call to Action

Writing urging action or change.

Characterization

Techniques to create and reveal characters.

Chiasmus

Reversal of grammatical structure.

Classification/Division

Sorting material into categories or breaking it into parts.

Cliché

Overused expressions.

Coinage

Invented words or phrases.

Colloquial Expression

Informal language.

Concrete

Pertains to actual things; opposite of abstract.

Defensive/Offensive

Arguing to defend one’s view or attack another's.

Definition

Specifies the basic nature of a phenomenon.

Denotation/Connotation

Denotation = literal meaning; Connotation = emotional or implied meaning.

Diction

Word choice and style in literature.

Doublespeak

Distorting language to mislead.

Downplaying/Intensifying

Drawing attention or diversion.

Ellipsis

Omission of understood words.

Emotional Appeal (Pathos)

Evoking feelings to persuade.

Epistrophe

Repetition of words at the end of successive clauses.

Ethical Appeal (Ethos)

Credibility based on character and knowledge.

Ethnocentricity

Belief in the superiority of one’s group.

Euphemism

Mild substitution for harsh terms.

Exigence

The reason or urgency prompting writing.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration.

Imagery

Language evoking sensory experiences.

Idiom

Expression not literally translatable.

Irony

Contrasting literal and intended meanings.

Jargon

Specialized language for a field.

Juxtaposition

Placing ideas side by side for comparison.

Litotes

Understatement using a negative.

Logical Fallacies

ogical fallacies are methods of pseudoreasoning that may occur
accidentally or may be intentionally contrived to lend plausibility to an unsound argument.
These include:
 A Shift in Definition: altering the definition of a word to serve your purpose.
 Ad Hominem: an attack against the character of the person instead of the issue.
 Begging the Question: assuming something to be true that really needs proof.
 False Analogy: an argument based on misleading, superficial, or implausible comparisons.
 Non Sequitur: LATIN for “It does not follow;” where the conclusion does not follow its premise.
 Red Herring: use of an irrelevant point to divert attention from the real issue.
 Slippery Slope: failure to provide evidence showing that one event will lead to a chain of events of a
catastrophic nature.
 Straw Man: where an opponent takes original argument of his adversary and then offers a close
imitation of it and knocks down that argumen

Logical Reasoning (Logos)

Use of facts, logic, or expert opinions.

Loose Sentence

Sentence complete before the end.

Metaphor

Comparison without 'like' or 'as'.

Metonymy

Substituting related terms.

Mood

The emotional atmosphere of a work.

Motif

Recurring images or themes in a work.

Narration

Telling a story or recounting events.

Onomatopoeia

Words mimicking sounds.

Oxymoron

Contradictory terms together.

Paradox

Self-contradictory statement.

Parallelism

Similar grammatical structure.

Periodic Sentence

Sentence that is not complete until the end.

Personification

Attributing human traits to nonhuman things.

Point of View

Perspective of narration.

Polysyndeton

Repeated conjunctions.

Pun

Play on words.

Repetition

Reiterating words/ideas for emphasis.

Rhetorical Question

Asked for effect, not answer.

Satire

Ridiculing to criticize or provoke thought.

Simile

Comparison using 'like' or 'as.'

Syntax

Sentence structure and word order.

Tone

Writer's attitude toward the subject.

Understatement

Expression of less strength than expected.

Voice

Implied personality of the author.

Allegory

Difficult to understand, expressing a quality apart from an object, dealing with a subject in its abstract aspects; it is opposite of concrete.

Example: the word poem is concrete,
poetry is abstract.

Simple Sentence

A simple sentence is a sentence that is neither a compound or a complex sentence

Spin

A rhetorical strategy that presents information in a biased or misleading way to influence perception. (Ex. War on Iraq → Operation Iraqi Freedom)

Style

The way in which an author expresses their thoughts through word choice, sentence structure, and literary techniques, contributing to the overall tone and feel of a text.

Syllogism

Syllogism is a formula for presenting an argument logically. The syllogism affords
a method of demonstrating the logic of an argument through analysis. In its simplest form, it
consists of three divisions: a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.
Major Premise: All public libraries should serve the people.
Minor Premise: This is a public library.
Conclusion: Therefore, this library should serve the people

Symbol

A symbol is something concrete (such as an object, person, place, or event that stands
for or represents something abstract) such as an idea, quality, concept, or condition. The
American flag is a symbol of our country’s freedom.

Synecdoche-

Synecdoche is a type of figurative language in which the whole is used for the
part and the part used for the whole. In “the dying year,” the whole is used to stand for a part,
“autumn,” the use of “Wall Street” to refer to the money market or financial affairs of the
entire U.S. is an example of the second – using a part to stand for the whole (or the specific to
stand for the general). “Nice set of wheels.” Wheels is the part that stands for the whole (car).

Rhetorical Strategies

Rhetorical strategies, as far as the directions on the AP test are
concerned, have two meanings: If the prompt directs the students to mention rhetorical
strategies and literary devices and imagery in analyzing a piece, then the term rhetorical
strategies means compare/contrast, process analysis, definition, narration, cause/effect, or
argumentation/persuasion. If the prompt asks students to discuss the rhetorical strategies in a
piece and does not mention other terms, the student should include everything that he or she
knows about analysis: literary devices, imagery, compare/contrast, process analysis, definition,
narration, cause/effect, and argumentation/persuasion

Process Analysis

Process analysis is a method of clarifying the nature of something by
explaining how it works in separate, easy-to-understand steps. Giving directions to baking a pie
or to fixing an air conditioning system would be an example of process analysis.

Paralepsis

emphasizing a point by seeming to pass over it. Example from Julius Caesar:
“But here’s a parchment, with the seal of Caesar;
I found it in his closet; ‘tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament –
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read....”

Lyrical Drama

A form of drama that emphasizes emotional expression and poetic language, often focusing on personal themes and experiences.

Lending Credence

in arguing her point, a writer or speaker should always lend her opponent
some credit for the opponent’s ideas. In this way the writer or speaker persuades her audience
that she is fair and has done her homework, thereby strengthening her own argument

Figurative Language

Figurative language is the use of words outside their literal or usual
meanings, used to add freshness and suggest associations and comparisons that create effective
images: includes elements of speech such as hyperbole, irony, metaphor, personification, and
simile.

Exposition

Exposition is writing that seeks to clarify, explain, or inform using one or several
of the following methods: process analysis, definition, classification and division, comparison
and contrast, and cause-and-effect analysis.

Comparison / Contrast

A rhetorical strategy that examines the similarities and differences between two or more subjects, helping to highlight particular characteristics and insights.

Compound / Complex Sentences

compound/complex sentence contains two or more
independent clauses and at least one subordinate clause

Conceit

a conceit is an elaborate and surprising figure of speech comparing two very
dissimilar things. It usually involves intellectual cleverness and ingenuity. An elaborate or
strained metaphor