AP Language and Composition Glossary of Literary and Rhetorical Terms

1958412	Abstract Language	Lauguage descirbing ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people or places.
1958413	Active voice	The subject of the sentence performs the action.
1958414	Allusion	An indirect reference to something with which the reader is supposed to be familiar.
1958415	Ambiguity	An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way.
1958416	Analogy	A comparison to a directly parallel case.
1958417	Anecdote	A brief recounting of a relevant episode.
1958418	Annotation	Explanatory notes added to a text to explain, clarify, or prompt futher thought.
1958419	Antecedent	The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun.
1958420	Apostrophe	A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. The effect may add familiarity or emotional intensity.
1958421	Attitude of the author/tone	A writer's attitude toward his subject matter revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.
1958422	Classicism	Art or literature characterized by a realistic view of people and the world; sticks to traditional themes and structures.
1958423	Concrete Language	Language that describes specific, observable things, peoples or places, rather than ideas or qualities.
1958424	Diction	Word choice, particularly as an element of style.
1958425	Colloquial	Ordinary or familiar type of conversation.
1958426	Connotation	Implied meaning rather than literal meaning.
1958427	Denotation	the literal, explicit meaning of a word, without its connotations.
1958428	Jargon	The diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity.
1958429	Vernacular	Language or dialect of a particular country, language or dialect of a regional clan or group, plain everyday speech.
1958430	Didactic	A term used to describe fiction, nonfiction or poety that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.
1958431	Adage	A folk saying with a lesson
1958432	Allegory	A story, fictional or non fictional, in which characters, things, and events represent qualities or concepts.
1958433	Aphorism	A terse statement which expresses a general truth or moral principle.
1958434	Homily	This term literally means "sermon," but more informally, it can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice.
1958435	Ellipsis	The deliberate omission of a word or phrase from prose done for effect by the author.
1958436	Epigram	A short poem with a clever twist at the end, or a concise and witty statement.
1958437	Epigraph	A quotation or aphorism at the beginnning of a literary work suggestive of theme.
1958438	Euphemism	A more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts.
1958439	Explication	The act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text.
1958440	Figurative Language	The opposite of "literal language"; writing that is not meant to be taken literally
1958441	Hyperbole	Exaggeration
1958442	Idiom	A common, often used expression that doesn't make sense if you take it literally.
1958443	Metaphor	Making an implied comparsion, not using "like," "as," or other such words.
1958444	Simile	Using words such as "like" or "as" to make a direct comparison between two very different things.
1958445	Genre	The major category into which a literary work fits.
1958446	Gothic	Writing characterized by gloom, mystery, fear and/or death.
1958447	Imagery	Word or words that create a picture in the reader's mind.
1958448	Invective	An emotionall violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language.
1958449	Irony	When the opposite of what you expect to happen does.
1958450	Verbal irony	When you say something and mean the opposite/something different.
1958451	Dramatic irony	When the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn't and would be surprised to find out.
1958452	Situational irony	Found in the plot of a book, story, or movie.
1958453	Juxtaposition	Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison.
1958454	Mood	The atmosphere created by the literature and accomplished through word choice.
1958455	Objectivity	An author's stance that distances himself from personal involvement.
1958456	Oxymoron	When apparently contradictory terms are grouped together and suggest a paradox.
1958457	Paradox	A seemingly contradictory statement which is actually true.
1958458	Parallelism/parallel structure	Sentence construction which places equal grammatical construction near each other, or repeats identical grammatical patterns.
1958459	Anaphora	Repetition or a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row.
1958460	Antithesis	Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure.
1958461	Parenthetical idea	An idea that is set off from the rest of the sentence.
1958462	Parody	An exaggerated imitation of a serious work for humorous purposes.
1958463	Passive voice	The subject of the sentence receives the action.
1958464	Pedantic	Observing strict adherence to formal rules or literal meaning at the expense of a wider view.
1958465	Persona	The fictional mask or narrator that tells a story.
1958466	Rhetoric	The art of effective communication.
1958467	Rhetorical question	A question not asked for information but for effect.
1958468	Romanticism	Art or literature characterized by an idealistic, perhaps unrealistic view of people and the world, and an emphasis on nature.
1958469	Sarcasm	A generally bitter comment that is ironically worded.
1958470	Satire	A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of life to a humorous effect.
1958471	Sentence	A group of words (including subject and verb) that expresses a complete thought.
1958472	Appositive	A word or group or words placed beside a noun or noun substitute to supplement its meaning.
1958473	Clause	A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb.
1958474	Simple sentence	Contains one independent clause.
1958475	Compound sentence	Contains at least two independent clauses but no dependent clauses.
1958476	Complex sentence	Contains only one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
1958477	Compound-complex sentence	contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.
1958478	Balanced sentence	One in which two parallel elements are set off against each other like equal weights on a scale.
1958479	Loose sentence	A complex sentence in which the main clause comes first and the subordinate clause follows.
1958480	Periodic sentence	When the main idea is not completed until the end of the sentence.
1958481	Declarative sentence	States an idea
1958482	Imperative sentence	Issues a command.
1958483	Interrogative sentence	Sentences incorporating interrogative pronouns.
1958484	Style	The choices in diction, tone, and syntax that a writer makes.
1958485	Symbol	Anything that represents or stands for somthing else.
1958486	Syntax/sentence variety	Grammatical arrangement of words.
1958487	Theme	The central idea or message of a work.
1958488	Thesis	The sentence or groups of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition.
1958489	Transition	Smooth movement from one paragraph (or idea) to another.
1958490	Understatement	the ironice minimizing of fact, presents something as less significant than it is.
1958491	Litotes	A particular form of understatement, generated by denying the opposite of the statement which otherwise would be used.