Rhetorical Devices & Literary Devices (AP LANG)

Ad hominem

Argument that attacks a person's reputation or insults him/her unnecessarily; Latin for "to go against the man;" considered a logical fallacy that appeals to emotion rather than to reason

Allegory

Using character and plot symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. Personification of the abstract ideas drives the technique. A generalization about human existence is the goal.

Alliteration

A repeated letter sound that unifies a string of words. The effect is fluidity, cleverness, and/or onomatopoeia.

Allusion

A reference to a real person, historical incident, or other work of literature: for example, someone intelligent could be called a "real Einstein."

Ambiguity

The multiple meanings, intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage.

Analogy

A similarity or comparison between two different things. Analogies can make unfamiliar ideas clearer or make writing more vivid, imaginative, and intellectually engaging.

Anaphora

"Repetition of words or a phrase at the STARTS of sentences: ....

We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence."

Antanaclasis

Repetition of a word with a shift in meaning each time; similar to pun; creates depth or ambiguity : "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." (Franklin)

Antecedent

The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. You can use this in your essays, pointing out what the speaker's pronoun refers to and flashing this term like a boss.

Antithesis

Parallelism of words that are the opposites of, or strongly contrasted with, each other - "When you lose your sense of life and justice, you lose your strength." (Chavez)

Aphorism

A terse statement of known authorship that expresses a general truth or moral principle. If authorship is unknown, it's considered a proverb.

Apostrophe

A statement, question, or request addressed to an object, a concept or to a nonexistent or absent person

Approximate Rhyme

Rhyme that is not perfectly a match that appears as similar but not exact rhyme

Archetype

A character serving as a model for later stories, a kind of stereotype who creates a pattern for other authors and adaptations. Example: trickster archetype, female-in-distress, tyrannical male, etc.

Assonance

A category of ALLITERATION in which VOWELS are repeated across a line (A_E_I_O_U)

Asyndeton

Omitting conjunctions ("and," "or," "but") from a series to create a faster pace, add emphasis, and intensify meaning

Atmosphere

The emotional mood created by a literary work, established by setting, imagery, and objects described. The atmosphere often foreshadows events.

Attitude

A writer's intellectual position or emotion regarding the subject of writing.

Caesura

A stop! in the middle of a line of poetry, abruptly stopping the rhythm. Punctuation usually gives caesura away (opposite of ENJAMBMENT)

Caricature

A representation (pictorial or literary) in which distinctive features are exaggerated for comic or grotesque effect.

Catharsis

A purging or cleansing effect on audience of fears, assumptions, emotions after watching a tragic narrative

Chiasmus

A figure of speech based on inverted parallelism (e.g., "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country"). It puts terms into an ABBA pattern, reversing the structure and message.

Clause

A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb.

Colloquialism

Slang or informal speech in writing, often giving a conversational or familiar tone.

Conceit

An extended, clever metaphor or surprising analogy between dissimilar objects.

Concrete detail

Strictly defined, "concrete" refers to nouns that name physical objects-a bridge. a book, or a coat. Concrete nouns are the opposite of abstract nouns (which refer to concepts like freedom and love). However, as used in the essay portion of the AP Language and Composition Exam. This term has a slightly different connotation. The directions may read something like this: "Provide concrete details that will convince the reader." This means that your essay should include details in the passage; at times, you'll be allowed to provide details from your own life (readings, observations, experiences, and so forth).

Connotation

The suggested, between-the-lines meaning of a given word or phrase, having positive or negative impact.

Consonance

A category of ALLITERATION that repeats consonant letters across a string of words

Couplet

Adjacent rhyming lines. Paired. Suggests closure, success, planning, and fulfillment.

Denotation

The literal, dictionary definition of a word.

Dependent clause

Cannot stand alone and depends on the main clause

Descriptive Detail

Descriptive detail appealing to the visual sense is usally the most predominant, but don't overlook other sensory details.

