AP Language and Composition Terms Flashcards

7099542756	Alliteration	The repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of consecutive words or syllables.	0
7099543135	Allusion	An indirect reference, often to another text or an historic event.	1
7099542982	Analogy	An extended comparison between two seemingly dissimilar things.	2
7099543372	Anaphora	The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.	3
7099544632	Anecdote	A short account of an interesting event.	4
7099544801	Annotation	Explanatory or critical notes added to a text.	5
7099545169	Antecedent	The noun to which a later pronoun refers.	6
7099546314	Antimetabole	The repetition of words in an inverted order to sharpen a contrast.	7
7215748688	Antithesis	Parallel structure that juxtaposes contrasting ideas.	8
7215749574	Aphorism	A short, astute statement of a general truth.	9
7215750123	Appositive	A word or phrase that renames a nearby noun or pronoun.	10
7215750837	Archaic diction	The use of words common to an earlier time period; antiquated language.	11
7215751670	Argument	A statement put forth and supported by evidence.	12
7215752414	Aristotelian triangle	A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience.	13
7215753622	Assertion	An emphatic statement; declaration. An assertion supported by evidence becomes an argument.	14
7215754428	Assumption	A belief or statement taken for granted without proof.	15
7215755702	Asyndeton	Leaving out conjunctions between words, phrases, clauses.	16
7215762740	Attitude	The speaker's position on a subject as revealed through his or her tone.	17
7215763923	Audience	One's listener or readership; those to whom a speech or piece of writing is addressed.	18
7215764791	Authority	A reliable, respected source—someone with knowledge.	19
7215765696	Bias	Prejudice or predisposition toward one side of a subject or issue.	20
7215791838	Cite	Identifying a part of a piece of writing as being derived from a source.	21
7215792484	Claim	An assertion, usually supported by evidence.	22
7215793064	Close reading	A careful reading that is attentive to organization, figurative language, sentence structure, vocabulary, and other literary and structural elements of a text.	23
7215794938	Colloquialism	An informal or conversational use of language.	24
7215795510	Common ground	Shared beliefs, values, or positions.	25
7215826655	Complex sentence	A sentence that includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.	26
7215827643	Concession	A reluctant acknowledgment or yielding.	27
7215828528	Connotation	That which is implied by a word, as opposed to the word's literal meaning (see denotation).	28
7215829254	Context	Words, events, or circumstances that help determine meaning.	29
7215829946	Coordination	Grammatical equivalence between parts of a sentence, often through a coordinating conjunction such as and, or but.	30
7215831045	Counterargument	A challenge to a position; an opposing argument.	31
7215831928	Cumulative sentence	An independent clause followed by subordinate clauses or phrases that supply additional detail.	32
7215832534	Declarative sentence	A sentence that makes a statement.	33
7215833121	Deduction	Reasoning from general to specific.	34
7215834602	Denotation	The literal meaning of a word; its dictionary definition.	35
7215835081	Diction	Word choice.	36
7215837526	Documentation	Bibliographic information about the sources used in a piece of writing.	37
7215838217	Elegiac	Mournful over what has passed or been lost; often used to describe tone.	38
7215838951	Epigram	A brief witty statement.	39
7215839732	Ethos	A Greek term referring to the character of a person; one of Aristotle's three rhetorical appeals.	40
7215844588	Figurative language	The use of tropes or figures of speech; going beyond literal meaning to achieve literary effect.	41
7215845593	Figure of speech	An expression that strives for literary effect rather than conveying a literal meaning.	42
7215846224	Hyperbole	Exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis.	43
7215847068	Imagery	Vivid use of language that evokes a reader's senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing).	44
7215847989	Imperative sentence	A sentence that requests or commands.	45
7215848935	Inductive	Reasoning from specific to general.	46
7215867359	Inversion	A sentence in which the verb precedes the subject.	47
7215869193	Irony	A contradiction between what is said and what is meant; incongruity between action and result.	48
7215869929	Juxtaposition	Placement of two things side by side for emphasis.	49
7215870078	Logos	A Greek term that means "word"; an appeal to logic; one of Aristotle's three rhetorical appeals.	50
