AP Language and Composition Terms Flashcards
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6550899539 | Ad hominem | 1. Appealing to prejudice and emotion rather than to reason. 2. Attacking the character, motives, etc. of an opponent rather than debating the issue on logical grounds. | 0 | |
6550902315 | Allegory | 1. A story in which people, things, and happenings have a hidden or symbolic meaning. 2. The presenting of ideas by means of such stories. 3. Any symbol or emblem. | 1 | |
6550918410 | Alliteration | The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words. | 2 | |
6550924618 | Allusion | A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work or art. | 3 | |
6550929192 | Ambiguity | The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage. | 4 | |
6550934783 | Analogy | A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them. | 5 | |
6550940272 | Antecedent | The word, phrase or clause referred to by a pronoun. | 6 | |
6550946859 | Antithesis | An opposition or contrast of ideas that is often expressed in balanced phrases or clauses. | 7 | |
6550948348 | Aphorism | A terse statement of known authorship, which expresses a general truth or moral principle (If the authorship is unknown, the statement is generally considered to be a folk proverb). | 8 | |
6550955399 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. | 9 | |
6550961185 | Apotheosis | Occurs in literature when a character or a thing is elevated to such a high status that it appears godlike. | 10 | |
6550964834 | Appositive | A word or phrase that follows a noun or pronoun for emphasis or clarity. | 11 | |
6550970724 | Assonance | A type of internal rhyming in which vowel sounds are repeated. | 12 | |
6550972989 | Asyndeton | Occurs when the conjunctions (such as and or but) that would normally connect a string of words, phrases, or clauses are omitted from a sentence. | 13 | |
6550975689 | Atmosphere | The emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described. | 14 | |
6550978564 | Attitude | The feeling of a particular speaker or a piece of writing toward a subject, person, or idea. | 15 | |
6564422610 | Bathos | False or forced emotion that is often humorous. | 16 | |
6564423771 | Clause | A grammatical unit that contains a subject and a verb. | 17 | |
6564423958 | Connotation | The non-literal, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning. | 18 | |
6564424652 | Contrast | Writers often use these oppositions to elaborate ideas. | 19 | |
6564425375 | Denotation | The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude or color. | 20 | |
6564426396 | Diction | Related to style, it refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness. | 21 | |
6564426603 | Didactic | These words have the primary aim of teaching or instructing, especially the teaching of moral or ethical principles. | 22 | |
6564428159 | Elegiac | Work (of music, literature, dance, or art) that expresses sorrow. | 23 | |
6564428489 | Ethos | Characteristic spirit or ideal that informs a work. | 24 | |
6564429145 | Euphemism | A more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts. | 25 | |
6564430257 | Extended Metaphor | A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work. | 26 | |
6564430474 | Exposition | Refers to writing or speech that is organized to explain. | 27 | |
6564431042 | Fiction | Works of these can be based on actual occurrences, but their status as this means that something has been imagined or invented in the telling of the occurrence. | 28 | |
6564432293 | Figurative language | Writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and is usually meant to be imaginative and vivid. | 29 | |
6564434086 | Figure of speech | A device used to produce figurative language. | 30 | |
6564434516 | Foreshadowing | A purposeful hint placed in a work of literature to suggest what may occur later in the narrative. | 31 | |
6564435503 | Genre | The major category into which a literary work fits. | 32 | |
6564435643 | Grammar | A set of rules that specify how a given language is used effectively. | 33 | |
6564435952 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. | 34 | |
6564436270 | Imagery | The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. | 35 | |
6564436625 | Irony/ironic | The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. | 36 | |
6564437294 | Verbal irony | In this irony, the words literally state the opposite of the writer's (or speaker's) true meaning. | 37 | |
6564437604 | Situational irony | In this irony, events turn out the opposite of what was expected. | 38 | |
6564437943 | Dramatic irony | In this irony, facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work. | 39 | |
6564438811 | Juxtaposition | When two contrasting things—ideas, words, or sentence elements—are placed next to each other for comparison, this occurs. | 40 | |
6564439439 | Logos | Refers to the use of reason as a controlling principle in an argument. | 41 | |
6564439644 | Metaphor | A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity. | 42 | |
6564440010 | Metonymy | A figure of speech, which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. | 43 | |
6564440552 | Mood | 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. | 44 | |
6564442449 | Onomatopoeia | A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. | 45 | |
6564442635 | Overview | A brief summary of a whole work. | 46 | |
6564442894 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest paradox. | 47 | |
6564443437 | Pacing | A speed of a story's action, dialogue, or narration. | 48 | |
