AP Language and Composition Rhetorical Appeals and Devices

A vocabulary flashcard deck covering key rhetorical appeals, literary devices, and stylistic elements defined in the AP Language & Composition lecture notes.

Ethos

An appeal focused on audience values and authorial credibility or character, where the audience is convinced by the credibility, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness of the author.

The plain folk technique

A strategy in advertising and political campaigns where politicians present themselves as average people to persuade their audience that they can empathize with their concerns.

Pathos

A method of persuasion that appeals directly to the reader's emotions.

Logos

Persuading by the use of reasoning, utilizing true premises and valid arguments; generally considered the strongest form of persuasion.

Kairos

Greek for 'right time,' 'season,' or 'opportunity'; it refers to the timeliness of an argument.

Allegory

Expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same sound at the beginning of successive words.

Allusion

A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history.

Ambiguity

A word, phrase, or sentence whose meaning can be interpreted in more than one way.

Analogy

An extended comparison between two things, instances, or people that share some similarity to make a point.

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

Anecdote

A usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident.

Antithesis

The rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences.

Chiasmus

Repetition of ideas in inverted order.

Connotation

The set of associations implied by a word in addition to its literal meaning.

Denotation

The literal meaning of a word; the dictionary definition.

Diction

A writer's choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning.

Euphemism

A more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts.

Epistrophe

Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.

Extended Metaphor

A comparison that differs from a regular metaphor in that several comparisons similar in theme are being made.

Imagery

Descriptive language that provides vivid images that evoke the senses.

Irony

Stating the opposite of what is said or meant.

Juxtaposition

Placing two or more things side by side for comparison or contrast.

Oxymoron

When apparently contradictory terms are grouped together and suggest a paradox.

Pacing

The speed at which a piece of writing flows, used when discussing organization to point out where action or syntax speeds up, slows down, or is interrupted.

Paradox

An apparently self-contradictory statement, the underlying meaning of which is revealed only by careful scrutiny, used to arrest attention and provoke fresh thought.

Parallelism

A repetition of sentences using the same grammatical structure emphasizing all aspects of the sentence equally.

Syntax

The structure of sentences and/or phrases.

Tone

The use of stylistic devices that reveal an author's attitude towards a subject.