AP English Language and Composition Essential Vocabulary

Abstract Diction

Language that denotes ideas, emotions, conditions, or concepts that are intangible

ad hominem

Latin for "against the man."
Attacking the person instead of the argument proposed by that individual.
An argument directed to the personality, prejudices, previous words and actions of an opponent rather than an appeal to pure reason.
Example: "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot," writes left

adverbial phrases

First, let's define an adverb: word that modifies a verb, verb form, adjective or another adverb.
Thus, an adverbial phrases is a group of words that modifies, as a single unit, a verb, verb form, adjective or another adverb.
Example: He lost the first game due to carelessness.

allegory

A fiction or nonfiction narrative, in which characters, things, and events represent qualities, moral values, or concepts.
Playing out of the narrative is designed to reveal an abstraction or truth.
Characters and other elements may be symbolic of the ideas referred to in the allegory.
Example: The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan or A Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same consonant sound, especially at the beginning of words. For example, "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion" Kubla Khan by S.T. Coleridge

allusion

A reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage.
Generally speaking, the writer assumes the educated reader will recognize the reference.
Often humorous, but not always.
Establishes a connection between writer and reader, or to make a subtle point.
Example: "In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings."

Ambiguity

Use of language where the meaning is unclear or has two or more possible interpretations or meanings. It could be created through a weakness in the way the writer has expressed himself or herself, but often it is used by writers quite deliberately to create layers of meaning in the mind of the reader.

Ambivalence

This indicates more than one possible attitude is being displayed by the writer towards a character, theme, or idea, etc.

Anachronism

Something that is historically inaccurate, for example the reference to a clock chiming in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Anadiplosis

Last word of one line is the first word of the next line

analogy

A comparison to a directly parallel case, arguing that a claim reasonable for one case is reasonable for the analogous case.
A comparison made between two things that may initially seem to have little in common but can offer fresh insights when compared.
Used for illustration and/or argument.
Example: "We advance in years somewhat in the manner of an invading army in a barren land; the age that we have reached, as the phrase goes, we but hold with an outpost, and still keep open our communications with the extreme rear and first beginnings of the march."

anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row.
Deliberate form of repetition to reinforce point or to make it more coherent.
Example: In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson places the subject, "He," at the beginning of twenty accusations in a row, each as a single paragraph, to put the weight of responsibility for the problems with King George III, whom Jefferson refers to in the third person.

Anastrophe (Inversion)

Inversion of the normal syntactical structure of a sentence. Ex. "Ready are you?"

Antecedent

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

Anthropomorphism

The endowment of something that is not human with human characteristics.

anticlimax

In writing, denotes a writer's intentional drop from the serious and elevated to the trivial and lowly, in order to achieve a comic or satiric effect.
An event (as at the end of a series) that is strikingly less important than what has preceded it.
The transition towards this ending.

Antimetabole

A sentence strategy in which the arrangement of ideas in the second clause is a reversal o the first; it adds power to the sentence.

antithesis

A balancing of two opposite or contrasting words, phrases or clauses.
Example: ". . .one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the other sees small. . . ."
Example: Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act I, Scene I, Line 11: "Fair is foul and foul is fair."
Oxymoron: rhetorical antithesis, juxtaposing two contradictory terms like "wise fool" or "eloquent silent."

anecdote

A brief recounting of a relevant episode.
Used in fiction and nonfiction.
Develops point or injects humor.
Commonly used as an illustration for an abstract point being made.
Example: Mark Twain is famous for his short anecdotes about growing up in Missouri intertwined with humor and an abstract truth about human nature.

