Rhetorical Vocab

AP Language and Composition Terms

1. Abstract: refers to language that describes concepts rather than concrete images (ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people, or places). The observable or "physical" is usually described in concrete language.
2. Ad Hominem: In an argument, this is an attack on the person rather than on the opponent's ideas. It comes from the Latin meaning "against the man."
3. Allegory: an extended narrative in prose or verse in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface of the story; the underlying meaning may be moral, religious, political, social, or satiric. Examples: John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Temptations of Christians) , Orwell's Animal Farm (Russian Revolution), and Arthur Miller's Crucible ("Red Scare")
4. Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close to one another: Mickey Mouse; Donald Duck; Daffy Duck; Suzy Sells Seashells …
5. Allusion: a reference to a well-known person, place, or thing from literature, history, etc. Example: Eden, Scrooge, Prodigal Son, Catch-22, Judas, Don Quixote, Mother Theresa
6. Ambiguity: an event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way.
7. Analogy: Comparison of two similar but different things, usually to clarify an action or a relationship, such as comparing the work of a heart to that of a pump. An analogy is a comparison to a directly parallel case. Ex: Shells were to ancient cultures as dollar bills are to modern American culture. Ex: The heart is like a pump.
8. Anaphora: Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer's point more coherent. Ex: "There was the delight I caught in seeing long straight rows. There was the faint, cool kiss of sensuality. There was the vague sense of the infinite…." Ex: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight… " Churchill.
9. Anecdote: A short, simple narrative of an incident; often used for humorous effect or to make a point.
   10. Annotation: Explanatory notes added to a text to explain, cite sources, or give bibliographical data.
   11. Antecedent: the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers.
   12. Antithesis: the presentation of two contrasting images. The ideas are balanced by word, phrase, clause, or paragraphs. Examples: "To be or not to be…" Shakespeare's Hamlet "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country…." Kennedy "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." Lincoln
   13. Aphorism: a short, often witty statement of a principle or a truth about life. Examples: "Early bird gets the worm." "What goes around, comes around.." "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
   14. Apostrophe: usually in poetry but sometimes in prose; the device of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction Ex: "For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel. Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him." Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
   15. Argumentation: The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader.
   16. Assonance: Repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity
   17. Asyndeton: Commas used (with no conjunction) to separate a series of words. The parts are emphasized equally when the conjunction is omitted; in addition, the use of commas with no intervening conjunction speeds up the flow of the sentence. Asyndeton takes the form of X, Y, Z as opposed to X, Y, and Z. Ex: “Be one of the few, the proud, the Marines." Marine Corps Ex: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." John F. Kennedy
   18. Attitude: the relationship an author has toward his or her subject, and/or his or her audience
   19. Authority: Arguments that draw on recognized experts or persons with highly relevant experience.
   20. Backing: Support or evidence for a claim in an argument
   21. Balance: a situation in which all parts of the presentation are equal, whether in sentences or paragraphs or sections of a longer work.
   22. Begging the Question: Often called circular reasoning, __ occurs when the believability of the evidence depends on the believability of the claim.
   23. Cacophony: harsh, awkward, or dissonant sounds used deliberately in poetry or prose; the opposite of euphony.
   24. Caricature: descriptive writing that greatly exaggerates a specific feature of a person's appearance or a facet of personality.
   25. Causal Relationship: In __, a writer asserts that one thing results from another. To show how one thing produces or brings about another is often relevant in establishing a logical argument.
   26. Character: those who carry out the action of the plot in literature. Major, minor, static, and dynamic are the types.
   27. Chiasmus: Arrangement of repeated thoughts in the pattern of X Y Y X. It is often short and summarizes a main idea.
   28. Coherence: quality of a piece of writing in which all the parts contribute to the development of the central idea, theme, or organizing principle
   29. Colloquial: the use of slang in writing, often to create local color and to provide an informal tone. Huckleberry Finn in written in a __ style.
   30. Colloquialism: a word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversation and informal writing but that is often inappropriate in formal writing (y'all, ain't)
   31. Comic Relief: the inclusion of a humorous character or scene to contrast with the tragic elements of a work, thereby intensifying the next tragic event.
   32. Concrete Language: Language that describes specific, observable things, people, or places, rather than ideas or qualities.
   33. Conflict: a clash between opposing forces in a literary work, such as man vs. man; man vs. nature; man vs. God; man vs. self
   34. Connotation: the interpretive level or a word based on its associated images rather than its literal meaning.
   35. Consonance: Repetition of identical consonant sounds within two or more words in close proximity, as in boost/best; it can also be seen within several compound words, such as fulfill and ping-pong
   36. Conundrum: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun; it may also be a paradox or difficult problem
   37. Cumulative: Sentence which begins with the main idea and then expands on that idea with a series of details or other particulars
   38. Deconstruction: a critical approach that debunks single definitions of meaning based on the instability of language. It "is not a dismantling of a structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself."