7215871924	Metaphor	A figure of speech or trope through which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else, thus making an implicit comparison.	51
7215872989	Metonymy	Use of an aspect of something to represent the whole.	52
7215873614	Occasion	An aspect of context; the cause or reason for writing.	53
7215874280	Oxymoron	A figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms.	54
7215875137	Paradox	A statement that seems contradictory but is actually true.	55
7215876347	Parallelism	The repetition of similar grammatical or syntactical patterns.	56
7215877870	Parody	A piece that imitates and exaggerates the prominent features of another; used for comic effect or ridicule.	57
7215878557	Pathos	A Greek term that refers to suffering but has come to be associated with broader appeals to emotion; one of Aristotle's three rhetorical appeals.	58
7215879098	Persona	The speaker, voice, or character assumed by the author of a piece of writing.	59
7215880359	Personification	Assigning lifelike characteristics to inanimate objects.	60
7215880970	Polemic	An argument against an idea, usually regarding philosophy, politics, or religion.	61
7215881718	Polysyndeton	The deliberate use of a series of conjunctions.	62
7215882680	Premise	Major, minor. Two parts of a syllogism. The concluding sentence of a syllogism takes its predicate from the major premise and its subject from the minor premise.	63
7215884047	Major premise	All mammals are warm-blooded.	64
7215884964	Minor premise	All horses are mammals.	65
7215890192	Propaganda	A negative term for writing designed to sway opinion rather than present information.	66
7215891212	Purpose	One's intention or objective in a speech or piece of writing.	67
7215892152	Refute	To discredit an argument, particularly a counterargument.	68
7215893104	Rhetoric	The study of effective, persuasive language use; according to Aristotle, use of the "available means of persuasion."	69
7215893814	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.	70
7215894913	Rhetorical question	A question asked more to produce an effect than to summon an answer.	71
7215897120	Rhetorical triangle	A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see Aristotelian triangle).	72
7215898347	Satire	An ironic, sarcastic, or witty composition that claims to argue for something, but actually argues against it.	73
7215899129	Scheme	A pattern of words or sentence construction used for rhetorical effect.	74
7215899798	Sentence patterns	The arrangement of independent and dependent clauses into known sentence constructions—such as simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex.	75
7215901077	Sentence variety	Using a variety of sentence patterns to create a desired effect.	76
7215901667	Simile	A figure of speech that uses "like" or "as" to compare two things.	77
7215902535	Simple sentence	A statement containing a subject and predicate; an independent clause.	78
7215903449	Source	A book, article, person, or other resource consulted for information.	79
7215903946	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.	80
7215904818	Straw man	A logical fallacy that involves the creation of an easily refutable position; misrepresenting, then attacking an opponent's position.	81
7215906003	Style	The distinctive quality of speech or writing created by the selection and arrangement of words and figures of speech.	82
7215906632	Subject	In rhetoric, the topic addressed in a piece of writing.	83
7215907138	Subordinate clause	Created by a subordinating conjunction, a clause that modifies an independent clause.	84
7215908065	Subordination	The dependence of one syntactical element on another in a sentence.	85
7215909051	Syllogism	A form of deductive reasoning in which the conclusion is supported by a major and minor premise.	86
7215918788	Syntax	Sentence structure.	87
7215909956	Synthesize	Combining or bringing together two or more elements to produce something more complex.	88
7215910913	Thesis	The central idea in a work to which all parts of the work refer.	89
7215911925	Thesis statement	A statement of the central idea in a work, may be explicit or implicit.	90
7215912570	Tone	The speaker's attitude toward the subject or audience.	91
7215913525	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.	92
7215914389	Trope	Artful diction; the use of language in a nonliteral way; also called a figure of speech.	93
7215915324	Understatement	Lack of emphasis in a statement or point; restraint in language often used for ironic effect.	94
7215916092	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.	95
7215919828	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.	96