AP Language Glossary of Terms Flashcards
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| 4796204917 | allegory | The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. | 0 | |
| 4796204918 | alliteration | The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words. | 1 | |
| 4796204919 | allusion | A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known. | 2 | |
| 4796204920 | ambiguity | The multiple meanings of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage | 3 | |
| 4796204921 | anadiplosis | The repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause. | 4 | |
| 4796204922 | analogy | A similarity or comparison between two different things. | 5 | |
| 4796204923 | anaphora | One of the devices of repetition, in which the same expression is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences. | 6 | |
| 4796204924 | anecdote | A short narrative detailing particulars of an interesting episode or event. | 7 | |
| 4796204925 | antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. | 8 | |
| 4796204926 | antithesis | The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses. | 9 | |
| 4796204927 | aphorism | A terse statement that contains a general truth or moral principle. | 10 | |
| 4796204928 | apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person. | 11 | |
| 4796204929 | assonance | Identity or similarity between internal vowels and neighboring words. | 12 | |
| 4796204930 | atmosphere | The tone or mood of a literary work. | 13 | |
| 4796204931 | clause | A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. | 14 | |
| 4796204932 | colloquial/colloquialism | The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. | 15 | |
| 4796204933 | coherence | The principle demanding the arrangement of composition so that the meaning of the whole may be clear and intelligible. | 16 | |
| 4796204934 | conceit | A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly different objects. | 17 | |
| 4796204935 | connotation | The nonliteral, associative meaning of a word that may involve ideas, emotions, or attitude. | 18 | |
| 4796204936 | consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds, especially final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words. | 19 | |
| 4796204937 | denotation | The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color. | 20 | |
| 4796204938 | diction | Refers to the writer's word choice. | 21 | |
| 4796204939 | didactic | Teaching of moral or ethical principles (Greek word) | 22 | |
| 4796204940 | epistrophe/epiphora | The opposite of anaphora, repetition at the end of successive clauses. | 23 | |
| 4796204941 | ethos | A persuasive device by which the writer tries to sway the audience's attention to any given work by establishing credibility in the reader. | 24 | |
| 4796204942 | euphemism | A less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant word or concept. | 25 | |
| 4796204943 | exposition | In essays, one of the four chief types of composition whose purpose is to explain something. | 26 | |
| 4796204944 | extended metaphor | A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently throughout a work. | 27 | |
| 4796204945 | figurative language | Writing or speech that is meant to be imaginative and vivid, not literal. | 28 | |
| 4796204946 | figure of speech | A device used to produce figurative language. Includes apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, and understatement. | 29 | |
| 4796204947 | generic conventions | Describe traditions for each genre and help to classify writing into a particular genre. | 30 | |
| 4796204948 | genre | The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama but many subdivisions exist as genres themselves. | 31 | |
| 4796204949 | homily | This term literally means "sermon", but can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice. | 32 | |
| 4796204950 | hyperbole | A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. | 33 | |
| 4796204951 | imagery | The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstraction. | 34 | |
| 4796204952 | inference/infer | To draw a reasonable conclusion from given information. | 35 | |
| 4796204953 | invective | A verbal attack using strong, abusive language. | 36 | |
| 4796204954 | irony/ironic | The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. (1) Verbal irony: The words literally state the opposite of the writer's true meaning. (2) Situational irony: Events turn out the opposite of what was expected. (3) Dramatic irony: Facts or events are unknown to a character in a story or play, but known to the reader or audience. | 37 | |
| 4796204955 | juxtaposition | Placing dissimilar items, descriptions, or ideas close together or side by side, especially for comparison and contrast. | 38 | |
| 4796204956 | logos | A persuasive device by which the writer tries to sway the audience's attention to any given work by employing logical reasoning along with clear, well-thought out examples and details. | 39 | |
| 4796204957 | loose sentence | A type of sentence in which the main idea comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses. | 40 | |
| 4796204958 | metaphor | A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution for one another, suggesting some similarity. | 41 | |
| 4796204959 | metonymy | A figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. | 42 | |
| 4796204960 | mood | 1. Deals with verbal units and a speaker's attitude. (1) Indicative mood: used only for factual sentences. (2) Subjunctive mood: used to express condition contrary to fact. (3) Imperative mood: used for commands. 2. The prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work. | 43 | |
