The Language of Composition Chapter 2 Vocab

Alliteration

Repetition of the same sound beginning several words or syllables in sequence.

Allusion

Brief reference to a person, event, place (real of fictitious), or to a work of art.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines.

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in reverse order.

Antithesis

Opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a parallel construction.

Archaic Diction

Old-fashioned or outdated choice of words.

Asyndeton

Omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words.

Cumulative Sentence

Sentence that completes the main idea at the beginning of the sentence and then builds and adds on.

Hortative Sentence

Sentence that exhorts, urges, entreats, implores, or calls to action.

Imperative sentence

Sentence used to command or enjoin.

Inversion

Inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subject-verb-object order).

Juxtaposition

Placement of two things closely together to emphasize similarities or differences.

Metaphor

Figure of speech that compares two things without using like or as.

Oxymoron

Paradoxical juxtaposition of words that seem to contradict one another.

Parallelism

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

Periodic sentence

Sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end.

Personification

Attribution of a lifelike quality to an inanimate object or an idea.

Rhetorical Question

Figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer.

Synecdoche

Figure of speech that uses a part to represent the whole.

Zeugma

Use of two different words in a grammatically similar way that produces different, often incongruous, meanings.