Language Devices

Flashcards about language devices used in textual, linguistic, contextual, character, text structure, setting/atmosphere/mood, visual/graphics, audio, and rhetoric categories.

Lexical Choice

Refers to the words a writer or speaker uses and includes aspects like complexity, sentence length, register, and tone. Example: Using sophisticated vocabulary in a formal speech.

Diction

The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing. Example: A poet using specific, evocative words to create a vivid image.

Tense and Pronoun use

How the writer uses verb tenses and pronouns to position the reader. Example: Using 'we' to create a sense of unity with the audience.

Imperatives

Commands or orders in writing. Example: 'Do not enter' is an imperative sign.

Simile

A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, using 'like' or 'as'. Example: 'The car was as cold as ice.'

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Example: 'The world is a stage.'

Symbol

A thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract. Example: A dove is a symbol of peace.

Motif

A recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., especially in a literary, artistic, or musical work. Example: Water as a recurring symbol of cleansing in literature.

Juxtaposition

The placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts. Example: Placing images of wealth and poverty side by side in a photograph.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. Example: 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.'

Rhetorical Question

A question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer. Example: 'Is rain wet?'

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. Example: 'Deafening silence.'

Euphemism

A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. Example: Saying 'passed away' instead of 'died'.

Dysphemism

A derogatory or unpleasant term used instead of a neutral or positive one. Example: Referring to the government as 'the regime'.

Parallelism

The use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose that correspond in grammatical structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc. Example: 'Like father, like son.'

Foreshadowing

A warning or indication of (a future event). Example: A stormy sky foreshadowing a tragic event in a story.

Situational Irony

Irony involving a situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected. Example: A fire station burning down.

Verbal Irony

Irony in which a person says or writes one thing but means another, or uses words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning. Example: Saying 'Nice weather' during a hurricane.

Portmanteau

A word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel (motor + hotel). Example: 'Brunch' (breakfast + lunch).

Negation

The contradiction or denial of something. Example: Saying 'not guilty' in a court of law.

Synaesthesia

The production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. Example: 'A loud color'.

Equivocation

The use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself; prevarication. Example: A politician dodging a question by using vague language.

Circumlocution

The use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive. Example: Instead of saying 'He died,' saying 'He is no longer with us.'

Periphrasis

The use of indirect and circumlocutory speech or writing. Example: 'The speaker was economical with the truth' instead of 'The speaker lied'.

Double Entendre

A word or phrase open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risqué or indecent. Example: 'That's what she said.'

Semantic Pleonasm

The use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning; redundancy. Example: 'A new innovation.'

Allegory

A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. Example: Animal Farm as an allegory for the Russian Revolution.

Allusion

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference. Example: 'Don't act like a Romeo in front of her.'

Horatian Satire

Satire in which the voice is indulgent, tolerant, amused, and witty. Example: A light-hearted mocking of social norms.

Juvenalian Satire

Satire in which the speaker attacks vice and error with contempt and indignation. Example: A furious condemnation of political corruption.

Menippean Satire

Satire that allows the author to examine different points of view. Example: A philosophical discussion mixed with humor and absurdity.

Narrator/Author

The person telling the story, including consideration of narrative voice, objectivity/reliability, and credibility. Example: An unreliable narrator whose accounts cannot be fully trusted.

Personification

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. Example: 'The wind whispered through the trees.'

Pathos

A quality that evokes pity or sadness. Example: A scene depicting a child losing their parents.

Zoomorphism

The attribution of animal characteristics or qualities to a god, human, or object. Example: Describing a man as having a 'wolfish grin'.

Objectification/Reification

Treating a person as a thing. Example: Advertising that portrays women as mere objects of desire.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa. Example: 'Wheels' referring to a car.

Hubris

Excessive pride or self-confidence. Example: A tragic hero's downfall due to his own arrogance.

Epithet

An adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned. Example: 'Richard the Lionheart'.

Free Indirect Speech

A style of narrative in which the narrator conveys the thoughts and feelings of a character without explicitly reporting them. Example: 'She was tired. So very tired.'

Repetition

The action of repeating something that has already been said or written. Example: Repeating a key phrase in a speech for emphasis.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. Example: 'April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land.'

Caesura

A pause in a line of poetry or music. Example: 'To be, or not to be || that is the question.'

Use of Punctuation

The use of symbols such as commas and periods to structure writing. Example: Using commas to separate items in a list.

Parallel Structure

Using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. Example: 'Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.'

Anaphora

The use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition. Example: Repeating 'I have a dream' at the beginning of successive sentences.

Epistrophe

The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses. Example: '…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'

Symploce

The combination of anaphora and epistrophe; beginning a series of lines with one word or phrase while simultaneously repeating a different word or phrase at the end of each line. Example: 'Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I.'

Asyndeton

The omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence. Example: 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'

Polysyndeton

The use of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural. Example: 'We have ships and men and money and stores.'

Isocolon

A succession of phrases or clauses of grammatically equal length and with a similar structure. Example: 'Veni, vidi, vici' (I came, I saw, I conquered).

In Medias Res

Into the middle of a narrative; without preamble. Example: A movie starting with a car chase scene.

Monologue

(In a play) a long speech by one actor. Example: Hamlet’s 'To be or not to be' speech.

Soliloquy

An act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play. Example: A character revealing their inner thoughts alone on stage.

