AP Lang+Comp pt.3

Purpose: One’s intention or objective in a speech or piece of writing. 

Refute: To discredit an argument, particularly a counterargument. 

Rhetoric: The art of speaking or writing effectively. 

*Rhetorical modes: Patterns of organization developed to achieve a specific purpose; modes include but are not limited to narration, description, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, definition, exemplification, classification and division, process analysis, and argumentation. 

*Rhetorical question: A question asked more to produce an effect than to summon an answer. 

Rhetorical triangle: A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see Aristotelian triangle). 

Satire: An ironic, sarcastic, or witty composition that claims to argue for something, but actually argues against it. 

Sentence patterns: The arrangement of independent and dependent clauses into known sentence constructions—such as simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. 

Sentence variety: Using a variety of sentence patterns to create a desired effect. Simile: A figure of speech that uses “like” or “as” to compare two things. 

Source: A book, article, person, or other resource consulted for information. Speaker: A term used for the author, speaker, or the person whose perspective (real or imagined) is being advanced in a speech or piece of writing. 

Straw man: A logical fallacy that involves the creation of an easily refutable position; misrepresenting, then attacking an opponent’s position.

Style: The distinctive quality of speech or writing created by the selection and arrangement of words and figures of speech. 

Subject: In rhetoric, the topic the author addresses in a piece of writing. 

Subordinate clause: A clause that modifies an independent clause, created by a subordinating conjunction. 

Subordination: The dependence of one syntactic element on another in a sentence. 

Syllogism: A form of deductive reasoning in which the conclusion is supported by a major and minor premise (see premise; major, and minor).

Syntax: Sentence structure. 

Synthesize: Combining or bringing together two or more elements to produce something more complex. 

Thesis: The central idea in a work to which all parts of the work refer. 

Thesis statement: A statement of the central idea in a work, may be explicit or implicit. 

Tone: The speaker’s attitude toward the subject or audience. 

Topic sentence: A sentence, most often appearing at the beginning of a paragraph, that announces the paragraph’s idea and often unites it with the work’s thesis. Trope: Artful diction; the use of language in a nonliteral way; also called a figure of speech. 

*Understatement: Lack of emphasis in a statement or point; restraint in language often used for ironic effect. 

Voice: In grammar, a term for the relationship between a verb and a noun (active or passive voice). In rhetoric, a distinctive quality in the style and tone of writing. Zeugma: A construction in which one word (usually a verb) modifies or governs—often in different, sometimes incongruent ways—two or more words in a sentence.