Terminology revisions BFI literature

Motif

Recurrent elements in a work (themes, events, symbols, imagery)

Metaphor

Implicit comparison

Conceit

A far-fetched comparison that is not obvious at first

Extended metaphor

A recurrent implicit comparison in a text or work

Simile

An explicit comparison using “like” or “as”

Metonymy

An attribute of the reference

Synecdoche

A part for the whole of the reference

Hyperbole

Exaggeration for emphatic effect

Litote

Understatement made by the use of negative terms (not bad = good)

Oxymoron

Juxtaposition of opposite terms (dark light)

Personification

Giving human attributes to inhuman elements

Dehumanization

Withdrawing human attributes from a person (comparisons to objects or animals, for example)

Pathetic fallacy

When the environment and natural elements reflect the feelings of the characters or mood

Dismemberment

References to separate body parts creating a sense of alienation

Euphemism

Substituting mild phrasing for a harsher meaning, understatement

Pleonasm

Superfluous wording (I was on my own, all alone)

Tautology

A statement that is necessarily true (“I am what I am”)

Antithesis

Use of contrary terms, not side-by-side

Circumlocution

Unnecessary wordy or roundabout phrasing

Paradox

Contradiction in terms creating an impossible situation

Pun

Play on words

Apostrophe

The direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction (“O life”)

Synesthesia

Describing a sense through terms that apply to another (a loud colour)

Chiasmus

A rhetorical inversion of two parallel structures (“fair is foul and foul is fair”)

Derivation

A word including a prefix or suffix (example: unattainable)

Alliteration

Repetition of a consonant (initial)

Consonance

Repetition of a consonant (non-initial)

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound

Onomatopoeia

Words that sound like what they describe (tap)

Anaphora

Repetition at the beginning of a line or sentence

Anadiplosis

Repetition at the end of one line/sentence and beginning of the next

Epistrophe

Repetition at the end of a line or sentence

Enumeration

Naming in a list or series (includes asyndeton and polysyndeton)

Ellipsis

Omission, suppression of words or plot gap