Prose Analysis Terms

Diction (umbrella term)

monosyllabic words versus polysyllabic; colloquialism, informal/conversational, formal, old-fashioned; denotative, connotative; concrete, abstract; euphonious, cacophonous; USE TONE INSTEAD OF DICTION THO

Tone (umbrella tone)

author’s attitude; must use with adjective bc everything has a tone

Syntax (elements of syntax or complex syntactical strategies)

sentence length (telegraphic, medium, long and involved); types (declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory); structures (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex); arrangement of ideas in a sentence or paragraph (anadiplosis, epistrophe, anaphora, parallelism, loose sentence, periodic sentence, natural order versus inverted, juxtaposition, repetition, rhetorical question, hypophora, antithesis)

Figurative Language (umbrella term)

includes simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, understatement (meiosis), paradox, oxymoron, pun. irony. sarcasm. apostrophe, allusion

Rhetorical Appeals/ Modes of Persuasion (umbrella term)

ethos (Credibility), pathos (emotional appeal), logos (logical reasoning)

anadiplosis

repetition of the last word of a preceding clause to the next sentence

epistrophe

repetition of the same word or works at the end of successive clauses or sentences. occasionally called antistrophe. Ex) “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”

anaphora

same expression is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses or sentences. Opposite of epistrophe.

loose sentence

makes complete sense if brought to a close before the actual ending (inverse of periodic sentences)

periodic sentence

makes sense only when end of sentence is reached bc has a lot of dependent clauses in the middle

natural versus inverted order

Natural: subject before predicate; inverted:predicate before subject

juxtaposition

poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit (broader version of antithesis)

hypophora

when question is asked and answered

antithesis

involves a direct contrast of structurally parallel word grouping generally for the purpose of contrast. Ex) sink or swim

understatement (meiosis)

opposite of hyperbole. a kind of irony which deliberately represents something as much less than it really is

Apostrophe

a form of personification in which the absent or dead are spoken to as if present, and the inanimate as if animate. Those are all addressed directly.