   39. Deduction: The process of moving from a general rule to a specific example.
   40. Denotation: the literal or dictionary meaning of a word
   41. Description: The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to re-create, invent, or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader can picture that being described. Sometimes an author engages all five senses.
   42. Dialect: the recreation of regional spoken language, such as a Southern one. Hurston uses this in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
   43. Diction: word choice, an element of style; it creates tone, attitude, and style, as well as meaning. Different types and arrangements of words have significant effects on meaning. An essay written in academic ______ would be much less colorful, but perhaps more precise than street slang.
   44. Didactic: writing whose purpose is to instruct or to teach. The work is usually formal and focuses on moral or ethical concerns. This type of writing may be fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.
   45. Discourse: spoken or written language, including literary works; the four traditionally classified modes of ____________ are description, exposition, narration, and persuasion. \n
   46. Dissonance: harsh or grating sounds that do not go together
   47. Dramatic Irony: In this type of irony, facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or a piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work
   48. Either/or reasoning: When the writer reduces an argument or issue to two polar opposites and ignores any alternatives.
   49. Ellipsis: Indicated by a series of three periods, the __ indicates that some material has been omitted from a given text.
   50. Emotional Appeal: When a writer appeals to readers' emotions (often through pathos) to excite and involve them in the argument.
   51. Epigraph: The use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that hints at its theme. Hemingway begins The Sun Also Rises with two. One of them is "You are all a lost generation" by Gertrude Stein.
   52. Epistrophe: repetition of a word or expression at the end of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect (as Lincoln's "of the people, by the people, for the people") Compare to anaphora. Ex: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child." (Corinthians) Ex:
   53. Equivocation: use of ambiguous language to cloud the truth
   54. Ethical Appeal: When a writer tries to persuade the audience to respect and believe him or her based on the character of the author or speaker. Reputation is often a factor in this type of appeal, as the aim is to gain the audience's confidence. (Ethos)
   55. Euphemism: a more acceptable and usually more pleasant way of saying something that might be inappropriate or uncomfortable. "He went to his final reward" is a common saying for "he died." These are also often used to obscure the reality of a situation. The military uses "collateral damage" to indicate civilian deaths in a military operation.
   56. Euphony: a succession of harmonious sounds used in poetry or prose; the opposite of cacophony
   57. Example: An individual instance taken to be representative of a general pattern. Arguing through this process is considered reliable if _______________ are demonstrable true or factual as well as relevant.
   58. Explication: The art of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text. It usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.
   59. Exposition: the immediate revelation to the audience of the setting and other background information necessary for understanding the plot; also, explanation; one of the four modes of discourse
   60. Extended Metaphor: a sustained comparison, often referred to as a conceit. The extended metaphor is developed throughout a piece of writing \n
   61. False Analogy: When two cases are not sufficiently parallel to lead readers to accept a claim of connection between them.
   62. Figurative Language: Writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and is usually meant to be imaginative and vivid.
   63. Figure of Speech: A device used to produce figurative language. Many compare dissimilar things. Examples are apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonomy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, and understatement, and use of any example can make imaginative, rather than literal, comparisons or associations.
   64. First-Person Narrative—a story or essay is told from the main character’s perspective. It is limited to his/her own experience, so if it didn’t happen to him/her directly, he/she could not and would not know other experiences had occurred.
   65. Foreshadowing: the use of a hint or clue to suggest a larger event that occurs late in the work
   66. Freight-Train: Sentence consisting of three or more very short independent clauses joined by conjunctions.
   67. Generalization: When a writer bases a claim upon an isolated example or asserts that a claim is certain rather than probable. Sweeping generalizations occur when a writer asserts that a claim applies to all instances instead of some.
   68. Genre: The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama. There are also subgenres, such as science fiction or sonnet, within the larger genres.
   69. Homily: This term literally means "sermon," but more informally, it can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice.
   70. Hubris: the excessive pride of ambition that leads a tragic hero to disregard warnings of impending doom, eventually causing his or her downfall.
   71. Humor: anything that causes laughter or amusement; up until the end of the Renaissance, humor meant a person's temperament
   72. Hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration in order to create humor or emphasis (Example: He was so hungry he could have eaten a horse.)
   73. Image: A word or words, either figurative or literal, used to describe a sensory experience or an object perceived by the sense. An image is always a concrete representation.
   74. Imagery: Words, either figurative or literal, which utilize the senses to describe a particular item, situation, or experience. Also, the sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. On a physical level, uses terms related to the five senses; we refer to visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory.
