AP LANG TERMS FINAL

barrington

Ancedote

a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person

ex: "Before we start the meeting, let me tell you about a customer I met yesterday who…"

Antithesis

the direct opposite, a sharp contrast

ex: "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n."

Ellipsis

three periods (…) indicating the omission of words in a thought or quotation

ex: "I went to the store… and then I came home." (The "…" indicates omitted words).

Euphemism

An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant

ex: Saying someone "passed away" instead of "died."

Parallelism

similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses

ex: "Like father, like son."

rhetorical question

A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected.

ex: "Do you want to be a failure for the rest of your life?"

Diction

A writer's or speaker's choice of words

ex: Choosing the word "physician" instead of "doc" to sound more professional.

Pathos

Appeal to emotion

ex: A commercial showing cold, lonely puppies to get you to donate

Ethos

appeal to ethics

ex: "As a registered nurse, I recommend this vitamin."

Logos

Appeal to logic

ex: "The data shows a 20% increase in efficiency when using this tool."

Kairos

Builds a sense of urgency

ex: Delivering a speech about unity immediately after a national crisis.

Symbolism

the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities

ex: A red rose representing love or romance.

Tone

Attitude a writer takes toward the audience, a subject, or a character

ex: The author's sarcastic attitude toward a character in a story.

Mood

Feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader

ex: The eerie, creepy feeling a reader gets when reading Edgar Allan Poe.

Syntax

The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.

ex: "To the market went she" vs. "She went to the market."

Simple (sentence)

one independent clause

ex: "The cat sat on the mat."

compound sentence

a sentence with two or more coordinate independent clauses, often joined by one or more conjunctions

ex: "The cat sat on the mat, and the dog lay on the floor."

complex sentence

A sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause

ex: "Because it was raining, the cat sat on the mat."

compound-complex sentence

at least one dependent clause and two or more independent clauses

ex: "Because it was raining, the cat sat on the mat, and the dog lay on the floor."

phrase

a group of words

ex: "After the movie."

clause

a group of words with a subject and a verb

ex: "Because he was hungry."

concession

A reluctant acknowledgment or yielding.

ex: "I agree that the new park is expensive, but the community needs it."

Simile

A comparison using "like" or "as"

ex: "He is as brave as a lion."

Metaphor

A comparison without using like or as

ex: "The snow is a white blanket."

Exigence

an issue, problem, or situation that causes or prompts someone to write or speak

ex: A sudden spike in local pollution that forces a mayor to give a speech on the environment.

Motif

A recurring theme, subject or idea

ex: The recurring theme of "shattered glass" throughout a movie to represent a broken family.

Soliloquy

A long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage

ex: Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech (speaking to himself alone).

Allusion

A reference to another work of literature, person, or event

ex: "He's a real Romeo with the ladies." (Referencing Shakespeare).

Style

the choices a writer makes; the combination of distinctive features of a literary work

ex: Hemingway's use of short, punchy sentences compared to Faulkner's long, flowing ones.

Ambiguity

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

ex: "I saw a man with binoculars." (Did I have them, or did he?)

POV (all types)

perspectives: 1st: I, we; 2nd: You 3rd: He, She, It; 3rd Omniscient: narration by a seemingly all-knowing person; 3rd limited: narration that reveals thoughts of 1 character

Asyndeton

omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words

ex: "I came, I saw, I conquered." (No conjunctions).

Polysyndeton

the use, for rhetorical effect, of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural

ex: "We have ships and men and money and stores." (Many conjunctions).

Anaphora

the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses

ex: "We shall fight… we shall fight… we shall fight."

Epistrophe

the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences

ex: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

Imagery

Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)

ex: The golden sun set behind the jagged, purple mountains."

Juxtaposition

Placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts

ex: Placing a billionaire's mansion right next to a homeless shelter.

Paradox

A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

ex: "This is the beginning of the end."

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.

ex: "Cruel kindness" or "Jumbo shrimp."

Apostrophe

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

ex: "O, Death, where is thy sting?" (Talking to an abstract concept).

Synesthesia

describing one kind of sensation in terms of another ("a loud color", "a sweet sound")

ex: That shirt is a loud color." (Blending sight and sound).

Satire

A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.

ex: Saturday Night Live making fun of current events.

Irony

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

ex: A fire station burning down.

Hyperbole

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

ex: "I've told you a million times!"

Litotes

A form of understatement that involves making an affirmative point by denying its opposite

ex: "He's not the brightest crayon in the box."

caricature

(n.) a representation (especially in drawing) in which the subject's characteristic features are deliberately exaggerated; (v.) to present someone or something in a deliberately distorted way

ex: A drawing of a politician with an enormous nose and tiny ears.

wit

intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights

ex: A clever, quick comeback during a debate.

Sarcasm

the use of irony to mock or convey contempt

ex: Oh, brilliant idea," said to someone who just made a huge mistake.

ridicule

to make fun of

ex: Making fun of someone's outdated ideas to make them seem foolish.

Parody

A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule.

ex: Spaceballs making fun of Star Wars.

Pun

A play on words

ex: "I was going to be a baker, but I couldn't make enough dough."

invective

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

ex: "You're a spineless, ignorant coward!"

Understatement

the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is.

ex: Saying "It's a bit chilly" during a blizzard.

Horatian Satire

gentle, amused, witty satire; mildly corrective

ex: Gently poking fun at people's habits, like a sitcom about a quirky family.

