Useful LAL terms and stuff for Paper 1

Acronym

word made from initials

Alliteration

repetition of initial consonant sound

Allusion

an indirect or passing reference to a person, place, event, or artistic work (literary, biblical, mythological, or pop culture) intended to call something to mind without explicitly stating it

Anaphora

repetition of word/phrase in successive clusters

Contrast

opposite

Diction

Choice of words

Juxtaposition

opposite; looking at contrast

Slogan

catchphrase

Audience

Who is this text directed at? Does the speaker identify an audience? Who is listening and why? What assumptions can you make about the intended audience? How does the audience affect how and why this particular text has been written? Who was the document created for? Does the speaker use language and imagery that is specific for a unique audience? Why is the speaker using this type of language?

Purpose

What is the purpose of this text? Why has it been written? What is the message? What is the emotional state of the speaker? How does the speaker try to create a reaction in the audience? How is the poem supposed to make the audience feel (i.e. its intended effect)? What literary devices and techniques have been used to create the message and its effect(s)?

Evidence

What kinds of evidence are used (e.g. personal experience, facts/statistics, observation)? What is the quality of evidence? What kinds of appeals (i.e. logos, pathos, ethos) are made? What is the source of the images (e.g. nature, war, law, science, theology, love)?

Occasion

What is the time and place of this text? What is the context that prompted this writing? Writing does not occur in a vacuum. A writer’s own biographical experience often influences his/her writings. Writers are also influenced by the larger occasion: a sociocultural and historical environment of ideas, attitudes, and emotions that swirl around a broad issue. Then there is the immediate occasion: an event or situation that catches the author’s attention and triggers a response. What led to the text’s publication or presentation?

Subject

What is the subject of the piece? How do you know this? How does the writer present the subject? Does s/he present it immediately or does s/he delay its revelation?