AP Lit Terms - Dialogue

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Aside

A brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the
audience; a dramatic device for letting the audience know what a character is really thinking or feeling as opposed
to what the character pretends to think or feel.

Colloquial

Informal, conversational language.

Dialogue

Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative. (2) A literary work written in the form of a
conversation.

Dialect

A regional variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.

Diction

Word choice.

Epithet

A descriptive literary device that describes a place, a thing, or a person in such a way that it helps in
making its characteristics more prominent than they actually are. Also, it is known as a nickname, “by-name,” or
“descriptive title.”

Euphemism

Substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for a harsh, blunt, or offensive one.

Figure of Speech:

Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; more narrowly (and for the
purposes of this class) a way of saying one thing and meaning another.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth.

Invective

Denunciatory or abusive language.

Monologue

(1) A dramatic soliloquy. (2) A literary composition in such form.

Proverb

A short, pithy saying that expresses a basic truth or practical precept.

Pun

A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or
sound of different words.

Sarcasm

Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed.

Soliloquy

A device often used in drama whereby a character relates or works through his or her thoughts and
feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters. Typically the speaker
is alone on stage and the audience assumes that the speaker is telling the truth.

Slang

A kind of language esp. occurring in casual or playful speech, usu. made up of short-lived coinages and
figures of speech deliberately used in place of standard terms.

Understatement

A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means
with less force than the occasion warrants.