English Literary Techniques

Metaphor

A comparison that describes one thing as another to suggest a shared quality or meaning.

Extended Metaphor

A metaphor developed across multiple lines, sentences, or an entire text to sustain and deepen a central idea.

Simile

A comparison between two things using “like” or “as”.

Personification

The attribution of human qualities, emotions, or actions to non

Anthropomorphism

The representation of non

Zoomorphism

The attribution of animal characteristics to humans, objects, or abstract concepts.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis, emotional intensity, or humour.

Understatement

The deliberate presentation of something as less significant or intense than it actually is.

Litotes

An understatement that affirms something by negating its opposite, such as “not bad” to mean good.

Euphemism

A mild or indirect expression used in place of one considered harsh, offensive, or uncomfortable.

Dysphemism

A deliberately harsh or offensive expression used instead of a neutral or more acceptable one.

Symbolism

The use of an object, image, person, or action to represent a broader idea beyond its literal meaning.

Allegory

A narrative in which characters, events, or settings consistently represent abstract ideas, moral principles, or political realities.

Analogy

A comparison between two situations or concepts used to explain an idea or strengthen an argument.

Allusion

An indirect reference to a recognisable person, event, place, text, or cultural idea.

Metonymy

The substitution of something with a closely associated concept, such as “the Crown” representing the monarchy.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole or the whole represents a part.

Pathetic Fallacy

The attribution of human emotions or moods to elements of nature, often reflecting a character’s feelings or the text’s atmosphere.

Synesthesia

The blending of sensory experiences, such as describing a sound as “bright” or a colour as “loud”.

Imagery

Descriptive language that evokes sensory experiences, including visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory impressions.

Visual Imagery

Language that evokes sight, including colour, shape, size, and appearance.

Auditory Imagery

Language that evokes sounds.

Tactile Imagery

Language that evokes touch, texture, pressure, or temperature.

Olfactory Imagery

Language that evokes smell.

Gustatory Imagery

Language that evokes taste.

Organic Imagery

Language that evokes internal bodily sensations, such as hunger, fatigue, or discomfort.

Kinesthetic Imagery

Language that evokes movement, physical action, or muscular sensation.

Connotation

The implied emotional, cultural, or associative meanings attached to a word beyond its literal definition.

Denotation

The literal or dictionary meaning of a word.

Defamiliarisation

The presentation of familiar things in unfamiliar ways to disrupt habitual perception and encourage fresh understanding.

Juxtaposition

The placement of contrasting or related ideas, images, or characters beside one another to emphasise their similarities or differences.

Oxymoron

The combination of apparently contradictory words, such as “deafening silence”.

Paradox

A seemingly contradictory statement or situation that reveals a deeper truth.

Aphorism

A concise statement expressing a general truth, observation, or principle.

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in nearby words.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words.

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds within or at the ends of nearby words.

Sibilance

The repetition of hissing consonant sounds, particularly “s”, “sh”, and “z”, to create effects such as tension, softness, or menace.

Plosive Alliteration

The repetition of explosive consonant sounds, such as “p”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, and “g”, to create force, sharpness, or emphasis.

Onomatopoeia

The use of words that imitate or suggest the sounds they describe.

Euphony

The arrangement of sounds to create a smooth, harmonious, or pleasing auditory effect.

Cacophony

The arrangement of harsh, discordant, or jarring sounds to create discomfort, conflict, or intensity.

Repetition

The deliberate reuse of words, phrases, images, or ideas to emphasise meaning or establish patterns.

Anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

Epistrophe

The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

Symploce

The combined repetition of words at the beginnings and endings of successive clauses.

Epizeuxis

The immediate repetition of a word or phrase without intervening words.

Anadiplosis

The repetition of the final word of one clause or sentence at the beginning of the next.

Polyptoton

The repetition of words derived from the same root but appearing in different grammatical forms.

Antanaclasis

The repetition of a word in which the word takes on a different meaning each time.

Parallelism

The use of similar grammatical structures to create balance, rhythm, emphasis, or comparison.

Chiasmus

The reversal of grammatical or conceptual structures in successive phrases, creating a pattern such as ABBA.

Antimetabole

The repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse order, often producing a memorable contrast.