Devices

The figures of speech, syntac, diction, and other stylistic elements that collectively produce a particular artistic effect

Dichotomy

A two item division of two opposing concepts: good/evil - medicine/poison - etc

Diction

Word choices of an author or character; can be analyzed for its impact on meaning; connotation and the level of formality are two aspects of diction to consider.

Diction

Related to style, diction refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness.

Didactic

From the Greek, "didactic" literally means " instructive." Didactic works have the primary aim of teaching or instructing, especially the teaching of moral or ethical principles.

Dramatic irony

Facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work.

En medias res

"In the middle of things" -- meaning a narrative that begins mid-story and suspensefully flashes back to origins as the plot unfolds (eg The Odyssey)

Enjambment

Flowing one line of verse into the next line, creating noticeable flow/rhythm/meaning. (opposite of CAESURA)

Epic

GENRE involving a long poem, hero protagonist, hero cycle, archetypes, and heroic virtues that a culture values as a whole

Epic virtues

The morals that define a hero and his/her struggles during an epic adventure (1) Xenos/Hospitality, (2) Faith in prophecy & gods, (3) Loyalty to Goals, (4) Love of Home/Family, (5) Temptations/Self-control

Epiphany

RECOGNITION SCENE: Hero becomes self-aware of his plight more than earlier (Aristotle)

Epistrophe

"Repetition of words/phrase at the ENDS of sentences:

""...government of the people, by the people, for the people."" (Lincoln)"

Epizeuxis (epp' eh zook sis)

Repetition of words in immediate succession, with few intervening words. "It can. It can! It can!"

Ethos

The credibility of an author to speak about a given topic, often which appeals to the audience as expert perspective; also can mean "the spirit of the situation" (the ____ of the 90s).

Euphemism

From the Greek for "good speech:' euphemisms are a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts.

Extended metaphor

A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work.

External conflict

Outer problems, persons, or forces that challenge or influence the character's experience

Fact

Specific details that function as evidence. They are the 5W's: WHO+WHAT+WHEN+WHERE+HOW. They can be quotes from the text or from stakeholders, too, functioning as eye witness or as actual printed proof.

Femme fatale

Archetype centered around a strong, attractive, seductive woman who is likely to cause distress or disaster to a man who becomes involved with her

Figurative language

Writing not meant to carry literal meaning, often imaginative and vivid, and utilizing figurative devices that suggest, infer, imagine, and compare.

Figure of speech

A device that produces figurative language (e.g., apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, oxymoron, personification, simile).

Foil

Character in stark contrast to hero; dramatizes the hero's qualities through the contrast

Foreshadowing

Planted clues that hint at events or language that will occur later

Genre

A major literary category (prose, poetry, drama). Subdivisions exist within each.

Gothic

GENRE combining HORROR with ROMANCE and often using archetypes of tyrannical males, females in danger, monsters, castles, weather, and heightened fear

Hamartia

An external action or event causing hero's downfall (Aristotle)

Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell's stages of the hero cycle: Common Life > Call to Adventure > Refusal of Call > Mentor > Cross Threshold > Tests & Enemies > Inmost Cave > Supreme Ordeal > Seize Prize > Road Back > Resurrection

Homily

Literally "sermon." Any serious talk, speech, or lecture offering moral/spiritual advice.

Hyperbole

A deliberate exaggeration or overstatement for comic, ironic, or serious effect.

Iamb

A two syllable unit of meter that contains one unstressed and one stressed syllable.

Iambic pentameter

Rhythm using 5 iambs per line (or 5 x 2 syllables) that creates an alternating beat per line.

Imagery

Sensory details or figurative language appealing to the senses. Imagery can also represent abstractions.

Inference/Infer

To draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented, requiring reading between the lines for

IMPERATIVE language

Commanding claims and demanding tone

Internal conflict

Mental or emotional problems inside a character as s/he faces events in the story. Also, tragic flaw.

Invective

An emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language.

