Knowt
Stylistic features
Lexical features
Acronym | A word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words and pronounced as a separate word, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation. OR: A set of initials representing a name, organization, or the like, with each letter pronounced separately; initialism. |
Acronymy | An abbreviation that uses initials but is pronounced as a single word (LOL, YOLO). |
Archaism | Archaic words no longer in ordinary use. |
Colloquialism | Informal, 'chatty' word or phrase. |
Dialect | Regional language with distinct features of lexis, grammar and pronunciation. |
Dysphemism | A harsh and sometimes taboo term sometimes used for a dark, humorous effect. |
Euphemism | A word or statement that expresses something unpleasant in gentler language. |
Expletives | Taboo words and phrases (swear words). Often religious, sexual or excretory in nature. Can be mild or severe. |
Homophonic representation | The use of letters and numbers to represent words based on similarity of sound (2l8, m8). |
Idiom | Phrases established by usage and not immediately comprehensible from the words used (Let sleeping dogs lie. It’s raining cats and dogs.) |
Initialism | An abbreviation that uses initials and is pronounced as individual letters (OMG). |
Jargon | Words used by a particular group or profession. |
Lexical/ semantic field | Clusters of words which are grouped by meaning and refer to a specific subject. |
Modifier (pre- or post-) | Adjectives and adverbs that qualify a noun. |
Monosyllabic words | Words of one syllable. |
Neologism | A new word created or coined to define a new idea or thing |
Non-standard spelling | Spelling that is not accepted or used by most writers of English. |
Phonetic spelling | A spelling that represents the sound of the word as opposed to its conventional spelling. |
Polysyllabic words | Words of more than one syllable. |
Slang | Very informal words or phrases, not regarded as standard and often peculiar to a certain group (profession, class, age group, regional group, ethnic group etc.) |
Superlative | An adjective or adverb expressing the highest or a very high degree of a quality (e.g. bravest, most fiercely). |
Grammatical features
Parts of speech:
Noun | proper nouns – names of specific places, months, days, people etc. concrete nouns – names of objects abstract nouns – names of feelings or ideas collective nouns – a singular noun denoting group of individuals (gaggle of geese) |
Pronouns | pronouns – substitute for names of people and things personal pronouns – pronoun replacing subject/object of clause (i, me, you, s/he, we, they possessive pronouns –mine, yours, his, hers, ,yours, theirs, ours |
Adjectives | factual adjectives – give factual information about nouns opinionative adjectives – give opinions about nouns compound adjectives – adjectives that combine two or more words (up-to-date, action-packed) possessive adjectives – my, your, his/her, our, their |
Verbs | verbs – words used to indicate action (run), event (rain, happen), state (have, seem, appear) or change (become, grow) auxiliary verbs – ‘helping’ verbs which go in front of another verb to alter its meaning such as be, can, could, do, have, let, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, would, intransitive verbs – a verb that does not have a direct object (john was reading) transitive verbs – a verb that has a direct object (john was reading a book) |
Adverbs | adverbs – provide additional information about verbs or adjectives adverbs of manner – how adverbs of degree – to what degree adverbs of frequency- how often adverbs of time – when adverbs of place – where |
Sentence types:
Declarative | A statement |
Exclamatory | An exclamation! |
Imperative | A command, order |
Interrogative | A question? |
Sentence structures:
Minor sentence | A grammatically incomplete sentence |
Simple sentence | Simple sentence, also called an independent clause, contains a subject and a verb, and it expresses a complete thought. |
Compound sentence | A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a connective or conjunction. |
Complex sentence | A complex sentence has an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. A complex sentence always has a subordinator such as because, since, after, although, or when (and many others) or a relative pronoun such as that, who, or which. |
Other grammatical features:
Active voice | When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting, as in the sentence “Kevin hit the ball. |
Connective | Another word for coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or); also for cause and time conjunctions: so, consequently, then, next, finally etc. |
Main clause | A main clause—sometimes called an independent clause—contains at least a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought. |
Ellipsis | The missing out of a word or words in a sentence. |