Tricolon

A series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses used for rhythm, emphasis, or completeness.

Asyndeton

The deliberate omission of conjunctions between successive words, phrases, or clauses to create speed, urgency, or intensity.

Polysyndeton

The repeated use of conjunctions between successive words, phrases, or clauses to create accumulation, emphasis, or a particular rhythm.

Rhyme

The repetition of similar sounds, usually at the ends of words or lines.

End Rhyme

Rhyme occurring at the ends of poetic lines.

Internal Rhyme

Rhyme occurring within a single line of poetry.

Slant Rhyme

An imperfect rhyme in which words share similar but not identical sounds.

Masculine Rhyme

A rhyme involving one stressed final syllable.

Feminine Rhyme

A rhyme involving a stressed syllable followed by one or more unstressed syllables.

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, pauses, and beats in language.

Meter

A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Iambic Pentameter

A metrical pattern of five iambs per line, each generally consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Spondee

A metrical foot consisting of two stressed syllables.

Pyrrhic Foot

A metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables.

Prosody

The combined organisation of rhythm, meter, stress, intonation, and sound patterns in poetry.

Diction

The deliberate choice of words to communicate meaning, establish tone, and shape the reader’s response.

Register

The level or style of language used in a particular context, such as formal, informal, technical, or colloquial language.

Register Shift

A change in language formality or style that can reveal changes in relationships, authority, emotion, or context.

Colloquial Language

Informal, conversational language associated with everyday speech.

Slang

Highly informal vocabulary associated with particular groups, communities, or contexts.

Jargon

Specialised terminology associated with a particular profession, discipline, or social group.

Technical Language

Precise terminology used to communicate specialised information.

Emotive Language

Words chosen to provoke particular emotional responses in an audience.

Loaded Language

Language carrying strong positive or negative associations that encourages a particular judgement.

Inclusive Language

Language that creates a sense of shared identity or participation, often through terms such as “we” and “our”.

Exclusive Language

Language that distinguishes an individual or group from others, creating boundaries between insiders and outsiders.

Imperative Language

Language that issues commands, instructions, or demands.

Modal Language

Words expressing degrees of certainty, possibility, obligation, or willingness, such as “must”, “might”, and “should”.

Hedging

Language that qualifies a claim or reduces its apparent certainty, such as “perhaps” or “it seems”.

Absolutist Language

Language expressing certainty or totality, such as “always”, “never”, or “everyone”.

Semantic Field

A group of words connected by a shared area of meaning, such as warfare, nature, or religion.

Lexical Field

A collection of vocabulary associated with a particular subject, theme, or conceptual domain; often used similarly to “semantic field”.

Polysemy

The capacity of a single word to possess multiple related meanings.

Ambiguity

The capacity of a word, phrase, or text to support more than one plausible interpretation.

Equivocation

The deliberate use of ambiguous language to evade a clear commitment or mislead an audience.

Rhetorical Question

A question posed to provoke thought or reinforce an argument rather than obtain a direct answer.

Hypophora

A technique in which a speaker poses a question and immediately answers it.

Aporia

An expression of doubt, uncertainty, or apparent indecision that may reveal conflict or invite the audience to question an issue.

Aphorismus

A rhetorical device that challenges or redefines the meaning of a word or concept by questioning whether it is appropriately applied.

Paralipsis

A technique in which a speaker claims to omit something while indirectly drawing attention to it.

Antithesis

The presentation of contrasting ideas in a balanced grammatical structure.

Binary Opposition

The organisation of ideas into contrasting pairs, such as freedom and oppression, self and other, or civilisation and nature.

Inversion

The reversal of conventional word order to emphasise a particular element or create a distinctive style.

Ellipsis

The omission of words or parts of a sentence, often creating brevity, hesitation, suspense, or incompleteness.

Rhetorical Fragmentation

The use of incomplete or disconnected sentence structures to convey disrupted thought, emotional intensity, uncertainty, or fractured experience.

Cumulative Syntax

A sentence structure in which the main clause is followed by additional phrases or clauses that accumulate details and qualifications.

Periodic Sentence

A sentence in which the main clause or central meaning is delayed until the end, building suspense or emphasis.