Stichomythia

Dialogue in which two characters speak alternate lines of verse. Example: Rapid-fire exchanges between characters in a Greek tragedy.

Anacoluthon

A sudden break in a sentence's grammatical structure. Example: 'I was thinking that—well, it doesn’t matter.'

Pathetic Fallacy

The attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature. Example: 'The somber clouds darkened our mood.'

Tone of Voice

The general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc. Example: A sarcastic tone in a text message.

Objective-Correlative

A set of objects, a situation, or a chain of events serving to represent an emotion or evoke it in the reader. Example: Rain representing sadness.

Font

A set of type of one particular face and size, includes x-height, kerning, serifs. Example: Arial, Times New Roman, and Helvetica.

Font size, bold/italics

Varying the font's size or style for emphasis. Example: Using bold text to highlight key points.

Colour Scheme

An arrangement of colors designed to create a specific emotional and aesthetic effect, including brightness, saturation, hue, and coherence/unity. Example: Using a blue color scheme to evoke calmness.

Use of pictures/charts/graphs

The employment of images to convey information. Example: Using a pie chart to show market share.

Artistic style

The use of life-like, simplistic, caricature, or cartoonish styles in visual communication. Example: Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism.

Rule of Thirds

A compositional rule of thumb in visual arts. Example: Positioning key elements along these lines or at their intersections.

Foreground and background

The parts of an image that are closest and furthest from the viewer. Example: A portrait with the subject in the foreground and a blurred landscape in the background.

Central and peripheral images

Images at the center versus those at the edge. Example: Placing the main subject in the center to draw attention.

Framing

The use of close-up portrait or wide angle landscape views. Example: A close-up shot to emphasize emotion.

Relative Sizes and Proportion

Refers to the comparative dimensions of elements within a visual composition. Example: Making a character larger to show dominance.

Spatial Distances

The space or perceived space between objects or elements within an image. Example: Creating a sense of isolation by placing a figure far from other elements.

Plosives

A consonant produced by stopping the airflow using the lips, tongue, or glottis and suddenly releasing it. Example: The 'p' in 'pop'.

Consonants

A basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable. Example: 'B', 'd', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'p', 'q', 's', 't', 'v', 'x', 'z'.

Vowels

A speech sound which is produced by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tract, with vibration of the vocal cords but without audible friction. Example: 'A', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u'.

Alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. Example: 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.'

Assonance

The repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible. Example: 'The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.'

Sibilance

Consonants that make a hissing sound. Example: 's', 'sh', 'ch', 'z'.

End-rhyme

When the last syllables within a verse rhyme. Example: 'Roses are red, violets are blue.'

Feminine Rhyme

Rhyme that matches two or more syllables, usually at the end of respective lines, in which the final syllable or syllables are unstressed. Example: 'stocking' and 'shocking'.

Internal Rhyme

A rhyme involving a word in the middle of a line and another at the end of the line or in the middle of the next. Example: 'I drove by the grove and saw a dove.'

Imperfect Rhyme

Rhyme in which there is only a partial matching of sounds. Example: 'heart' and 'dark'.

Catalectic Trochaic Tetrameter

A meter of four trochaic feet per line with a missing syllable. Example: 'Hiawatha's | Wedding | Feast is | ready'.

Syncopation

A displacement of the beat or accents in music or speech so that strong beats become weak and vice versa. Example: Emphasizing the off-beat in jazz music.

Euphony

The quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious combination of words. Example: 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.'

Cacophony

A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. Example: 'Clash, bang, buzz'.

Pathos

A quality that evokes pity or sadness. Example: A scene depicting a dying animal.

Ethos

The characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations. Example: A doctor using his credibility to persuade patients.

Logos

The principle of reason and judgment. Example: Using facts and statistics in an argument.

Synthetic Personalisation

The process of addressing mass audiences as if they were individuals through the use of inclusive language. Example: An email starting with 'Dear Valued Customer.'

Rhetorical Lenses

Include voice merging, prophetic voice, and dynamic spectacle. Example: Using Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech as an example of prophetic voice.

Person Deixis

Reference to the speaker, the addressee, and others. Example: The use of 'I', 'you', and 'they' in conversation.

Hyperbolic Auxesis

The use of exaggeration for emphasis or effect. Example: 'I'm so hungry I could eat a million donuts.'

Dirimens Copulatio

A figure by which one balances one statement with a contrary, qualifying statement. Example: 'This is a good plan, but it has some risks.'

Expeditio

Listing all possibilities and then eliminating all but one. Example: 'It could be A, B, or C, but since A and B are impossible, it must be C.'

Anthypophora

A figure of reasoning in which one asks and then immediately answers one's own questions. Example: 'Why do we do this? We do it for the children.'

Litotes

Ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary. Example: 'Not bad' meaning 'very good'.

Aposiopesis

The device of suddenly breaking off in speech. Example: 'I can't believe you would—'

Dialogismus

Speaking in someone else's voice to summarize a discussion. Example: 'So, he said, "I don't agree with you at all."

Antimeria

Substitution of one part of speech for another. Example: 'To friend' someone on social media.

Antonomasia

The substitution of an epithet or title for a proper name. Example: 'The Bard' referring to William Shakespeare.

Hypocatastasis

An implied comparison, like a simile, but without using 'like' or 'as'. Example: 'He is a lion on the battlefield.'