   75. Induction: the process that moves from a given series of specifics to a generalization \n
   76. Infer: To draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented.
   77. Interior Monologue: writing that records the conversation that occurs inside a character's head
   78. Invective: a verbally abusive attack; an emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language.
   79. Inversion: reversing the customary (subject first, then verb, then complement) order of elements in a sentence or phrase; it is used effectively in many cases, such as posing a question: "Are you going to the store?" Usually, the element that appears first is emphasized more than the subject.
   80. Irony: The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. The difference between what appears to be and what actually is true.
   81. Jargon: The special language of a profession or group. The term usually has pejorative associations, with the implication that jargon is evasive, tedious, and unintelligible to outsiders. The writings of the lawyer and the literary critic are both susceptible to jargon.
   82. Logic: the process of reasoning
   83. Logical Fallacy: a mistake in reasoning
   84. Lyrical: Songlike; characterized by emotions, subjectivity, and imagination.
   85. Metaphor: a direct comparison between dissimilar things. "Your eyes are stars" is an example.
   86. Metonymy: a term from the Greek meaning "changed label" or "substitute name," it is a figure of speech that uses the name of an object, person, or idea to represent something closely associated with it. For example: a news release that claims "The White House declared" rather than "The President declared" or "the crown" to referring to a monarch
   87. Mode: the method or form of a literary work; the manner in which a work of literature is written
   88. Mood: This term has two distinct technical meanings in English writing. The first meaning is grammatical and deals with verbal units and a speaker's attitude. The second meaning is literary, meaning the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work. Syntax is also a determiner of this term because sentence strength, length, and complexity affect pacing.
   89. Moral: The lesson drawn from a fictional or nonfictional story. It can also mean a heavily didactic story.
   90. Motif: main theme or subject of a work that is elaborated on in the development of the piece; a repeated pattern or idea \n
   91. Narration: the telling of a story in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama; one of the four modes of discourse
   92. Narrative Device: This term describes the tools of the storyteller, such as ordering events to that they build to climatic movement or withholding information until a crucial or appropriate moment when revealing in creates a desired effect.
   93. Negative-Positive: Sentence that begins by stating what is NOT true, then ending by stating what is true.
   94. Non-sequitur: Latin for "it does not follow." When one statement isn't logically connected to another
   95. Objectivity: an impersonal presentation of events and characters. It is a writer's attempt to remove himself or herself from any subjective, personal involvement in a story. Hard news journalism is frequently prized for its objectivity, although even fictional stories can be told without a writer rendering personal judgment.
   96. Onomatopoeia: a figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. Simple examples include such words as buzz, hiss, hum.
   97. Oversimplification: When a writer obscures or denies the complexity of the issues in an argument
   98. Oxymoron: From the Greek for "pointedly foolish," ___ is a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms. Simple examples include "jumbo shrimp," "wise fool," bitter-sweet," "pretty ugly," and "cruel kindness."
   99. Pacing: the movement of a literary piece from one point or one section to another
   100. Parable: a short tale that teaches a moral; similar to but shorter than an allegory
   101. Paradox: A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity, as in this quotation from Henry David Thoreau; "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."
   102. Parallelism: the technique of arranging words, phrases, clauses, or larger structures by placing them side by side and making them similar in form. Parallel structure may be as simple as listing two or three modifiers in a row to describe the same noun or verb; it may take the form of two or more of the same type of phrases (prepositional, participial, gerund, appositive) that modify the same noun or verb; it may also take the form of two or more subordinate clauses that modify the same noun or verb. Or, parallel structure may be a complex blend of singe-word, phrase, and clause parallelism all in the same sentence. Example from Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
   103. Parody: a work that ridicules the style of another work by imitating and exaggerating its elements. . It can be utterly mocking or gently humorous. It depends on allusion and exaggerates and distorts the original style and content.
   104. Pathos: an appeal based on emotion, typically evoking pity or compassion. Over-emotionalism can be a result..
   105. Pedantic: a term used to describe writing that borders on lecturing. It is scholarly and academic and often overly difficult and distant
   106. Periodic Sentence: A sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end. The independent clause is preceded by a phrase or clause that cannot stand alone. The effect is to add emphasis and structural variety.
   107. Personification: The assigning of human qualities to inanimate objects or concepts. An example: Wordsworth's "the sea that bares her bosom to the moon."
   108. Persuasion: a form of argumentation, one of the four modes of discourse; language intended to convince through appeals to reason or emotion.
   109. Point of View: In literature, the perspective from which a story is told.
   110. Polysyndeton: Sentence which uses and or another conjunction (with no commas) to separate the items in a series. Polysyndeton appear in the form of X and Y and Z, stressing equally each member of a series. It makes the sentence slower and the items more emphatic than in the asyndeton.
   111. Prose: One of the major divisions of genre, ___ refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms, because they are written in ordinary language and most closely resemble everyday speech.
