AP Lang Vocab List 3

situational irony

the discrepancy between what is expected and what actually happens

verbal irony

a character says the opposite of what he or she means

dramatic irony

the reader or audience understands more about the events of a story more than the character in the story

ethos

to convince an audience of the author’s credibility or character

logos

to convince an audience by use of logic or reason

pathos

to persuade an audience by appealing to their emotions

realism

a faithful representation of actuality; the author strives to make their imaginative story or novel seem as though it could really happen by using realistic characters, dialogue, settings, and plot

romanticism

a movement of the 18th and 19th centuries that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics from the neoclassicism and formal orthodoxy of the proceeding period; sensibility, primitivism, nature, sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval, mysticism, individualism, romantic criticism, and a reaction against whatever characterized neoclassicism

sarcasm

form of verbal irony in which, under guise of praise, a caustic and bitter expression of strong and personal disapproval is given

satire

a method to arouse laughter at targets such as individuals, types of people, groups, or human nature; used to correct human faults

narrative structure

used when there’s a story to be told, usually in chronological order

dramatic structure

sometimes poems borrow the structures of plays; it consists of a series of scenes, each of which is presented vividly and in detail

discursive structure

organized like an argument or essay

style

the arrangement of words in a manner best expressing the individuality of the author and the idea and intent in the author’s mind

tone

the attitude the speaker of a work of literature expresses through language to the reader

voice

control presence of ‘authorial voice’ being the characters, narrators, and personae of literature

allegory

the device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning

analogy

a similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them; can explain something unfamiliar by associating it with or pointing out its similarity to something more familiar

aphorism

a terse statement of known authorship, which expresses a general truth or a moral principle

apostrophe

a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love

conceit

a fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects

cliché

any expression so often used that its freshness and clarity have worn off; the reader or speaker of the expression pays no attention to the real meaning of the words

connotation

the emotional implication that words may carry as distinguished from their denotative meanings

dead metaphor

A figure of speech used so long ago that is now taken in its denotative sense only, without the conscious comparison or analogy to a physical object once conveyed

denotation

the specific, exact meaning of a word, independent of its emotional coloration or associations