| 4796204961 | narrative | The telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events. | 44 | |
| 4796204962 | onomatopoeia | A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. | 45 | |
| 4796204963 | oxymoron | A figure of speech wherein the author groups contradictory terms to suggest a paradox. | 46 | |
| 4796204964 | paradox | A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth. | 47 | |
| 4796204965 | parallelism | Refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. | 48 | |
| 4796204966 | parody | A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. | 49 | |
| 4796204967 | pathos | A persuasive device in which the writer tries to sway the audience's attention to any given work by playing on the reader's emotions. | 50 | |
| 4796204968 | pedantic | An adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish. | 51 | |
| 4796204969 | periodic sentence | A sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end and is followed by a dependent clause. | 52 | |
| 4796204970 | 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. | 53 | |
| 4796204971 | point of view | The perspective from which a story is told. (1) 1st person narrator: tells the story with the first person pronoun, "I", and is a character in the story (protagonist or observer). (2) 3rd person narrative: tells the story with the third person pronouns, "he", "she", and "it". (Omniscient: presents the thoughts and actions of all characters. Limited omniscient: presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character. | 54 | |
| 4796204972 | predicate adjective | One type of subject complement - an adjective, group of adjectives, or adjective clause that describes the subject. | 55 | |
| 4796204973 | predicate nominative | A second type of subject complement - a noun, group of nouns, or noun clause that renames the subject. | 56 | |
| 4796204974 | prose | One of the major divisions of genre which refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms. | 57 | |
| 4796204975 | pun | A play on words, either on different senses of the same word or on the similar sense or sound of different words. | 58 | |
| 4796204976 | repetition | The duplication of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern. | 59 | |
| 4796204977 | rhetor | The speaker who uses elements of rhetoric effectively in oral or written test. | 60 | |
| 4796204978 | rhetoric | Describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively. (Greek: "orator") | 61 | |
| 4796204979 | rhetorical modes | Describes the variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing. The four most common: (1) Exposition: to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion. (2) Argumentation: to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader. Persuasion: a type of argumentation having an additional aim of urging some form of action. (3) Description: to re-create, invent, or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader can picture that being described. (4) Narration: to tell a story or narrate an event or series of events. | 62 | |
| 4796204980 | sarcasm | Bitter language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. (Greek: "tear to flesh") | 63 | |
| 4796204981 | satire | A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. | 64 | |
| 4796204982 | semantics | The branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another. | 65 | |
| 4796204983 | simile | A comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as. | 66 | |
| 4796204984 | 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 similar authors. | 67 | |
| 4796204985 | subject complement | The word or clause that follows a linking verb and complements the subject of the sentence by either renaming it or describing it. | 68 | |
| 4796204986 | subordinate clause | A clause that cannot stand alone. (dependent clause) | 69 | |
| 4796204987 | syllogism | A deductive system of formal logic that presents two statements, one "major" and one "minor", that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion. | 70 | |
| 4796204988 | symbol/symbolism | Anything that represents itself and stands for something else. (1) Natural symbols: objects and occurrences from nature to represent ideas commonly associated with them. (2) Conventional symbols: those that have been invested with meaning by a group. (3) Literary symbols: found in a variety of works and are generally recognized. | 71 | |
| 4796204989 | synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole of a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it. | 72 | |
| 4796204990 | syntax | The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. | 73 | |
| 4796204991 | theme | The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. | 74 | |
| 4796204992 | thesis | In expository writing, the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or position. | 75 | |
| 4796204993 | tone | Describes the author's attitude toward his material, the audience, or both. | 76 | |
| 4796204994 | transition | A word or phrase that links different things. | 77 | |
| 4796204995 | trope | A figure of speech involving a change of sense - a use of the word in a sense other than its proper or literal one. | 78 | |
| 4796204996 | understatement | A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. | 79 | |
| 4796204997 | undertone | An attitude that may lie under the apparent tone of the piece. | 80 | |
| 4796204998 | unreliable narrator | An untrustworthy or naive commentator on events and characters in a story. | 81 | |
| 4796204999 | wit | Intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. | 82 | |
| 4796205000 | zeugma | A word that governs two other words not related in meaning. | 83 |