Stylistic Devices for IB English Language and Literature

Alliteration

The repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Allusion

An indirect symbolic reference to something, usually a literary or historical person, place or event.

Allegory

Texts with a hidden meaning/moral (form of an extended metaphor).

Amplification

Repeating a word or expression while adding more detail to it.

Anaphora

The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the start of sentences.

Anastrophe

The syntactically correct order of subject, verb and object is changed in the sentence.

Anecdote

A short and interesting story or an amusing event often proposed to support or demonstrate some point and make readers and listeners laugh.

Archaism

Use of words and expressions that have become obsolete in the common speech of an era.

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowels in a sequence of nearby words.

Antithesis

When two opposites are introduced in the same sentence. It is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, usually in a balanced way.

Asyndeton

One or several conjunctions are omitted from a series of related clauses.

Bathos

A sense of anticlimax so that the subject appears comical or ridiculous.

Cacophony

Language that strikes the ear as harsh, rough and unmusical.

Catharsis

Emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety and stress.

Chiasmus

A rhetorical or literary figure in which words or grammatical constructions are repeated in inverted order, in the same or a modified form.

Cliche

An expression or action so frequently used that it has become hackneyed or cloying.

Colloquialism

The use of informal words, phrases or even slang in a piece of writing.

Emotive Language

The use of language that derives or evokes emotions in the audience/reader.

Euphemism

An inoffensive expression used in place of a blunt one that is felt to be disagreeable or embarrassing.

Euphony

Language which strikes the ear as smooth, pleasant and musical.

Idiom

A phrase that has a figurative meaning to it which can be frequently spoken in day to day conversations.

Laconic

Using very few words.

List of Three

The use of 3 nouns listed out.

It is often used to carry out an important message, and can be summarised.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something in order to suggest a similarity.

Modals

Verbs used to express obligation, ability, possibility.

Paradox

A statement which seems on its face to be logically contradictory or absurd, yet turns out to be interpretative in a way that makes good sense.

Parallelism

The use of components in a sentence that are grammatically same or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter.

Prosody

The patterns of rhythm and sound in literature such as alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia.

Personal Pronoun

The grammatical use of words to address other people.

Portmanteau

When two or more words are joined together to coin a new word, but always refers to a single concept.

Pun

A play on words exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

Satire

A literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking towards it attitudes of amusement.

Synthetic Personalisation

Addressing mass audiences as though they were individuals through inclusive language.

Statistics

Numerical or graphical information or data.

Tone

The attitudes being expressed toward the subject and implied toward the audience in a literary work.