AP Language and Composition Terms Flashcards
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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 |