A list of basic fundamental terms for Advanced Placement English Language and Composition.
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| A reference that recalls another work, another time in history, another famous person, and so forth | ||
| Prayer-like, this is a direct address to someone who is not present, to a deity or muse, or to some other power | ||
| An exaggeration, fairly common in nonfiction prose arguments, that bolsters an argument. | ||
| Any time one of the five senses is evoked by what you have read. | ||
| A figure of speech in which what is unknown is compared to something that is known in order to better gauge its importance. | ||
| Two words that together create a sense of opposition. | ||
| A major figure of speech in rhetorical analysis that seeks to create a mental discontinuity, which then forces the reader to pause and seek clarity. | ||
| Giving human attributes to non-human things. | ||
| A play on words. | ||
| A fundamental form of rhetorical stress that calls the reader's attention to a particular word, phrase, or image for emphasis of meaning. | ||
| A crucial figure of speech in an argument when what is unknown is compared to something that is known using the word "like," "as," or "than" in order to better perceive its importance. | ||
| The study of the rules of grammar that define the formation of sentences. | ||
| The opposite of passive voice, the active voice is essentially any sentence with an active verb. | ||
| This is an attack on the person rather than the issues at hand—a common fallacy, especially during an election year. | ||
| The repetition of a phonetic sounds at the beginning of several words in a sentence. | ||
| A repetition technique; the last word of the clause begins the next clause, creating a connection of ideas important to the author's purpose in some way. | ||
| A term that signifies a relational comparison of or similarity between two objects or ideas. | ||
| In rhetoric, this is the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive poetic lines, prose sentences, clauses, or paragraphs. | ||
| The reversal of the natural order of words in a sentence or line of poetry. | ||
| An observation or claim that is in opposition to your claim or an author's claim. | ||
| A brief statement of an opinion or elemental truth. | ||
| Also called a noun phrase, this modifies the noun next to it. | ||
| An argument stating that something is true because it has never been proven false. | ||
| The deliberate omission of conjunctions from a series of related independent clauses. | ||
| Also called vox populi. This argument is the "everyone's doing it" fallacy. Highly used in politics. | ||
| This argument occurs when the speaker states a claim that includes a word or phrase that needs to be defined before the argument can proceed. | ||
| Another fallacy, this is also known by another name, post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "after this, therefore because of this"). Such an argument falls under the general umbrella of a causality fallacy or false cause. | ||
| This is an ABBA syntactical structure rather than the more common parallel ABAB structure. One example: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. | ||
| A sentence structure that is a combination of a dependent clause and an independent clause. Ex: If you walk to the top of the tower, you will find a sacred sardine can. | ||
| A sentence structure made up of two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction. Ex: Don't open the door or a deadly smell will kill you. | ||
| A combination of a compound and a complex sentence. Ex: Because the swamp is near your back door, you might expect the Creature from the Black Lagoon to put in an appearance and tear apart Uncle Al's fishin' shack if it is in his way. | ||
| The associations or moods that accompany a word. | ||
| This is a basic statement or an assertion and is the most common type of sentence. "Alternate forms of energy must be found by people who are not capitalists desiring only power and money." | ||
| A form of logical argumentation that uses claims or premises. The assumption by the author is that you will accept the claims as true and that you will then deduce the correct conclusion from the accepted premises at the outset. | ||
| This is the opposite of connotation and is quite literally the dictionary meaning of a word. | ||
| This clause contains a noun and a verb but is set up with a subordinate conjunction, which makes the clause an incomplete thought. "Because the magician's rabbit refused to come out of the hat..." | ||
| A regional speech pattern; the way people talk in different parts of the world. |