Irony (dramatic)

When the audience knows what's going to happen but the character doesn't -- which heightens suspense and dramatic appeal

Irony (situational)

When a surprise event forces a twist upon expectations--which heightens interest and puzzlement

Irony (verbal)

When someone says the opposite of what they mean (at times sarcastically) -- which creates humor, cleverness, or artifice

Juxtaposition

Placing two things side-by-side as a way to analyze/understand/compare

Kairos

A rhetorical appeal focusing on timeliness, the opportune moment, or the right context. The message sounds appealingly relevant and timely. Example: Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”, delivered with relevant timing for the 1963 "March on Washington"-- while he stood at the Lincoln Memorial physically.

Litotes

Litotes is an understatement where a positive statement is made by a denial, usually a double negatives. "You're not wrong" affirms that someone is correct. The device can add modesty, emphasis, or irony to the idea.

Logos

A rhetorical appeal using facts and numbers to persuade an audience

Metaphor

A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity. Metaphorical language makes writing more vivid, imaginative, thought provoking, and meaningful.

Meiosis

UNDERSTATEMENT where speaker makes a thing less important or smaller than it actually is. This "diminishing" can be used for humor, to soften harsh realities, or to invite the audience to infer. "The concert was a bit loud" uses this device: actually it was very loud.

Metonymy

A "changed label" or "substitute name," in which the name of one thing is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. "The Crown" substitutes for the monarchy; "Hollywood" for the film industry.

Mimesis

Tragic element named by Aristotle: a realistic, believable, conflicted situation—not a fictional or implausible setting/circumstance

Mood

The prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work or a scene.

Narrative

The telling of a story moment by moment, usually using narrative devices (such as setting description or character action).

Narrative devices

Tools of storyteller (even in nonfiction) that can include disruption of chronology, building to a climax, withholding information suspensefully until an appropriate moment, dramatic irony, scene description, and character action.

Onomatopoeia

Words/Phrases in which the SOUND of words imitates the concept presented

Oxymoron

A contradictory pairing of unlike ideas; a pairing of opposites.

Paradox

A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense, but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity.

Parallelism

General category when there is a structural similarity between parts of a sentence. Perhaps a repetition of an grammatical element. Perhaps a juxtaposed element. Antanaclasis, Epistrophe, etc are forms this term can take.

Parody

A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. As comedy, parody distorts or exaggerates distinctive features of the original. As ridiculous, it mimics the work by repeating and borrowing words, phrases, or characteristics in order to illuminate weaknesses in the original.

Pathos

Rhetorical appeal using strong emotions, loaded language, and tone in order to persuade (or to trigger emotions of the audience). From Aristotle.

Pedantic

An adjective thai describes words. phrases. or generai tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish. This is a weighty adjective to use for rhetorical analysis.

Peripeteia

Reversal in the plot of hero's expectations, contributing to the final tragedy (Aristotle)

Personification

A figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objeccs by endowing them with human attributes or emotions. Penionification is used to make these abstractions, animals, or objects appear more vivid 10 the reader.

Persuasive devices

LOGOS - PATHOS - ETHOS

And others...

Point of view

In literature. the perspective from which a story is told.

Prose

Written language that follows common grammar -- as opposed to poetic speech or verse

Prose

One of the major divisions of genre, "prose" refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms, because they are written in ordinary language and most closely resemble everyday speech. Technically, anything that isn't poetry or drama is prose.

Pun

An often humorous word/phrase that entertains by calling up two meanings from the word. A pun is a word/phrase that communicates two messages, often humorously.

Resources of Language

Refers to how a passage is constructed. If asked to consider rhetorical structure, look at the passage's organization and how the writer combines images, details, or agruments to serves his or her purpose.

Repetition

The duplication, either exact or approximate. of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern. When repetition is poorly done, it bores, but when well done, it links and emphasizes ideas while allowing the reader the comfort of recognizing something familiar.

Rhetorcal features

This phrase refers to how a passage is constructed If asked to consider rhetorical structure, look at the passage's organization and how the writer combines images, details, or arguments to serve his or her purpose.

Rhetoric

From the Greek for "orator;' this term describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively.