AP Lang Rhetorical Terms

Alliteration

Repetition of the same sound beginning several words or syllables in sequence.
Ex: Let us go forth to lead the land we love.

Allusion

Brief reference to a person, event, or place (real or fictious) or to a work of art
Ex: let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah.

Ambiguity (Ambiguous)

The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage.

Analogy

A comparison between teo seemingly dissimilar things. Often, an analogy uses something simple or familiar to explain something unfamiliar or complex.
Ex: As birds have flight, our special gift is reason.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrase, clause, or lines.
Ex: Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need— not as a call to battle, though embattled we are.

Anecdote

A brief story used to illustrate a point or claim

Annotation

The taking of notes directly on a text.

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in reverse order.
Ex: Ask not what your country can do for you— ask what you can do for your country.

Antithesis

Opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a parallel construction
Ex: We shall…support any friend, oppose any foes.

Aphorism

A terse statement of known authorship that exresses a general trurth and moral principle

Archaic Diction

Old fashioned or outdated choice of words
Ex: beliefs for which our forebars fought.

Argument

A process of reasoned inquiry. A persuasive discourse resulting in a coherent and consideration movement from a claim to a conclusion.

Assertion

A statement that presents a claim or thesis

Asyndeton

Omision of conjunction between coordinate phrase, clauses, or words.
Ex: WE shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to asure the survival and the success of liberty.

Audience

The listener, viewer, or reader of a text. Most texsts are likely to have multiple audiences.

Claim

Also called an assertion or proposition, a claim states the arguments maid idea or position. A claim differs from a topic or subject in that a claim has to be arguable.

Closed Thesis

A closed thesis is a statement of the main idea of the argument that also previews the major points the writer intends to make.
ex: the three dimensional characters, exciting pot, and complex themes of the Harry Potter series makes them not only legendary books but enduring literary classics.

Colloquialism (colloquial speech)

Words or phrases that have a conversational feel and are not generally used in formal written english.

Complex sentence

A sentence that includes oen independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
Ex: If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

Connotation

Meanings or associations that readers have with a word beyond its dictionary definition, or denotation. Connotations are often positive or negative, and they often greatly affect the authors tone. COnsider the connotations of the words below, all of which means “overweight”
ex: That cat is plump. That cat is fat. That cat is obese.

Context

THe circumstances, atmospher, attitudes, and events surrounding a text.
Ex: THe context for Lou Gehrigs speech is the recent announcement of his illness and subsequent retirement, but also the poignant contrast between his potent career and his debilitating disease.

Cumulative sentence

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

Denotation

The strict, literal dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude or color.

Diction

A speakers choice of words. Analysis of diction looks at these choices and what they add to the speakers message.

Emphasis

Emphasis allows the writer to place importance on a particular idea. By positioning an idea in a certain place structurally, by proportioning a greater amount of words, by isolating a key words or phrase, or by repeating the wording, the writer creates emphasis. THe ideas that the author emphasizes creates meaning in the piece. (Types include Position, proportiong, isolation, repetition)

Ethos

Greek for
character” Speakers appel to ethos to demonstrate that they are credible and trustworthy to speak on a given topic. Ethos is establised by both who you are and what you say.

Euphemism

Greek for “good speech,” euphemisms are a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts. May be used to adhere to political correctness or to add humor or ironic understatement.

Figurative Language (Figure of speech)

Nonliteral language, sometimes referred to as tropes or metaphorical language, often evoking strong imagery, figures of speech often compae one thing to another either explicitly (simile) implicitly (metaphor). Other forms of figurative language include personification, paradoc, overstatement (hyperbole), understatement, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis or to produce a comic or ironic effect; an overstatement to make a point.

Imagery

A description of how something looks, feels, tastes, smells, or sounds. Imagery may use literal or figurative language to appeal to the senses.
Ex: Your eyes glaze as you travel lifes highway past all the crushes animals and the Big Gulp cups.

Imperative Sentence

Sentence used to command or enjoin. My fellow citizens of the world; ask not what American will do for you, but what we can do for the freedom of man.

Inversion

Inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subject-verb-object order)
Ex: United ther is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do.

Irony

A figure of speech that occurs when a speaker or character says one thing but means something else, or when what is said is the opposite of what is expected, creating a noticeable incongruity.

Jargon

Specialized terminology used by a particular group of people. Obscure and often pretentious langauge.

Juxtaposition

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

Logos

Greek for embodied thought. Speakers appeal to logos, or reason, by offering clear, rational ieas and using specific details, examples, facts, statistics, or expert testimony to back them up.

Metaphor

Figure of speech that compares two things without using like or as.
Ex: And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion

Metonymy

Figure of speech in which something is represented by another thing that is related to it or emblatic of it.
Ex: The pen is mightier than the sword.

Modifier

An adjective, adverb, phrase, or clause that modifies a noun, pronoun, or verb. THe purpose of a modifier is usualy to describe, focus, or qualigy.
Ex: Sprawling and dull in class, he comes alive in the halls and in the cafeteria.

Mood

The feeling or atmosphere created by a text,

Narration

In clssical oration, the factual and background information, establishing why a subject or problem needs addressing, it precedes the confirmation, or laying out of evidence to suport claims made in the argument.

Nominalization

The process of changing a verb into a noun.
Ex: discuss becomes dicussion. Depend becomdes dependence.

Occasion

The time and place a speech is given or a piece if written.

Open Thesis

An open thesis is one that does not list all of the points the writer intends to cover in an essay.
Ex The popularity of the Harry Potter series demonstrates that simplicity trumps complexity when it comes to the taste of readers, both young and old.

Oxymoron

A paradox made up of two seemingly contradictory words.
Ex: But this peaceful revolution

Paradox

A statement or situation that is seemingly contradictory on the surface, but delivers an ironic truth.
Ex: THere is that scattereth, yet increaseth.
Ex: To live outside the law you must be honest.

Parallelism

Similarity of structure in a pair of series or related words, phrases, or clauses.
Ex: Let both sides explore, let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals.

Pathos

Greek for suffering or experience. Speakers appeal to pathos to emotionally motivate their audience. More specific appeals to pathos might play on the audience’s values, desires, and hopes, on the one hadn, or fears and prejudices, on the other.

Periodic Sentence

Sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end.
ex: To that world assembly of soverign states, the United Nations, ur last bests hope in an age wher the instruments of war have far outpaces the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support.

Persona

Greel for Mask. THe face or character that a speaker shows to his or her audience.

Personification

Attirbution of a lifelike quality to an inanimate object or an idea.
Ex: With history the final judge of our deeds.

Polysyndeton

The deliberate use of multiple conjunctions between coordinate phrase, clauses, or worsd.
Ex: I paid for my plane ticket, and the taxes, and the fees, and the charge for the checked bag, and five follars for a bottle of water.

Propoganda

The spread of ideas and information to further a cause. In its negative sense, propoganda is the use of rumors, lies, and disinformation, and scare tactis in order to damage or promote a cause.

Purpose

THe goal the speaker wants to achieve.

Rhetoric

Aristotle defined rhetoric as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuation. In other words, it is the art of finding ways of persuading an audience.

Rhetorical Appeals

Rhetorical techniques used to persuade an audience by emphasizing what they find most important or compelling. THe three major appeals are to ethos (character), logos (reason), and pathos (emotion)

Rhetorical question

Figure of speech int he form of a question posed for the rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer.
Ex: Will you jin in that historic effort?

Satire

The use of irony or sarcasm to critique society or an individual.

Scheme

Artful syntax, a deviation from the normal order of words. Common schemes include parallelism, juxtaposition, antithesis, and antimetabole.

Simile

A figure of speech used to explain or clarify an idea by comparing it explicitly to something else, using the words like, as, or as though.

Speaker

The person or group who creates a text. THis might be apolitican who delivers a speech, a commentator who writes an article, an artist who draws a political cartoon, or even a company who commissions an advertisement.

Stance

A speakers attitude toward the audience (differing from tone, the speakers attitude toward the subject)

Style

A writers specific way of saying things. Style includes arrangement of ideas, word choice, syntax, and figurative language. We can analyze and describe an authors personal style and make judgements on how appropriate it is to the authors purpose

Subject

THe topic of a text. What the text is about.

Symbol

Generally something that represents or stands for something else. In this class we look at archetypal symbols. One system classifies symols into three categories.
Ex: Natural symbols, conventional symbols, literary symbols.

Synecdoche

Figure of speech that uses a part to represent the whole
Ex: In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success of failure of our course.

Syntax

The arragement of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. THis includes word order (subject-verb-object, for instance, or an inverted structure) this length and structure of sentences (simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex) and such schemes as parallelism, juxtaposition, antithesis, and antimetabole.

Synthesize

COmbining two or more ideas in order to create something more complex in support of a new idea.

Text

While this term generally means the written word, in the humanities it has come to mean any cultural product that can be read— meaning not just consumed and comprehended, but investigated. THis includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, political cartoons, fine art, photography. fashion, cultural trends, and much more.

THeme

A writers thought on a topic. It is not just the topic, but what the author develops in terms of what he believes about the topic.

Tone

A speakers attitude toward the subject voneyed by the speakers stylistic and rhetorical choices.

Trope

Artful diction, from the greek word for turning, a digure of speech such as a teaphor, simile, hyperbole, metonymy, or synecdoche.

Understatement

A figure of speech in which something is presented as less important, dire, urgent, good, and so on, than it actually is, often for satiric or commical effect. Also called litotes, it is the opposite of hyperbole.

Vernacular

THe speech patterns of a particular group of people or region.

Voice

THe unique flaor of a piece based upon the author. AN author adds his or her voiec to a piece by creating a tone with diction, syntax, imagery, etc. The authors voice is what makes his or her writing personal and unique.

Wit

IN rhetoric, the use of laughter, humor, irony, and satire in the confirmation or refutation of an argument.

Zeugma

Use of to different words in a grammatically similar way that produces different, often incongruous, meanings.
Ex: When you open a book, you open your mind. Now the tumpet summons us again, not as a call to bear arms, though arms we beed, not as a call to battle, though embattled we are, but a call to bear the burden.