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Lit AP terminology
All the words.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Ad Hominem Argument | (Latin - "to the man") An argument attacking the opposing speaker/another person instead of addressing the issues at hand. |
| Allegory | Fictional work in which the characters represent ideas or concepts |
| Alliteration | Repetition of consonant sounds, usually at beginning of words |
| Allusion | Passing reference to a familiar person, place or thing drawn from history or known works |
| Ambiguity | Uncertain or indefinite; subject to more than one interpretation |
| Analogy | Form of comparison explaining something unfamiliar by comparing it to something familiar |
| Antecedent | The noun/pronoun from which another pronoun derives its meaning |
| Antithesis | Opposition or contrast of ideas within the same sentence (often in balanced phrases or clauses) |
| Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which an absent person or personified object is addressed by a speaker |
| Apotheosis | The deification of a character or thing |
| Appositive | Word or phrase following a noun or pronoun for emphasis or clarity; renames the noun/pronoun. |
| Assonance | Type of internal rhyming where vowel sounds are repeated. |
| Cause and Effect Analysis (type of exposition) | Explains the reasons for an occurrence or the consequences of an action. |
| Attitude | Feelings of a particular speaker or piece of writing towards a subject, person or idea. |
| Audience | Intended readership for a piece of writing. |
| Bathos | False or forced emotion that is often humorous (often from exaggeration) |
| Abstract | General; cannot be directly perceived by the senses |
| Classification (type of exposition) | Arrangement of people, places and things into categories according to their differing characteristics |
| Cliché | Expression that has become ineffective through overuse. |
| Deduction | Process of reasoning from a stated premise to a necessary conclusion, moving from the general to the specific. |
| Colloquial expressions/colloquialism | Characteristic of/appropriate to spoken language, used by writing seeking that language's effect; informal. |
| Comparison and Contrast (type of exposition) | Pointing out similarities and differences between 2 or more subjects in the same class/category; function is to clarify and reach some conclusion about the subjects. |
| Concrete | Specific; can be directly perceived by the senses |
| Connotation | Implied or suggested meaning of a word |
| Denotation | Dictionary meaning of a word/the literal meaning |
| Definition (type of exposition) | Statement of the meaning of a word; can be brief or extended. |
| Description (type of prose) | Tells how a person, place or thing is perceived by the senses. |
| Diction | Author's choice of words; contributes to the tone of the text. |
| Division (type of exposition) | Breaking down a single large unit into smaller subunits or breaking down a large group into distinctive categories |
| Elegiac | Expressing sorrow; mourning the loss of something |
| Ethos | Characteristic spirit/ideal that informs a work. |
| Euphemism | Mild or pleasant sounding expression substituting for a harsh, indelicate or less pleasant idea. |
| Exemplification (type of exposition) | Use of examples to support a generalization and make it more vivd, understandable and persuasive. |
| Exposition (type of prose) | Prose meant to clarify, explain and inform. |
| Simile | Implicit comparison introduced by "like" or "as" |
| Metaphor | Implied comparison using one thing as the equivalent of another |
| Personification | Special kind of simile or metaphor in which human traits are assigned to an inanimate object |
| Figurative language | Umbrella term for all uses of language implying an imaginative comparison |
| Hyperbole | Figure of speech in which exaggeration is used to achieve emphasis |
| Idiom | Word or phrase used habitually with a particular meaning in a language that might not make sense out of that culture |
| Induction | Reasoning to a conclusion about all members of a class through examination of only a few members of the class |
| Juxtaposition | Placement of 2 contrasting things next to each other for comparison |
| Logical fallacies | Error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid |
| Oversimplification | Tendency to provide simple solutions to complex problems |
| Non sequitur | An inference or conclusion that does not follow from established premises or evidence |
| Pos hoc, ergo propter hoc | Confusing chance or coincidence with causation. (One event following another does not mean cause/effect.) |
| Begging the question | Assuming in a premise which needs to be proven |
| False analogy | Making a misleading analogy between logically unconnected ideas |
| Either/or thinking | The tendency to see an issue as having only 2 sides |
| Logos | Use of reason as a controlling principle in an argument |
| Metonymy | Figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it |
| Narration (type of prose) | The conveying of a story or "telling what happened." |
| Onomatopoeia | Effect created by words that have sounds which reinforce their meaning. |
| Parallelism | Literary technique relying on the use of the same syntactical structures in a series in order to develop an argument or emphasize an idea. |
| Parody | Effort to ridicule or make fun of a literary work or author by writing an imitation of the work or the author's style. |
| Pathos | Sympathetic feeling of pity or compassion evoked by an artistic work |
| Person (grammatical term) | The relationship of a writer or speaker to an audience based on the pronouns |
| Persona | The character created by the voice and narration of the speaker of a text |
| Process Analysis (type of exposition) | Explains how something works or gives step-by-step directions for doing something |
| Rhetoric | The art and logic of a written or spoken argument |
| Stylistic devices | Specific language tools that an author uses to carry out a rhetorical strategy and thus achieve a purpose for writing |
| Rhetorical Strategy | The way an author organizes words, sentences and overall argument in order to achieve a particular purpose |
| Selection of Detail | Specific words, incidents, images or events the author uses to create a scene or narrative |
| Slanting | The use of certain words or information that results in a biased view point |
| Speaker | Narrator of a story, poem or drama; a fictional persona |
| Style (components) | The individual manner in which a writer expresses his or her ideas; particular selection of words, construction of sentences and arrangement of ideas |
| Syllogism | An argument using deductive reasoning and consisting of a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion (Ex. major premise: All four-sided figures are quadrilaterals minor premise: a square has four sides conclusion: a square is a quadrilateral) |
| Syntax | The way words are arranged in a sentence |
| Technical language/jargon | Special vocabulary of a trade/profession |
| Texture | The way the elements of a work, prose or poetry are joined together |
| Unity | When all words, sentences and paragraphs contribute to an essay's thesis |
| Zeugma | A particular breech of sense in a sentence occurring when a word is used with 2 adjacent words in the same construction but only makes literal sense with 1 of them. |
| Asyndeton | Conjunctions normally connecting a string of words, phrases or clauses are omitted from a sentence |
Created by:
grotle_grovyle
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