6564443646 | 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. | 49 | |
6564444209 | Parallelism | It refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. | 50 | |
6564444408 | Parody | A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. | 51 | |
6564445254 | Pathos | A sympathetic feeling of pity or compassion evoked by an artistic work. | 52 | |
6564445930 | Person | A grammatical term that describes the relationship of a writer or speaker to an audience by examining the pronouns that are used. | 53 | |
6564446083 | Persona | Character created by the voice and narration of the speaker of a text. | 54 | |
6564446719 | Personification | A figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions. | 55 | |
6564447180 | Point of View | In literature, the perspective from which a story is told. | 56 | |
6564448063 | First-person narrator | A point of view in which tells the story with the pronoun, "I," and is a character in the story. | 57 | |
6564450193 | Third-person omnipotent | In this point of view the narrator, with godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts or actions of any or all characters. | 58 | |
6564451085 | Third-person limited | This point of view presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character, presenting only the actions of all remaining characters. | 59 | |
6564452285 | Pun | A play on words | 60 | |
6564452731 | Repetition | The duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern. | 61 | |
6564453050 | Rhetoric | This term describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively. | 62 | |
6564453736 | Rhetorical, or stylistic, devices | The specific language tools that an author uses to carry out a strategy, and thus achieve a purpose for writing. | 63 | |
6564454484 | Rhetoric modes | The variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing. | 64 | |
6564460093 | Exposition | The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion. | 65 | |
6564461197 | Argumentation | The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to prove the validity of and idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader. | 66 | |
6564461577 | 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. | 67 | |
6564463237 | Narration | The purpose of this rhetorical mode is to tell a story or narrate an event or series of events. | 68 | |
6564464239 | Rhetorical question | A question that is asked merely for effect and does not expect a reply. | 69 | |
6564465324 | Rhetorical strategy | A strategy is a plan of action or movement to achieve a goal. | 70 | |
6564465325 | Satire | A work that targets human vices and follies, or social institutions and conventions, for reform or ridicule. | 71 | |
6564465852 | Selection of detail | The specific words, incidents, images, or events the author uses to create a scene or narrative. | 72 | |
6564466744 | Similie | An explicit comparison, normally using like, as, or if. | 73 | |
6564467025 | Speaker | The narrator of the story, poem, or drama. | 74 | |
6564467255 | Style | 1. An evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices. 2. Classification of authors to a group and comparison of an author to similar authors. | 75 | |
6564468073 | Strategy | A plan of action, or movement to achieve a goal. | 76 | |
6564468542 | Syllogism | A deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises-the first one called "major" and the second "minor"- that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion. | 77 | |
6564469801 | Symbol/symbolism | Generally, anything that represents or stands for something else. | 78 | |
6564471770 | Natural symbols | These symbols use objects and occurrences from nature to represent ideas commonly associated with them (dawn symbolizing hope or a new beginning, a rose symbolizing love, a tree symbolizing knowledge). | 79 | |
6564472459 | Conventional symbols | These symbols are those that have been invested with meaning by a group (religious symbols, such as a cross or Star of David; national symbols, such as a flag or an eagle; or group symbols, such as skull and crossbones for pirates or the scales of justice for lawyers). | 80 | |
6564473251 | Literary symbols | These symbols are sometimes conventional in the sense that they are found in a variety of works and are generally recognized. However, a work's symbols may be more complicated as is the whale in Moby Dick and the jungle in Heart of Darkness. | 81 | |
6564474444 | Synonym | A word that has the same, or nearly the same meaning as another word. | 82 | |
6564474734 | Syntax | The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. | 83 | |
6564475016 | Tension | A feeling of excitement and expectation the reader or the audience feels because of conflict, mood, or atmosphere. | 84 | |
6564475830 | Texture | Describes the way the elements of a work of prose or poetry are joined together. | 85 | |
6564476240 | Theme | The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. | 86 | |
6564476580 | Thesis | 1. A proposition maintained or defended in argument. 2. An unproved statement assumed as a premise. | 87 | |
6564477218 | Tone | Similar to mood, describes the author's attitude toward his or her material, the audience, or both. | 88 | |
6564477881 | Understatement | The ironic minimalizing of fact, it presents something as less significant than it is. | 89 | |
6564478470 | Voice | How the speaker of literary work presents him or herself to the reader. | 90 | |
6564478884 | Zeugma | A particular breech of sense in a sentence. | 91 |