AP Language and Composition Rhetoric Terms Flashcards

4576403656	Alliteration	The repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of consecutive words or syllables.	0
4576416344	Allusion	An indirect reference, often to another text or an historic event.	1
4576416345	Analogy	An extended comparison between two seemingly dissimilar things.	2
4576417290	Anaphora	The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.	3
4576417917	Anecdote	A short account of an interesting event.	4
4576419514	Annotation	Explanatory or critical notes added to a text.	5
4576420086	Antecedent	The noun to which a later pronoun refers.	6
4576420725	Antimetabole	The repetition of words in an inverted order to sharpen a contrast.	7
4576451000	Antithesis	Parallel structure that juxtaposes contrasting ideas.	8
4576452732	Aphorism	A short, astute statement of a general truth.	9
4576456225	Appositive	A word or phrase that renames a nearby noun or pronoun.	10
4576459660	Archaic diction	The use of words common to an earlier time period; antiquated language.	11
4576461553	Argument	A statement put forth and supported by evidence.	12
4576466779	Aristotelian triangle	A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see rhetorical triangle).	13
4576469598	Assertion	An emphatic statement; declaration. An assertion supported by evidence becomes an argument.	14
4576475899	Assumption	A belief or statement taken for granted without proof.	15
4576478007	Asyndeton	Leaving out conjunctions between words, phrases, clauses.	16
4576479933	Attitude	The speaker's position on a subject as revealed through his or her tone.	17
4576481372	Audience	One's listener or readership; those to whom a speech or piece of writing is addressed.	18
4576483112	Authority	A reliable, respected source — someone with knowledge.	19
4576448230	Bias	Prejudice or predisposition toward one side of a subject or issue.	20
4576542253	Cite	Identifying a part of a piece of writing as being derived from a source.	21
4576548409	Claim	An assertion, usually supported by evidence.	22
4576550120	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
4576553938	Colloquial/ism	An informal or conversational use of language.	24
4576556294	Common ground	Shared beliefs, values, or positions.	25
4576561561	Complex sentence	A sentence that includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.	26
4576564432	Concession	A reluctant acknowledgment or yielding.	27
4576566111	Connotation	That which is implied by a word, as opposed to the word's literal meaning (see denotation).	28
4576568545	Context	Words, events, or circumstances that help determine meaning.	29
4576572445	Coordination	Grammatical equivalence between parts of a sentence, often through a coordinating conjunction such as and, or but.	30
4576574637	Counterargument	A challenge to a position; an opposing argument.	31
4576576221	Credible	Worthy of belief; trustworthy.	32
4576578953	Cumulative sentence	An independent clause followed by subordinate clauses or phrases that supply additional detail.	33
4576581864	Declarative sentence	A sentence that makes a statement.	34
4576584098	Deduction	Reasoning from general to specific.	35
4576586978	Denotation	The literal meaning of a word; its dictionary definition.	36
4576590510	Dialectical journal	A double-column journal in which one writes a quotation in one column and reflections on that quotation in the other column.	37
4576593893	Diction	Word choice.	38
4576597256	Documentation	Bibliographic information about the sources used in a piece of writing.	39
4576598930	Elegiac	Mournful over what has passed or been lost; often used to describe tone.	40
4576600415	Epigram	A brief witty statement.	41
4576603495	Ethos	A Greek term referring to the character of a person; one of Aristotle's three rhetorical appeals (see logos and pathos).	42
4576607285	Explication of text	Explanation of a text's meaning through an analysis of all of its constituent parts, including the literary devices used; also called close reading.	43
4576609367	Facts	Information that is true or demonstrable.	44
4576624728	Figurative language	The use of tropes or figures of speech; going beyond literal meaning to achieve literary effect.	45
4576628212	Figure of speech	An expression that strives for literary effect rather than conveying a literal meaning.	46
4576637747	Fragment	A word, phrase, or clause that does not form a full sentence.	47
4576639258	Hortatory	Urging, or strongly encouraging.	48
4576642159	Hyperbole	Exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis.	49
4576918234	Imagery	Vivid use of language that evokes a reader's senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing).	50
4576644053	Imperative sentence	A sentence that requests or commands.	51
4576651693	Induction	Reasoning from specific to general.	52
4576653577	Inversion	A sentence in which the verb precedes the subject.	53
4576653578	Irony	A contradiction between what is said and what is meant; incongruity between action and result.	54
4576656170	Juxtaposition	Placement of two things side by side for emphasis.	55