   112. Protagonist: the main character of a literary work
   113. Red Herring: When a writer raises an irrelevant issue to draw attention away from the real issue
   114. Reductio ad Absurdum: the Latin for "to reduce to the absurd." This is a technique useful in creating a comic effect and is also an argumentative technique. Considered a rhetorical fallacy, as it reduces an argument to an either/or choice.
   115. Regionalism: an element in literature that conveys a realistic portrayal of a specific geographical locale, using the locale and its influences as a major part of the plot
   116. Repetition: The duplication, either exact or approximate, or any element of language, such as sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern.
   117. Rhetorical Modes: from the Greek for "orator," this term describes the principle governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively. The flexible term describes the variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing. There are four types: exposition, description, narration, argumentation. Rhetoric focuses on the interrelationship of invention, arrangement, and style in order to create felicitous and appropriate discourse.
   118. Rhetorical Question: one that does not expect an explicit answer. It is used to pose an idea to be considered.
   119. Sarcasm: from the Greek meaning "to tear flesh," ___ involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. It may use irony as a device.
   120. Satire: A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and convention for reform or ridicule. Regardless of whether or not the work aims to reform humans or their society, it is best seen as a style of writing rather than a purpose for writing. The effect, often humorous, is thought provoking and insightful about the human condition.
   121. Semantics: The branch of linguistics that studies that meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another.
   122. Setting: Time and place of a literary work
   123. Simile: a figure of speech that uses like, as, or as if to make a direct comparison between two essentially different objects, actions, or qualities; for example, "The sky looked like an artist's canvas."
   124. Situational Irony: a type of irony in which events turn out the opposite of what was expected.
   125. Speaker: the voice of a work; an author may speak as himself or herself or as a fictitious persona.
   126. Stereotype: a character who represents a trait that is usually attributed to a particular social or racial group and who lacks individuality; a conventional patter, expression or idea.
   127. Straw Man: When a writer argues against a claim that nobody actually holds or is universally considered weak. Setting up a straw man diverts attention from the real issues.
   128. Stream-of-consciousness: This is a narrative technique that places the reader in the mind and thought process of the narrator, no matter how random and spontaneous that may be.
   129. Style: How an author chooses to blend diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices in writing.
   130. Subjectivity: a personal presentation of evens and characters, influenced by the author's feelings and opinions
   131. Syllogism: From the Greek for "reckoning together," it is a deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion. A syllogism is the format of a formal argument that consists of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. Example: Major Premise: All tragedies end unhappily. Minor Premise: Hamlet is a tragedy. Conclusion: Therefore, Hamlet ends unhappily.
   132. Symbol: generally, anything that represents, stands for, something else. Usually, a ___ is something concrete—such as an object, action, character, or scene—that represents something more abstract.
   133. Symbolism: the use of symbols or anything that is meant to be taken both literally and as representative of a higher and more complex significance
   134. Synecdoche: a figure of speech that utilizes a part as representative of the whole. "All hands on deck" is an example.
   135. **Synesthesia—**a psychological term for when a person utilizes incorrect sense descriptions to describe experience, used to uniquely describe anything by using different senses than expected. Ex: Taste the rainbow
   136. Syntactic Fluency: Ability to create a variety of sentence structures, complex and/or simple and varied in length.
   137. Syntactic Permutation: Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. They are often difficult for a reader to follow.
   138. Syntax: the grammatical structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words in a sentence. It includes length and kinds of sentences (questions, exclamations, declarative sentences, rhetorical questions, simple, complex, or compound).
   139. Theme: The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Usually, _ is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction, the _ may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing.
   140. Thesis: the main idea of a piece of writing. It presents the author's assertion or claim. The effectiveness of a presentation is often based on how well the writer presents, develops, and supports this.
   141. Third Person Limited Omniscient: This type of point of view presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character, presenting only the actions of all remaining characters
   142. Third Person Omniscient: In ___, the narrator, with a godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all characters.
   143. Tone: the characteristic emotion or attitude of an author toward the characters, subject, and audience (anger, sarcastic, loving, didactic, emotional, etc.)
   144. Transition: a word or phrase that links one idea to the next and carries the reader from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph.
   145. Tricolon: Sentence consisting of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses.
   146. Understatement: the opposite of exaggeration. It is a technique for developing irony and/or humor where one writes or says less than intended.
   147. Unity: quality of a piece of writing (also see coherence)
   148. Verbal Irony: In this type of irony, the words literally state the opposite of the writer's true meaning
   149. Voice: refers to two different areas of writing. One refers to the relationship between a sentence's subject and verb (active and passive voice). The second refers to the total "sound" of a writer's style.
   150. Wit: In modern usage, intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. Usually uses terse language that makes a pointed statement.