English Language: Language devices

Pathetic Fallacy

When the weather reflects the mood of the writing

Personification

Giving something human actions

Zoomorphism

Giving a human an animal feature

Chremamorphism

Giving a human the feature of a non-human

Simile

When you compare two nouns using like or as

Metaphor

When you compare two nouns without using like or as

Extended metaphor

When you continue a metaphor

Oxymoron

Two opposite words

Juxtaposition

Two opposing ideas

Semantic field

Words across a section that can be linked together

Rhetorical question

A question that doesn’t require a response

Hyperbole

When things are exaggerated

Assonance

When you repeat the vowel sound

Alliteration

When words begin with the same letter

Sibilance

When you repeat the s sound

Emotive language

When the writing is trying to create an emotion

Onomatopoeia

When you use sounds in writing

Triplet

Three words or phrases in a row to describe the same thing

Imagery

When the writer creates a certain image in the reader’s mind

Repetition

When you repeat words or phrases

Colloquial language

When you write in the way that you speak

Euphemism

Nicer way of saying something bad

Hypophora

When someone answers their own question

Satire

Using humour to expose the problems in society

Symbolism

When things have a wider meaning

Anecdote

A small personal story

Anaphora

When the writer repeats the beginning of the sentence

Episitrope

When you repeat the end of the sentence

Cliché

Words or phrases that we use often

Paradox

When two ideas are opposite but there is a connection when you think a bit harder

Imperative

A command

Diction

When the writer writes in a specific way to establish a voice

Plosive

Repetition of harsher sounds (eg p)

Cocophony

When the writer repeated harsh sounds throughout their writing

Anastrophe

When the words are in the wrong order

Anachronism

When small things in the text don’t match the time period

Aporia

When the speaker expresses doubt in their writing

Hubris

When a character is overly confident

Verbal irony

When the opposite of what a character says ends up happening

Dramatic irony

When the audience know something that the characters don’t

Superlative

The most extreme of something

motif

When the writer keeps repeating an image