Modal auxiliary | A verb that never appears on its own and is used to suggest possibility, probability, certainty, necessity or obligation. Will, would, can, could, shall, should, may, might, must. |
Negating participle | A small item used to form a negative construction e.g. not. |
Noun phrase | A group of words centred around a noun. |
Parallelism | The repetition of a pattern or structure in related words, phrases or clauses. |
Passive voice | The passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a "voice"). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence (e.g. The enemy were defeated by our troops). |
Phrase | A sequence of two or more words that does not contain a finite verb and cannot stand alone. |
Subordinate/Dependent clause | A clause that modifies the principal or main clause or some part of it. It cannot stand alone. |
Persuasive/ rhetorical devices
Logos | Logic {do not write “appeals to logos”} |
Ethos | ethics; a means to convince an audience of the author’s credibility or character. {do not write “appeals to ethos”} |
Pathos | emotion |
Other persuasive appeals | Patriotism, exclusivity |
Anadiplosis | The repetition of the word from the end of one sentence to the beginning of the next. It has been used by everyone from Shakespeare to Yoda: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” |
Anaphora | The repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of subsequent sentences. |
Antithesis | Two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. (One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.) |
Asyndeton | The removal of conjunctions like “or,” “and,” or “but” |
Juxtaposition | Placing two entities side by side in order to highlight their differences. These divergent elements can include people, ideas, things, places, behaviours, and characteristics. |
Polysyndeton | The addition of extra conjunctions (“and then we walked and then we stopped and then we sat on the ground”). |
Rhetorical question | A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected. The answer may be obvious or immediately provided by the questioner. If you pose a rhetorical question just to answer it yourself, that’s hypophora (“Am I hungry? Yes, I think I am”). |
Triples/ tricolon | Three parallel clauses, phrases, or words, which happen to come in quick succession without any interruption. (And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach,.....) |
Stylistic features
Lexical features
Acronym | A word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words and pronounced as a separate word, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation. OR: A set of initials representing a name, organization, or the like, with each letter pronounced separately; initialism. |
Acronymy | An abbreviation that uses initials but is pronounced as a single word (LOL, YOLO). |
Archaism | Archaic words no longer in ordinary use. |
Colloquialism | Informal, 'chatty' word or phrase. |
Dialect | Regional language with distinct features of lexis, grammar and pronunciation. |
Dysphemism | A harsh and sometimes taboo term sometimes used for a dark, humorous effect. |
Euphemism | A word or statement that expresses something unpleasant in gentler language. |
Expletives | Taboo words and phrases (swear words). Often religious, sexual or excretory in nature. Can be mild or severe. |
Homophonic representation | The use of letters and numbers to represent words based on similarity of sound (2l8, m8). |
Idiom | Phrases established by usage and not immediately comprehensible from the words used (Let sleeping dogs lie. It’s raining cats and dogs.) |
Initialism | An abbreviation that uses initials and is pronounced as individual letters (OMG). |
Jargon | Words used by a particular group or profession. |
Lexical/ semantic field | Clusters of words which are grouped by meaning and refer to a specific subject. |
Modifier (pre- or post-) | Adjectives and adverbs that qualify a noun. |
Monosyllabic words | Words of one syllable. |
Neologism | A new word created or coined to define a new idea or thing |
Non-standard spelling | Spelling that is not accepted or used by most writers of English. |
Phonetic spelling | A spelling that represents the sound of the word as opposed to its conventional spelling. |
Polysyllabic words | Words of more than one syllable. |
Slang | Very informal words or phrases, not regarded as standard and often peculiar to a certain group (profession, class, age group, regional group, ethnic group etc.) |
Superlative | An adjective or adverb expressing the highest or a very high degree of a quality (e.g. bravest, most fiercely). |
Grammatical features
Parts of speech:
Noun | proper nouns – names of specific places, months, days, people etc. concrete nouns – names of objects abstract nouns – names of feelings or ideas collective nouns – a singular noun denoting group of individuals (gaggle of geese) |
