AP Language Rhetorical Strategies Flashcards

7867200590	Personification	The assigning of human qualities to inanimate objects or concepts. An example: Wordsworth's "the sea that bares her bosom to the moon."	0
7867200591	Oxymoron	From the Greek for "pointedly foolish," ___ is a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms. Simple examples include "jumbo shrimp" and "cruel kindness."	1
7867200592	Sarcasm	from the Greek meaning "to tear flesh," ___ involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. It may use irony as a device.	2
7867200593	Hyperbole	a figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement	3
7867200595	Theme	The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Usually, __ is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction, the __ may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing.	4
7867200596	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.	5
7867200597	Transition	a word or phrase that links one idea to the next and carries the reader from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph.	6
7867200598	Onomatopoeia	a figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. Simple examples include such words as buzz, hiss, hum.	7
7867200600	Metaphor	a direct comparison between dissimilar things. "Your eyes are stars" is an example.	8
7867200601	Symbol	generally, anything that represents, stands for, something else. Usually, a ___ is something concrete—such as an object, action, character, or scene—that represents something more abstract.	9
7867200602	Understatement	the opposite of exaggeration. It is a technique for developing irony and/or humor where one writes or says less than intended.	10
7867200603	Imagery	The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. On a physical level, __ uses terms related to the five senses; we refer to visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory. For example, a rose may present visual __ while also representing the color in a woman's cheeks.	11
7867200604	Euphemism	a more acceptable and usually more pleasant way of saying something that might be inappropriate or uncomfortable. "He went to his final reward" is a common __ for "he died." They are also used to obscure the reality of the situation.	12
7867200605	Irony	The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. The difference between what appears to be and what actually is true.	13
7867200606	Alliteration	The repetition of initial consonant sounds, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."	14
7867200607	Situational Irony	a type of irony in which events turn out the opposite of what was expected.	15
7867200608	Consonance	Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity.	16
7867200611	Verbal Irony	In this type of irony, the words literally state the opposite of the writer's true meaning	17
7867200612	Anecdote	A story or brief episode told by the writer or a character to illustrate a point.	18
7867200614	Denotation	the literal or dictionary meaning of a word	19
7867200615	Dramatic Irony	In this type of irony, facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or a piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work	20
7867200616	Connotation	the interpretive level or a word based on its associated images rather than its literal meaning.	21
7867200617	Repetition	The duplication, either exact or approximate, or any element of language, such as sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern.	22
7867200620	Voice	can refer to two different areas of writing. One refers to the relationship between a sentence's subject and verb (active and passive). The second refers to the total "sound" of the writer's style.	23
7867200622	Argument	A single assertion or a series of assertions presented and defended by the writer	24
7867200623	Allusion	A reference contained in a work	25
7867200625	Allegory	A work that functions on a symbolic level	26
7867200627	Parallelism	refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity.	27
7867200628	Analogy	a literary device employed to serve as a basis for comparison. It is assumed that what applies to the parallel situation also applies to the original circumstance. In other words, it is the comparison between two different items.	28
7867200634	Attitude	the relationship an author has toward his or her subject, and/or his or her audience	29
7867200637	Rhetoric	from the Greek for "orator," this term describes the principle governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively.	30
7867200639	Colloquial	the use of slang in writing, often to create local color and to provide an informal tone. Huckleberry Finn in written in a __ style.	31
7867200641	Style	an evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices.	32
7867200645	Tone	Similar to mood, __ describes the author's attitude toward his or her material, the audience, or both.	33
7867200649	Mood	This term has two distinct technical meanings in English writing. The first meaning is grammatical and deals with verbal units and a speaker's attitude (like, the subjunctive). The second meaning is literary, meaning the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work.	34