Common Rhetorical Devices + AP Lang Terms

Abstract Language

Language that describes concepts rather than concrete images, focusing on ideas and qualities over observable things.

Alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Allusion

An indirect reference to something commonly known, such as a literary text, historical event, or song.

Anecdote

A short narrative of an incident, often used for humorous effect or to make a point.

Antecedent

The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun.

Antithesis

The presentation of two contrasting images, balanced by word, phrase, clause, or paragraphs.

Apostrophe

The device of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction.

Argumentation/Argumentative writing

Writing that attempts to prove the validity of a point of view or an idea by presenting reasoned arguments about the claim.

Assonance

Repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in non-rhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible.

Caricature

Descriptive writing that greatly exaggerates a specific feature of a person's appearance or a facet of personality.

Colloquialism

A word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversation and informal writing but that is often inappropriate in formal writing.

Coherence/Unity

Quality of a piece of writing in which all the parts contribute to the development of the central idea, theme, or organizing principle.

Concrete Language

Language that describes specific, observable things, people, or places, rather than ideas or qualities.

Consonance

Repetition of identical consonant sounds within two or more words in close proximity.

Conundrum

A riddle whose answer is or involves a pun; it may also be a paradox or difficult problem.

Deduction

The process of moving from a general rule to a specific example.

Diction

Word choice, an element of style; Diction creates tone, attitude, and style, as well as meaning.

Connotation

Implied or suggested meaning of a word because of its association in the reader's mind.

Denotation

The literal, explicit meaning of a word, without its connotations.

Jargon

The diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity.

Vernacular

Language or dialect of a particular country, region, or group; plain everyday speech.

Didactic

Writing whose purpose is to instruct or to teach, often focusing on moral or ethical concerns.

Adage

A folk saying with a lesson.

Allegory

An extended narrative in prose or verse in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface of the story.

Aphorism

A terse statement which expresses a general truth or moral principle.

Parable

A short tale that teaches a moral; similar to but shorter than an allegory.

Description

The picturing in words of something or someone through detailed observation of color, motion, sound, taste, smell, and touch

Exposition

The immediate revelation to the audience of the setting and other background information necessary for understanding the plot; also, explanation.

Narration

The telling of a story in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.

Persuasion

A form of argumentation; language intended to convince through appeals to reason or emotion.

Epigraph

The use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that hints at its theme.

Explication

The art of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involving close reading and special attention to figurative language.

Figurative Language

Writing that is not meant to be taken literally, but uses figures of speech to be more effective, persuasive, and impactful.

Analogy

A comparison of one pair of variables to a parallel set of variables.

Hyperbole

Deliberate over-exaggeration in order to create humor or emphasis.

Idiom

A common, often used expression that doesn't make sense if you take it literally.

Irony

When the opposite of what you expect to happen does.

Litotes

Understatement or ironic figure of speech that affirms a positive sentiment typically through the use of double negatives.

Metaphor

Making an implied comparison, not using 'like,' 'as,' or other such words.

Metonymy

Replacing an actual word or idea with a related word or concept.

Synecdoche

A kind of metonymy when a whole is represented by naming one of its parts, or vice versa.

Simile

Using words such as 'like' or 'as' to make a direct comparison between two very different things.

Synesthesia

A description involving a 'crossing of the senses.'

Personification

Giving human-like qualities to something that is not human.

Generalization

When a writer bases a claim upon an isolated example or asserts that a claim is certain rather than probable.

Genre

A type of literary work, such as a novel or poem; there are also subgenres, such as science fiction or sonnet, within the larger genres.

Image

A word or words, either figurative or literal, used to describe a sensory experience or an object perceived by the senses.

Imagery

Words or phrases that use a collection of images to appeal to one or more of the five senses in order to create a mental picture.

Induction

The process that moves from a given series of specifics to a generalization.

Inference

A conclusion one can draw from the presented details.

Invective

A verbally abusive attack.

Inversion

Reversing the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase; usually to emphasize the element that appears first.