Juvenalian Satire

harsh, biting satire, full of moral indignation and bitter contempt

ex: Harsh, angry criticism, like a political essay attacking social injustice.

inductive reasoning

A type of logic in which generalizations are based on a large number of specific observations.

ex: "Every dog I've met barks; therefore, all dogs bark."

deductive reasoning

reasoning in which a conclusion is reached by stating a general principle and then applying that principle to a specific case

ex: The sun rises every morning; therefore, the sun will rise on Tuesday morning

Syllogism

A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

ex: Premise 1: All mammals are warm-blooded. Premise 2: A whale is a mammal. Conclusion: Therefore, a whale is warm-blooded.

Logical Soundness

An argument is logically sound if and only if it is logically valid and all its premises are true. An argument is logically unsound if and only if it is not logically sound.

ex: An argument that is both logically valid and uses true facts.

Logical Validity

the feature of an argument that guarantees the truth of its conclusion, on the assumption that its premises are true

ex: ex: The structure makes sense, even if the facts are wrong (e.g., "All cats are blue. Toby is a cat. Toby is blue").

ad hominem

a fallacy that attacks the person rather than dealing with the real issue in dispute

ex: "You're wrong because you're ugly."

ad populum (bandwagon appeal)

when evidence boils down to "everybody's doing it, so it must be a good thing to do"

ex: "Everyone is using this app, so you should too."

Ad ignorantiam

Arguing that a claim is true just because it has not been shown to be false.

ex: "You can't prove I'm wrong, so I must be right."

Appeal to Emotion

manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument

ex: "Adopt this dog or he will be sad and alone."

Appeal to Authority

A fallacy in which a speaker or writer seeks to persuade not by giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution.

ex: "This celebrity says this diet works, so it must be true."

Appeal to Tradition

a fallacy which assumes that something old is automatically better than something new

ex: "We should keep doing this because we've always done it this way."

Cliché

a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.

ex: "What goes around comes around."

Hasty Generalization

a fallacy in which a speaker jumps to a general conclusion on the basis of insufficient evidence

ex: "I met one rude person in New York, so everyone there is mean."

non sequitur

something that does not logically follow

ex: "It's raining outside, so we should eat spaghetti." (It doesn't follow).

Slippery Slope

A fallacy that assumes that taking a first step will lead to subsequent steps that cannot be prevented

ex: "If we let them stay out until 10, they'll eventually never come home!"

Bad analogy

Claiming that two situations are highly similar, when they aren't.

ex: "Employees are like nails; you have to hit them on the head to make them work."

Red Herring

A fallacy that introduces an irrelevant issue to divert attention from the subject under discussion

ex: "Why didn't you do the dishes?" "Why are you always picking on me?"

Straw Man

A fallacy that occurs when a speaker chooses a deliberately poor or oversimplified example in order to ridicule and refute an idea.

ex: "I think we should fund schools." "Oh, so you want to leave our military defenseless?"

false dichotomy/dilemma

A fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that only two choices are possible, when in fact others exist.

ex: "You're either for us or against us."

The Fallacy Fallacy

You presumed that because a claim has been poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made, that the claim itself must be wrong.

ex: "You used a straw man argument, therefore your entire conclusion is wrong."

incredulity fallacy

when someone concludes a proposition is false simply because they find it difficult to imagine, understand, or believe.

ex: "I don't understand how physics works, so it must be fake."

circular reasoning/begging the question

You try to prove something by basically restating it in a different way.

ex: "I'm trustworthy because I'm an honest person."

post hoc ergo propter hoc

This fallacy is Latin for "after which therefore because of which," meaning that it is incorrect to always claim that something is a cause just because it happened earlier. One may loosely summarize this fallacy by saying that correlation does not imply causation.

ex: "I wore my lucky socks and won the game; the socks caused the win."

appeal to hypocrisy (tu quoque)

Calling the opponent a hypocrite—saying they can't adhere to a ridiculous standard related to what they support.

ex: "Don't tell me to quit smoking; you smoke too!"

Allegory

a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

ex: Animal Farm (animals representing political figures).

Alliteration

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

ex: "Sally sells seashells."

Aphorism

A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life.

ex: "A penny saved is a penny earned."

Colloquialism

informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing

ex: "Gonna," "Wanna," or "Y'all."

Connotation

an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

ex: "Home" (feels warm/safe) vs. "House" (just a building).

Denotation

The dictionary definition of a word

ex: "Home" (the place where one lives).

Hypophora

raising a question then proceeding to answer it

ex: Why do we fight? We fight for freedom!" (Asking and answering).

Inference

A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning

ex: Noticing a wet umbrella and assuming it is raining outside.

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates the sound it represents.

ex: "Bang!" "Pop!" "Sizzle."

pedantic

tending to show off one's learning

ex: Someone correcting your grammar in the middle of an emotional story.

Jargon

special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.

ex: We need to optimize our SEO and increase CTR." (Marketing speak).

Vernacular

Everyday language of ordinary people

ex: "I'm fixin' to go to the store." (Southern US dialect).

Chiasmus

A statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed

ex: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Repetition

Repeated use of sounds, words, or ideas for effect and emphasis

ex: "Work, work, work is all he ever does."

Attribution

the process of explaining one's own behavior and the behavior of others

ex: "According to the New York Times…"

Achronology

Allowing the audience to experience events in an order different from their natural occurrence

ex: A movie about ancient Rome shows a soldier checking his phone. Phones didn't exist back then, so that's an anachronism.

active voice

The subject of the sentence performs the action

ex: "The boy hit the ball."

Passive Voice

The subject of the sentence receives the action.

ex: "The ball was hit by the boy."

Narration

writing that tells a story

ex: Telling the story of what happened on your vacation.

Analogy

A comparison of two different things that are similar in some way

ex: "Battery is to flashlight as engine is to car."

Exposition

a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory.

ex: The beginning of a book that explains the setting and characters.