AP EnglishTerms to Know

allegory

extended metaphor

"This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and

grotesque gardens, where ashes take forms of houses and...of men..." (Fitzgerald 27).

allusion

reference to another text

"Have you read 'The rise of the Colored Empires' by this man Goddard?" (Fitzgerald 17).

anaphora

repetition of a group of words at the beginning of successive clauses.

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the

seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence…" (Winston Churchill)

Anastrophe

reversal of the usual order of words

Echoed the hills.

appositive

noun that follows another noun which defines or amplifies its meaning

Orion, my orange cat, is sitting on the couch.

apostrophe

The direct address of an absent person as if he/she/it is able to reply.

"O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Asyndeton

The omission of conjunctions between clauses

"This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who

meant to betray you completely."

Diction

Word choice (formal/informal,

concrete/abstract)

Using "issue" instead of "problem."

double entendre

double meanings of a group of words that the writer has purposely left ambiguous

Ex 1: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

(Shelley).Ex 2: "West Egg especially still figures into my

more fantastic dreams" (Fitzgerald 185).

enthymeme

Logical reasoning with one premise left unstated

We cannot trust this man, for he has perjured himself in the past. (Missing: Those who perjure

themselves cannot be trusted.)

Epistrophe

repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us" (Emerson).

epithet

word or phrase adding a characteristic to a person's name

Alexander the Great

erotema

asking a question to assert or deny something indirectly (not for an answer)

"How much longer must our people endure this injustice?"

Euphemism

indirect expression of unpleasant information in such way as to lesson its impact

"Passed way" for "died."

hyperbole

exaggeration for effect

"I told you a billion times not to exaggerate."

litotes

Understatement

"This is no ordinary city" rather than "this is an impressive city".

Personification

giving human characteristics to inanimate objects

The stars danced playfully in the sky.

polysyndeton

Repetition of conjunctions in close succession

"We have ships and men and money and stores."

polyptoton

Repetition of words derived from the same root

Repeating words like "strong," "skillful," and "strength."

protagonist

The main character; the figure who the reader is most concerned about and

sympathetic toward

Ex: Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.

pun

play on words

"I moss say I'm taking a lichen to that fungi."

rhetorical question

posed by the writer without the intention of receiving an answer

"Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?" (Shakespeare).

Soliloquy

Dialogue in which a character speaks aloud to himself or herself

"To be or not to be, that is the question…“ (Shakespeare).

style

The choices that writers or speakers make in language for effect

Part of John Steinbeck's style is to focus on the setting in novels like The Grapes of Wrath.

syllogism

Logical reasoning

All mortals die. All humans are mortal.

All humans die.

zeugma

one word, usually a noun or the main verb, governs two other words not related in meaning

He governs his will and his kingdom.

She bolted her stomach and the door.

Rhetoric

analyzing all the choices involving language that the writer/speaker/reader/listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and

effective; the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful,

and effective for readers or listeners in a situation

Diction, scheme, trope, argument, and syntax

periodic sentence sentence with

modifying elements included before the verb

Dependent independent

loose sentence

sentence that adds modifying elements after the subject

and verb

Independent dependent

mood

feeling that a text is intended to produce in the audience

In The Grapes of Wrath, the mood is mostly dark and gloomy.

subordinate clause

group of words that includes a subject and verb but that cannot stand on its own as a sentence (dependent clause)

After the dog slept

Ethos

Logos

Pathos

The appeal of a text to the credibility and character of the speaker, writer, or narrator.

The appeal of a text based on the logical structure of its argument

The appeal of a text to the emotions or interests of the audience