Pronouns | pronouns – substitute for names of people and things personal pronouns – pronoun replacing subject/object of clause (i, me, you, s/he, we, they possessive pronouns –mine, yours, his, hers, ,yours, theirs, ours |
Adjectives | factual adjectives – give factual information about nouns opinionative adjectives – give opinions about nouns compound adjectives – adjectives that combine two or more words (up-to-date, action-packed) possessive adjectives – my, your, his/her, our, their |
Verbs | verbs – words used to indicate action (run), event (rain, happen), state (have, seem, appear) or change (become, grow) auxiliary verbs – ‘helping’ verbs which go in front of another verb to alter its meaning such as be, can, could, do, have, let, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, would, intransitive verbs – a verb that does not have a direct object (john was reading) transitive verbs – a verb that has a direct object (john was reading a book) |
Adverbs | adverbs – provide additional information about verbs or adjectives adverbs of manner – how adverbs of degree – to what degree adverbs of frequency- how often adverbs of time – when adverbs of place – where |
Sentence types:
Declarative | A statement |
Exclamatory | An exclamation! |
Imperative | A command, order |
Interrogative | A question? |
Sentence structures:
Minor sentence | A grammatically incomplete sentence |
Simple sentence | Simple sentence, also called an independent clause, contains a subject and a verb, and it expresses a complete thought. |
Compound sentence | A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a connective or conjunction. |
Complex sentence | A complex sentence has an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. A complex sentence always has a subordinator such as because, since, after, although, or when (and many others) or a relative pronoun such as that, who, or which. |
Other grammatical features:
Active voice | When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting, as in the sentence “Kevin hit the ball. |
Connective | Another word for coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or); also for cause and time conjunctions: so, consequently, then, next, finally etc. |
Main clause | A main clause—sometimes called an independent clause—contains at least a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought. |
Ellipsis | The missing out of a word or words in a sentence. |
Modal auxiliary | A verb that never appears on its own and is used to suggest possibility, probability, certainty, necessity or obligation. Will, would, can, could, shall, should, may, might, must. |
Negating participle | A small item used to form a negative construction e.g. not. |
Noun phrase | A group of words centred around a noun. |
Parallelism | The repetition of a pattern or structure in related words, phrases or clauses. |
Passive voice | The passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a "voice"). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence (e.g. The enemy were defeated by our troops). |
Phrase | A sequence of two or more words that does not contain a finite verb and cannot stand alone. |
Subordinate/Dependent clause | A clause that modifies the principal or main clause or some part of it. It cannot stand alone. |
Persuasive/ rhetorical devices
Logos | Logic {do not write “appeals to logos”} |
Ethos | ethics; a means to convince an audience of the author’s credibility or character. {do not write “appeals to ethos”} |
Pathos | emotion |
Other persuasive appeals | Patriotism, exclusivity |
Anadiplosis | The repetition of the word from the end of one sentence to the beginning of the next. It has been used by everyone from Shakespeare to Yoda: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” |
Anaphora | The repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of subsequent sentences. |
Antithesis | Two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. (One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.) |
Asyndeton | The removal of conjunctions like “or,” “and,” or “but” |
Juxtaposition | Placing two entities side by side in order to highlight their differences. These divergent elements can include people, ideas, things, places, behaviours, and characteristics. |
Polysyndeton | The addition of extra conjunctions (“and then we walked and then we stopped and then we sat on the ground”). |
Rhetorical question | A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected. The answer may be obvious or immediately provided by the questioner. If you pose a rhetorical question just to answer it yourself, that’s hypophora (“Am I hungry? Yes, I think I am”). |
Triples/ tricolon | Three parallel clauses, phrases, or words, which happen to come in quick succession without any interruption. (And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach,.....) |
