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Stylistic Devices
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sound at the beginning of words. E.g., she shouldn't shout. |
| Consonance | Repetition of consonant sounds in words close together. E.g., Puppets percolated beneath a portrait of the Prince of Wales. |
| Assonance | The repetition of the same vowel sound in words. E.g., in pain frail face of grace. |
| Onomatopoeia | The sound of the word mimics the sound to which it refers. E.g., buzz. |
| Dissonance | Refers to a disruption in the harmonic sounds or rhythm. It creates deliberately awkward or jarring sounds within a literary text. |
| Allusion | A reference to a famous of historic person, place or event within a literary text. |
| Anaphora | The repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of line or successive clauses. |
| Epistrophe | Repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of lines or successive clauses. |
| Repetition | The repetition of a word or phrase for emphasis or for effect. |
| Anticlimax | The arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses so that there is a deliberate lapse from ascending order of importance. |
| Antithesis | Involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. |
| Asyndeton | Deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series. E.g., He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac. |
| Polysyndeton | Deliberate use of too many conjunctions. E.g., I came, and I saw and I conquered. |
| Chiasmus | A rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures. E.g., Fair is foul and foul is fair. |
| Climax | The arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses in an ascending order of importance. E.g., I came, I saw, I conquered. |
| Dysphemism | A statement expressed in its harshest or most unpleasant manner. |
| Euphemism | A figure of speech in which the harsh or unpleasant fact is so state that its harshness or unpleasantness is concealed. |
| Ellison | The omission of a letter or syllable as a means of contraction; most such omissions are marked with an apostrophe. E.g., runnin’. |
| Hyperbole | A figure of speech in which extreme exaggeration is used. |
| Understatement | when the severity or harshness of something is diminished. |
| Euphony | A pleasing and harmonious combination of sounds--melodious. |
| Cacophony | A harsh discordant unpleasant combination of sounds. |
| Rhetorical Question | A question used more as a statement for greater emphasis; no formal answer is expected. |
| Hypophora | Is a figure of speech in which the speaker raises a question and then answers it. |
| Gustatory Imagery | Taste |
| Olfactory Imagery | Smell |
| Tactile Imagery | Touch |
| Kinesthetic Imagery | Motion or movement |
| Organic Imagery | Internal sensations |
| Synesthesia | The description of a sense impression but in terms of another seemingly inappropriate sense. E.g., a loud shirt. |
| Idiom | A word or group of words whose meaning is created from usage and not the definition of the words. E.g., Break a leg. |
| Inversion | Changing of normal word order or syntax. |
| Verbal Irony | Stating the opposite of what one really means. |
| Situational Irony | The contrast between what we think should happen and what actually does happen. |
| Dramatic Irony | A device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation reversed or fulfilled in a way that the character did not expect but that the audience or readers have anticipated because their knowledge of events or individuals is more complete than |
| Socratic Irony | When someone feigns ignorance in order to reveal the ignorance of someone else. |
| Juxtaposition | The fact of two things being seen or placed close together for comparison. |
| Litotes | Understatement in which an idea is conveyed by the use of its opposite with a negative. E.g., not bad. |
| Metaphor | A comparison not using “like” or “as.” |
| Simile | A comparison using “like,” “as,”or “than.” |
| Metonymy | A kind of metaphor. An object is given the name of something else with which it is associated. |
| Synecdoche | referring to something by referencing a part of it or by referencing something of which it is a part. (whole to part or part to whole). |
| Oxymoron | Joining two contradictory words or phrases—often-- although not exclusively side by side. E.g., A big little problem. |
| Paradox | A statement which at first seems to be self-contradictory, but which on closer inspection turns out to have a valid meaning. E.g., I spoke to everyone and to no one. |
| Pathetic Fallacy | Projecting the emotions of a character onto the environment. It is a form of personification that must connect to environment and then to character. |
| Personification | Giving human qualities to nonhuman things. |
| Apostrophe | To address a person who is not present or to address an object or concept as if it were a person. E.g., Oh Spring. |
| Prosopopoeia | Give speech or a voice to nonhuman things. |
| Pun | A play upon words, mostly for witty or humourous effect. (homonyms). |
| Symbol | Words or images that signify more than they literally represent. Symbols are linked to associated meanings—not just function. |
| Tautology | The redundant or pointless use of words, which effectually delivers the same meaning. Retelling the same thing by using different words and phrases. E.g., “In my opinion, I think that...” |
| Tmesis | Is an insertion of a word between the parts of a word. E.g., fan-bloody-tastic. |
| Zeugma | Term for the use of a single word to denote two or more words in a sentence and is fraught with literal and metaphorical undertones E.g., “She opened the door and her heart to the orphan.” |
| Metafiction | Literature that references itself. It can be created by addressing the reader directly (uses you or reader), or it can be created by mentioning a related action or term that connects to read/writing (sentence, symbol, foreshadow, writing. . .). |
| Metaplasmus | Intentional misspelling to create a dialect or meaning. |
| Logos | Persuasive appeals to logic. |
| Pathos | Persuasive appeals to emotion. |
| Ethos | Persuasive appeals to authority. |
| Kairos | Persuasive appeals presented at the most opportune time and place. |
| Charactonym | When the name of a character reveals elements of his or her characterization. |
| Foreshadow | Subtle hints given as to future events. |
Created by:
AlecHilchey
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