Juxtaposition

Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison.

Lyrical

Songlike; characterized by emotions, subjectivity, and imagination.

Mode

The method or form of a literary work: the manner in which a work of literature is written

Mood

the primary emotional attitude of a work (the feeling of the work, tne atmosphere).

Motif

A recurring idea in a piece of literature.

Objectivity

An impersonal presentation of events and characters.

Oversimplification

When a writer obscures or denies the complexity of the issues in an argument.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech composed of contradictory words or phrases, such as 'wise fool'.

Pacing

The movement of a literary piece from one point or one section to another; The speed or tempo of an author's writing.

Paradox

A statement that seems to contradict itself but that turns out to have a rational meaning.

Parody

A work that ridicules the style of another work by imitating and exaggerating its elements.

Pedantic

A term used to describe writing that borders on lecturing; scholarly and academic and often overly difficult and distant.

Polysyndeton

When a writer creates a list of items which are all separated by conjunctions ('and' or 'but').

Regionalism

An element in literature that conveys a realistic portrayal of a specific geographical locale.

Repetition

Word or phrase used two or more times in close proximity.

Rhetoric

The art of effective communication; language meant to persuade.

Ethos/Ethical Appeal

'Credibility' when a writer tries to persuade the audience to respect and believe him or her based on a presentation of the image of self through the text.

Pathos/Emotional/Pathetical Appeal

'Suffering/emotional' When a writer appeals to readers' emotions to excite and involve them in the argument.

Logos/Logical Appeal

When a writer tries to persuade the audience based on statistics, facts, and reasons.

Rhetorical Question

One that does not expect an explicit answer. It is used to pose an idea to be considered by the speaker or audience.

Sarcasm

Harsh, caustic personal remarks to or about someone; less subtle than irony.

Satire

A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of human behavior by portraying it in an extreme way, targeting groups or large concepts rather than individuals.

Appositive

A word or group of words placed beside a noun or noun substitute to supplement its meaning.

Clause

A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb.

Balanced sentence/Parallelism/Parallel structure

Sentence construction which places equal grammatical constructions near each other, or repeats identical grammatical patterns.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences or clauses in a row.

Chiasmus

When the same words are used twice in succession, but the second time, the order of the words is reversed.

Antithesis

Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure.

Zeugma/Syllepsis

When a single word governs or modifies two or more other words, and the meaning of the first word must change for each of the other words it governs or modifies.

Compound sentence

Contains at least two independent clauses but no dependent clauses.

Complex sentence

Contains only one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Cumulative sentence

When the writer begins with an independent clause, then adds subordinate elements.

Sibilance

Repetition of 's' or 'ch' sounds within two or more words in close proximity.

Speaker

The voice of a work; an author may speak as himself or herself or as a fictitious persona.

Stereotype

A character who represents a trait that is usually attributed to a particular social or racial group and who lacks individuality.

Style

An author's characteristic manner of expression - diction, syntax, imagery, structure, and content all contribute to style.

Subjectivity

A personal presentation of events and characters, influenced by the author's feelings and opinions.

Syllogism

A form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is drawn from them, consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

Symbol

Anything that represents or stands for something else, usually concrete representing something more abstract.

Syntactic Fluency

Ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or simple and varied in length.

Syntactic Permutation

Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved; often difficult for a reader to follow.

Syntax

The grammatical structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words in a sentence, including lengths and kinds of sentences.

Theme

The central idea or 'message' or a literary work.

Thesis

The main idea of a piece of writing; it presents the author's assertion or claim.

Tone

The characteristic emotion or attitude of an author toward the characters, subject, and audience (anger, sarcastic, loving, didactic, emotional, etc.).

Transition

A word or phrase that links one idea to the next and carries the reader from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph.

Understatement

The opposite of hyperbole; a technique for developing irony and/or humor where one writes or says less than intended.

Voice

Refers to two different areas of writing: the relationship between a sentence's subject and verb (active and passive voice), and the total 'sound' of a writer's style.