AP Lang Toolkit Choices

Diction

Word choice including vocabulary and level (formal, informal, colloquial, slang); certain diction forms part of a writer's style.

Syntax

The sequence resulting from the combination of words into such units as phrase, clause, and sentence

Voice

The sense of the author's character, personality, and attitude that comes through the words

Effect

The total impression or emotional impact on the reader

Effective(ly)

The rhetoric achieves the writer's intention. The writer's choices produce his/her desired result or fulfil a specified function.

Kairos

The moment of change, of recognition. The right moment, the opportune time. It requires the speaker to understand context and to make decisions about rhetorical choice appropriateness relative to audience and culture. Revision is a matter of timing and timing is perception.

Abstract Language

Diction expressing ideas, conditions, and qualities apart from a specific object or event; human senses (sight, smell, etc.) cannot identify the object. Ex. all emotions

Alliteration

Repetition of initial identical consonant sounds or vowel sounds in successive or closely associated syllables. Ex. Clary closed her cluttered clothes closet.

Allusion

A reference to a person, place, or thing believed to be common knowledge. Refers to a famous event, common experience, familiar saying, noted personality, and well known literature.

Ambiguity

Actual or potential uncertainty of meaning, especially if we can understand a word, phrase, or sentences. Ex. I saw her duck

Analogy

An extended comparison based on the like features of two unlike thing: one familiar or easily understood, the other unfamiliar, abstract, or complicated.

Anecdotal Evidence

Stories or examples used to illustrate a claim but that do not prove it with scientific certainty.

Anticlimax

The arrangement of descriptive or narrative details so that lesser, the trivial, or the ludicrous appears where the audience expects something greater and more serious. Ex. The duty of a sailor is to protect his country and to peel potatoes.

Antithesis

In rhetoric, a construction in which words, phrases, clauses, sentences, or ideas oppose each other (strongly contrasted, usually) but balanced, employing parallel structure. Ex. We requisitioned many; we chose few. Too err is human, to forgive, divine.

Antonomasia

In rhetoric, the use of an epithet to acknowledge a quality in one person or place by using the name of another person or place already known for the quality. The use of an epithet instead of the name of a person or thing. Ex. Henry is the local Casanova. Cambridge is England's Silicon Valley.

Approving versus Pejorative Terms

Portraying favorable opinions versus portraying negative connotations, especially disparaging or belittling. Sometimes we assign words that usually posses negative connotations and approving tone; sometimes we use normally positively connoted words pejoratively.

Authoritative Warrant

A warrant based on the credibility or trust-worthiness of the source.

Claim

The conclusion of an argument; what the arguer is trying to prove.

Claim of Fact

A claim that asserts something exists, has existed, or will exist, based on data that the audience will accept as objectively verifiable.

Claim of Policy

A claim asserting that specific courses of action should be instituted as solutions to problems.

Claim of Value

A claim that asserts people desire something more or less than others desire it.

Cliché

A worn-out, overused expression or idea, no longer capable of producing a visual image or provoking thought about a subject. Ex. Think outside the box.

Climax

In rhetoric an ascending series of words, ideas, or events, in which intensity and significance increase step-by step.

Colloquial Expressions

Words and phrases occuring primarily in speech and in informall writing that seeks a relaxed, conversational tone. These vary from region to region. These often involve metaphorical or idiomatic expressions. (An idiom is a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.) Ex. Saying y'all in the south.

Concrete Language

Diction that describes specific, generally observable persons, places, or things. Our senses can identify these objects. Strong writing uses concrete diction.

Connotation

The overtones that adhere to a word through long usage. The emotions attached to a word, often through associations. Effective word choice involves knowing both literal meaning and suggested meanings.

Deductive

Using reasoning from the general to the particular to derive a conclusion. We believe a conclusion is true because the premises on which it is based are true.

Definition by Negation

Defining a thing or idea by saying what it is not.

Denotation

The explicit, literal, dictionary definition of a word

Ellipsis

The omission of an element of language for reasons associated with speech, rhetoric, grammar, and punctuation. By considering context, we can usually recover the omitted element.

Emphasis

The stress or importance given to a certain point or element to make it stand out.

Empirical Evidence

Support verifiable by experience or experiment.

Epithet

1) An expression added to a name as characterizing description. 2) A word or phrase that substitutes for another. 3) A word or phrase used to abuse and dismiss, especially when used directly or as description.

Euphemism

A pleasant or flattering expression used in place of one that is less agreeable or one that is hurtful, distasteful, frightening, or objection but possibly more accurate.

Euphony

A pleasant, harmonious quality in speech.

Extended Definition

a definition that uses several different methods of development

Figurative Language

A phetoricaol device that achieves a special effect by using words in distinctive ways.

Humor

Writing that is intended to evoke laughter through presentation of the ridiculous, the ludicrous, and the comical. It pokes fun at human nature.

Hyperbole

Exaggeration to create a comic effect or to emphasize any effect, not meant to be taken (too) literally. Overuse has diminished many idioms effectiveness.

Imagery

Word(s) that evoke a sensory experience.

Induction

An inference of a generalized conclusion from particular instances.

Inversion

The placing of a sentence element out of its normal position either to gain emphasis or to secure a so-called poetic effect.

Irony

A reality different from appearance. Sometimes, in rhetoric, used to drive home a point.