Aphorism

A terse statement of known authorship that expresses a general truth or moral principle

Apostrophe

An interruption in a poem or narrative so that the speaker or writer can address a dead or absent person or particular audience or notion directly. "Oh Time thou must untangle this not I" Viola in Twelfth Night

appositive

Nonessential word groups (phrases and clauses) that follow nouns and identify or explain them.
Example: My aunt, who lives in Montana, is taking surfing lessons in Hawaii.
The sentence above is a "nonrestrictive clause," because it is not necessary to the meaning of the sentence and it can easily be put in another sentence and still make sense. Thus, it is set off by commas.
A restrictive clause also follows a noun but is necessary to the meaning of the sentence. It is not an appositive. Thus, no commas. "That" always signals restrictive.
Example: People who can speak more than one language are multilingual.
Example: Please repair all the windows that are broken.

Archaic

Language that is old

archetype

Meaning: model, example, standard, original, classic.
Elemental patterns of ritual, mythology and folklore that recur in the legends, ceremonies and stories of the most diverse cultures.
In literature, applies to narrative designs, character types, or images which are said to be identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as myths, and even ritualized modes of social behavior.
Example: Over 300 different versions of the Cinderella tale exist from around the world, and all of them have certain archetypal characteristics: wicked step

assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words, usually with different consonant sounds either before or after the same vowel sounds.
Example: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary," Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."
Example: "Thou foster child of silence and slow time," John Keat's "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

asyndeton

Sentence where commas are used with no conjunctions to separate a series of words.
Gives equal weight to each part.
Speeds up the flow of the sentence.
Formula: X, Y, Z. As opposed to X, Y, and Z.
See polysyndeton for variation.

Atmosphere

The prevailing mood created by a piece of writing.

Balanced Sentence

The phrases or clauses balance each other by virtue of their likeness or structure, meaning, or length. Ex. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters."

Ballad

A narrative poem that tells a story (traditional ballads were songs) usually in a straightforward way. The theme is often tragic or contains a whimsical, supernatural, or fantastical element.

bathos

Noun.
Etymology: Greek.
A sudden drop from the sublime or elevated to the ludicrous.
An anticlimax.
Example: Within the last decade, the Catholic community in North America has faced its greatest bathos as they wrestle with the dozens of arrests and convictions of priests for child molestation.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed poetry that adheres to a strict pattern in that each line is an iambic pentameter (a ten

bombast

Originally meant "cotton stuffing."
Adopted to signify verbose and inflated diction that is disproportionate to the matter it expresses.
Popular with the heroic drama of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Although a century after the height of this style, James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Sagas (Last of the Mohicans for example) are typical of bombastic speeches.

bowdlerize

Named after Thomas Bowdler, who tidied up his Family Shakespeare in 1815 by omitting whatever is unfit to be read by a gentleman in the presence of a lady.
Means to expurgate from a work any passages considered indecent or indelicate.
High school and some college texts are guilty of this censuring

Cacaphony

Harsh clashing, or dissonant sounds, often produced by combinations of words that require a clipped, explosive delivery or words that contain a number of plosive consonants. Opposite of Euphony

Caesura

A conscious break in a line of poetry

Caricature

A character described through the exaggeration of a small number of features that he or she possesses.

Catharsis

A purging of the emotions which takes place at the end of a tragedy.

Chiasmus/Antimetabole

Arrangement of repeated thoughts in the pattern of X Y Y X.
Usually short and summarizes the main idea.
Example: From Yeats' "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," the poet writes:
"The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind."

Cliché

A phrase, idea, or image that has been used so much that it has lost much of its original meaning, impact, and freshness.

Clause

A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb

coin a verb

This is not a literary term, but it confused more than one student. So, I am including it here.
coin (intransitive verb) means "to invent."
Thus, to "coin a verb" is to "invent a verb."
Shakespeare "coined" more than 1,700 words by changing nouns to verbs, making verbs adjectives, making new combination of words paired together, etc.
Example: Olivia: "There lies your way, due west."
Viola: "Then westward ho!"
From Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene I, Line 135.
Some words Shakespeare coined: advertising, alligator, anchovy, countless, gust, investment, obscene, puke, puppy dog, tranquil, zany.