4576660510	logos	A Greek term that means "word"; an appeal to logic; one of Aristotle's three rhetorical appeals (see ethos and pathos).	56
4576666440	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.	57
4576668708	Metonymy	Use of an aspect of something to represent the whole.	58
4576678978	Modifier	A word, phrase, or clause that qualifies or describes another word, phrase, or clause.	59
4576681437	Narration	Retelling an event or series of events.	60
4576684560	Nominalization	Turning a verb or adjective into a noun.	61
4576920984	Occasion	An aspect of context; the cause or reason for writing.	62
4576687509	Omniscient narrator	An all-knowing, usually third-person narrator.	63
4576689550	Oxymoron	A figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms.	64
4576690448	Pacing	The relative speed or slowness with which a story is told or an idea is presented.	65
4576692690	Paradox	A statement that seems contradictory but is actually true.	66
4576694120	Parallelism	The repetition of similar grammatical or syntactical patterns.	67
4576697047	Parody	A piece that imitates and exaggerates the prominent features of another; used for comic effect or ridicule.	68
4576696079	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 (see ethos and logos).	69
4576699299	Periodic sentence	A sentence that builds toward and ends with the main clause.	70
4576703867	Persona	The speaker, voice, or character assumed by the author of a piece of writing.	71
4576705319	Personification	Assigning lifelike characteristics to inanimate objects.	72
4576707009	Polemic	An argument against an idea, usually regarding philosophy, politics or religion.	73
4576715367	Polysyndeton	The deliberate use of a series of conjunctions.	74
4576717994	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. - Major premise: All mammals are warm-blooded. - Minor premise: All horses are mammals. - Conclusion: All horses are warm-blooded (see syllogism).	75
4576733903	Pronoun	A word used to replace a noun or noun phrase.	76
4576734624	Propaganda	A negative term for writing designed to sway opinion rather than present information.	77
4576741166	Purpose	One's intention or objective in a speech or piece of writing.	78
4576742415	Refute	To discredit an argument, particularly a counterargument.	79
4576745634	Rhetoric	The study of effective, persuasive language use; according to Aristotle, use of the "available means of persuasion."	80
4576752276	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.	81
4576755626	Rhetorical question	A question asked more to produce an effect than to summon an answer.	82
4576758070	Rhetorical triangle	A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see Aristotelian triangle).	83
4576761191	Satire	An ironic, sarcastic, or witty composition that claims to argue for something, but actually argues against it.	84
4576762379	Scheme	A pattern of words or sentence construction used for rhetorical effect.	85
4576764764	Sentence patterns	The arrangement of independent and dependent clauses into known sentence constructions — such as simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex.	86
4576767128	Sentence variety	Using a variety of sentence patterns to create a desired effect.	87
4576768971	Simile	A figure of speech that uses "like" or "as" to compare two things.	88
4576770379	Simple sentence	A statement containing a subject and predicate; an independent clause.	89
4576780067	Source	A book, article, person, or other resource consulted for information.	90
4576782825	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.	91
4576785224	Straw man	A logical fallacy that involves the creation of an easily refutable position; misrepresenting, then attacking an opponent's position.	92
4576787228	Style	The distinctive quality of speech or writing created by the selection and arrangement of words and figures of speech.	93
4576807667	Subject	In rhetoric, the topic addressed in a piece of writing.	94
4576809611	Subordinate clause	Created by a subordinating conjunction, a clause that modifies an independent clause.	95
4576812855	Subordination	The dependence of one syntactical element on another in a sentence.	96
4576814120	Syllogism	A form of deductive reasoning in which the conclusion is supported by a major and minor premise (see premise; major, and minor).	97
4576856521	Syntax	Sentence structure.	98
4576858664	Synthesize	Combining or bringing together two or more elements to produce something more complex.	99
4576860072	Thesis	The central idea in a work to which all parts of the work refer.	100
4576861679	Thesis statement	A statement of the central idea in a work, may be explicit or implicit.	101
4576863531	Tone	The speaker's attitude toward the subject or audience.	102
4576864738	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.	103
4576867339	Trope	Artful diction; the use of language in a nonliteral way; also called a figure of speech.	104
4576869580	Understatement	Lack of emphasis in a statement or point; restraint in language often used for ironic effect.	105
4576872528	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.	106
4576876354	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.	107