Jargon

The special vocabulary of a trade or profession. It can also mean inflated, vague, meaningless language of any kind. Often associated with law, medicine, and the sciences.

Juxtaposition

The act or an instance of placing two or more things (often two disparate things that are not normally found together) side by side. Used to make a point without delving into unnecessary details.

Loose Sentence

A sentence in which the main point precedes less important details. Ex. His friend use loose syntax because he doesn't know how brains retain information.

Metaphor

A comparison that identifies one object with another and gives the first object one or more of the qualities of the second. Or, it gives the first object emotional or imaginative qualities associated with the second. Rather than using words to link the two objects (like or as), their placement or general effect express the meaning.

Motivational Appeal

An Attempt to reach an audience by recognizing their need and values and how these contribute to their decision making.

Oxymoron

The combination of two words which seem to contradict each other, used for humorous, cynical, or dramatic social comment. Ex. Be cruel to be kind.

Paradox

1) A seemingly self-contradictory, even apparently absurd, statement that, on reflection, makes sense. 2) It can also refer to a situation that is inexplicable or contradictory. Ex 1. Children are the poor person's wealth. The child is the father of the man. Ex 2. Restricting our rights to carry certain items on an airplane should make us feel safer, but seeing how man items make it through TSA only makes us feel less safe.

Parallelism

Keeping ideas of equal importance in similar grammatical form. A rhetorical device in which a formula or structural pattern is repeated. Ex. now you see them, now you don't.

Periodic Sentence

A sentence in while less important details precede the main point. Ex. Because he wishes to communicate clearly and because he knows how the human brain retains information, he uses periodic syntax.

Personification

A type of metaphor giving animals or objects human characteristics. Ex. The earth provided us, its children, with all we needed to survive.

Pleonasm

A traditional term for the use of more words than necessary, either for effect or more usually as a fault of style, and any instance of that use. Ex. Could you repeat that again? The most unkindest cut of all (MacBeth)

Prolepsis

1) a term in rhetoric for treating a future event as if it already happened. 2) A debating device in which one raises an objection to one's own case before and opposition can do so. Ex1. Dead man walking. His proposal is a done deal. Ex2. I am well aware that the cost of the project is high, but consider the consequences of not going ahead.

Pun/Clinch

1) Using homonyms and near-homonyms to produce a humorous effect. 2) A comparable play on words and phrases with similar sounds, sometimes requiring the (often forced) adaptation of one word or phrase to fit the other. Ex1.Is life worth living? It depends on the liver. Ex2. My wife has gone to the West Indies.-Barbados- (Did you make her?)- No, it was her own idea.

Qualifier

A restriction placed on the claim to show that it may not always be true as stated.

Refutation

An attack on an opposing view to weaken it, invalidate it, or make it less credible.

Repetition

To secure emphasis, this rhetorical device reiterates a word, phrase, process, structure, elements, or motifs or rewords the same idea. Adds force and clarity to a statement when used correctly.

Reservation

A restriction placed on the warrant to indicate that unless certain conditions are met, the warrant may not establish a connection between the support and the claim.

Rhetorical Question

A question posed for effect, one that requires no answer. Ex. What is the point of earning a huge salary if you have no time to spend the money?

Questioning: Asked and Answered

A writer first asks a question then answers it immediately, responds to it throughout the text, or resolves it in the conclusion.

Questioning: Unanswerable

A writer poses a question that currently has no answer because science, technology, or research methods can't resolve it yet or because it refers to an event that has not happened yet.

Questioning: Unanswered

A question that has multiple answers but that the writer wants the reader to reflect upon, so he/she provides no answer in the text.

Sarcasm

A bitter, sneering expression of strong, personal disapproval which first seems like praise. Do not confuse sarcasm with satire or facetiousness.

Satire

An attempt to prompt social change, improve humanity, or examine human institutions through ridiculing human weakness, vice, or folly. It's a blend of humor and criticism.

Simile

A figure of speech which directly expresses a similarity between two objects. Similes are introduced by as or like. Most similes generally compare two things that are essentially unlike, but have a resemblance of one particular aspect. Ex. This house is as big as a museum. We ran like the wind. He was as grumpy as a bear.

Standard English

The common, most widely accepted usage of written and spoken English by educated people. Expected in school, business, etc.

Substantive Warrant

A warrant based on beliefs about the reliability of factual evidence.

Syllogism

A deductive argument formula consisting of three proposition: major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. Its demonstrates an argument's logic through analysis.

Symbol

A concrete or real object used to represent an idea.

Tautology

1) in rhetoric a term for unnecessary and ineffective repetition, usually with words that add nothing new. 2) In logical a compound proposition that is always true. Ex1. I, personally, don't feel like doing so. She was all alone by herself. To all intents and purposes... cool, calm, and collected... ways and means. Ex2. Either it is raining, or it is not raining today.

Understatement

Presenting ideas with restraint, especially for effect, or representing information that is less than the true case. Ex. I accepted the ride because I just didn't feel up to walking across the Mojave Desert.

Values

Conceptions or ideas that act as standards for judging what is right or wrong, worthwhile or worthless, beautiful or ugly, good or bad.

Warrant

A general principle or assumption that establishes a connection between a support and a claim.

Wit

Intellectual humor, finding similarities in seemingly dissimilar things. It's expressed through phrasing, playing on words, and surprising contrasts.

Word Play

Verbal wit, manipulating words to create a humorous, ironic, satirical, dramatic, critical or other effect.