Colloquial

Ordinary, everyday speech and language
Colloquial expressions are non

Comedy

Originally simply a play or other work which ended happily. Now we use this term to describe something that is funny and which makes us laugh. In literature the comedy is not necessarily a lightweight form. A play like Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, for example, is, for the most part a serious and dark play but as it ends happily, it is often described as a comedy.

common knowledge

Shared beliefs or assumptions between the reader and the audience.
Used to argue that if something is widely believed, readers should accept it.
A self

Complex Sentence

Contains an independent clause and one or more subordinate clause "Because the singer was tired, she went straight to bed after the concert"

Compound Sentence

Contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction or a semicolon

Compound

Complex Sentence

Conceit

An elaborate, extended, and sometimes surprising comparison between things that, at first sight, do not have much in common.

Concrete Diction

Specific words that describe physical qualities or conditions

Connotation

An implication or association attached to a word or phrase. A connotation is suggested or felt rather than being explicit.

Contrast

A traditional rhetorical strategy based on the assumption that a subject may be shown more clearly by pointing out ways in which it is unlike another subject

consonance

Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity.
Sometimes refers to repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words.
Example: "And all the air a solemn stillness holds." from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
Sometimes refers to slant rhyme or partial rhyme: Initial and final consonants are the same but the vowels are different.
Example: litter and letter, or green and groan.

conventional

Following certain conventions, or traditional techniques of writing.
Over

Couplet

Two consecutive lines of verse that rhyme

Declarative Sentence

Makes a statement

deconstruction

A critical approach that debunks single definitions of meaning based upon the instability of language.
Deconstructionist: reexamines literary conventions in light of the belief that because of the instability of language, the text has already dismantled itself.

Denotation

Exact, literal definition of a word independent of any emotional association or secondary meaning

Denouement

The ending of a play, novel, or drama where "all is revealed" and the plot is unraveled

Dialect

Nonstandard subgroup of a language with its own vocabulary and grammatical features; writers often use regional dialects or dialects that reveal a person's economic or social class

diatribe

From Latin diatriba meaning "to spend time," or "to wear away."
Archaic meaning: a prolonged discourse.
A bitter and abusive speech or writing.
Ironical or satirical criticism.
Example: The challenging candidate shouted his diatribe against the incumbent platform to several thousand supporters in attendance.

diction

Means "word choice."
Refers to word choice as a reflection of style.
Different types and arrangements of words have significant effects on meaning.
Purpose, tone, point of view, persona, verve, color, all are affected by diction.

didactic

Fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.
Designed to expound a branch of theoretical, moral, or practical knowledge, or else to instantiate, in an impressive and persuasive imaginative or fictional form, a moral, religious, or philosophical theme or doctrine.
Example: "On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius; "Essay on Man" by Pope; "Faerie Queene" by Spencer; "The Pilgrim's Progress" by Bunyan.

Dramatic Monologue

A poem or prose piece in which a character addresses an audience. Often the monologue is complete in itself, as in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.

double entendre

A corruption of a French phrase meaning "double meaning."
The term is used to indicate a word or phrase that is deliberately ambiguous, especially when one of the meanings is risqué or improper.
Example: The Elizabethan usage of the verb "die," which refers both to death and to orgasm.

either

or reasoning

Elegy

A meditative poem, usually sad and reflective in nature. Sometimes, though not always, it is concerned with the theme of death.

Ellipsis

The deliberate omission of a word or words that are readily implied by the context; it creates and elegant or daring economy of words.

Empathy

A feeling on the part of the reader of sharing the particular experience being described by the character or writer.

emotional appeal

Appealing to the emotions of the reader in order to excite and involve them in the argument.
Makes use of pathos: the quality in an experience, narrative, literary work, etc., which arouses profound feelings of compassion or sorrow.
Pathos is Greek for "suffering."

End stopping

A verse line with a pause or a stop at the end of it.

Enjambment

A line of verse that flows on into the next line without a pause.

Epanalepsis

The repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause; it tends to make the sentence or clause in which it occurs stand apart from its surroundings.

