AP English Language & Composition Term Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards defining key rhetorical, literary, and grammatical terms from the study guide for AP English Language & Composition.

ad hominem argument

Attacking the person instead of their argument — appeals to emotion, not reason.

allegory

A story where characters/events symbolically represent an abstraction (e.g., a character who is "Hope").

alliteration

Repeated initial consonant sounds in nearby words ("she sells sea shells").

allusion

A reference to something assumed to be commonly known (historical, literary, religious, mythical).

ambiguity

A word/phrase/passage with multiple possible meanings (intentional or not).

analogy

A comparison between two different things to explain or clarify one of them.

antecedent

The word/phrase a pronoun refers back to.

antithesis

Contradicting ideas placed in a balanced, parallel grammatical structure.

aphorism

A short, memorable statement of general truth, with a known author (unknown author = folk proverb).

apostrophe

Directly addressing someone absent, dead, or an abstract idea ("O Death, where is thy sting?").

atmosphere

The emotional mood of a work, built through setting and descriptive detail.

caricature

Exaggeration of a subject's distinctive features for comic/grotesque effect.

chiasmus

Inverted parallelism — two clauses mirror each other in reversed order.

clause

A grammatical unit with a subject + verb. Can be Independent (complete thought, can stand alone) or Dependent (cannot stand alone).

colloquialism

Slang/informal language giving a conversational tone; includes regional dialect.

conceit

An extended metaphor or surprising analogy between very dissimilar things, showing cleverness.

connotation

The implied/emotional meaning of a word (vs. its literal meaning).

denotation

The strict, literal, dictionary definition — no emotional coloring.

diction

Word choice — evaluated as formal/informal, ornate/plain, etc. Combines with syntax to create style.

didactic

Writing meant primarily to teach or instruct (often moral/ethical lessons).

euphemism

A milder, less offensive substitute for an unpleasant word/concept.

extended metaphor

A metaphor developed at length, recurring throughout a passage/work.

figurative language

Language not meant literally; imaginative and vivid.

figure of speech

A device that creates figurative language (apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, understatement).

generic conventions

Traditions that define a genre (what makes an essay different from journalism, etc.).

genre

The major category a work belongs to: prose, poetry, or drama — each with subdivisions (fiction/nonfiction; lyric, dramatic, narrative, epic, etc.).