Epic

A long narrative poem, written in an elevated style and usually dealing with a heroic theme or story. Homer's The Iliad and Milton's Paradise Lost are examples of this.

epic simile

Formal and sustained similes that are developed far beyond its specific points of parallel to the primary subject.
Primary subject is called "tenor."
Secondary subject (the simile) is called "vehicle."
Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) invented the technique; Virgil, Milton and other epic writers copied the style.
Example: Milton in Paradise Lost I, lines 768

epigraph

A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme of the fiction or nonfiction text.
An aphorism is a short clever saying parting truth. Example: "waste not, want not."

epigram

Originally in Greek meant "an inscription."
Extended to encompass a very short poem whether amorous (sexual love), elegiac (longing for the past), meditative (contemplative), anecdotal (description, story, episode), or satiric (witty, sarcasm).
Poem is polished, condensed, and pointed, often with a witty end.
In his epigram "On a Volunteer Singer" Coleridge explains:
Swans sing before they die—'twere no bad thing
Should certain people die before they sing!

epiphany

Literally means "a manifestation."
Traditionally, Christianity used the word to signify a manifestation of God's presence in the world.
Irishman James Joyce, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, first adapted the word to a secular meaning: a sudden radiance and revelation while observing a commonplace object.
Joyce replaced what earlier writers had called "the moment," an instance or moment of revelation.

Epistrophe

The repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses; it sets up a pronounced rhythm and gains a special emphasis both by repeating the word and by putting the words in the final position.

Epithet

An adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing to emphasize a characteristic quality or attribute, such as "lily

equivoque

Special type of pun that makes use of a single word or phrase which has two disparate meanings, in a context which makes both meanings equally relevant.
The art of writing this pun is equivocation.
As an example, an epitaph for a bank teller might read:
He checked his cash, cashed in his checks,
And left his window. Who is next?

ethical appeal

When a writer tries to persuade the audience to respect him or her based upon a presentation of self through the text.
Reputation of the author is often a factor in ethical appeals.
Regardless of the topic or over

ethos

Etymology: Greek.
A person's character or disposition.
The characteristic spirit or prevalent tone of a people or a community.
The essential identity of an institution or system.
Ideal excellence; nobler than reality.
Example: "The real is preferred to the ideal, transient emotions to permanent lineaments, pathos to ethos."

euphemism

Originally in Greek meant "to speak well."
Has come to mean: to speak well in the place of the blunt, disagreeable, terrifying or offensive term.
Example: death becomes "to pass away."
Example: "Damn it" becomes "Darn it!"
Example: Victorians first used "limb" for leg or "privates" for sexual organs.

Euphony

Use of pleasant or melodious sounds.

Exclamatory Sentence

Provides emphasis or expresses strong emotion often indicated by punctuation

Exemplum

A story that contains or illustrates a moral point put forward as an "example."

exposition

Background information provided by author to enhance the audience's understanding of the context of a fiction or nonfiction story.
Example: Robert Louis Stevenson gives the reader plenty of cultural background on the small seaside village of his youth in hopes the audience will better appreciate the context of "The Lantern

Extendend Metaphor

A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work.

Fable

A short story that presents a clear moral lesson.

Fabliau

A short comic tale with a bawdy element, akin to the "dirty story." Chaucer's The Miller's Tale contains elements of the fabliau.

Farce

A play that aims to entertain the audience through absurd and ridiculous characters and actions.

Feminine Ending

An extra unstressed syllable at the end of a line of poetry. (Contrast with a stressed syllable, a masculine ending).

Figurative Language

Language that is symbolic or metaphorical and not meant to be taken literally.

Figure of Speech

A device used to produce figurative language

Flat Character

Forester's term for a character with a single quality

Foil

Usually a character who by contrast points up the qualities or characteristics of another character

Foot

A group of syllables forming a unit of verse
The basic unit of "metre"

Frame Device

Overall unifying story within which one or more tales are related. Ex. Frankenstein.

Free Verse

Verse written without any fixed structure (either in metre or rhyme)

freight

train