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Stack #4685598
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Alliteration | The repetition of the same sound at the beginning of the words in a sentence. It creates rhythm and emphasis. |
| Anaphora | The repetition of a phrase or word at the beginning of multiple sentences. |
| Anecdote | A personal story, often used in persuasive or discursive writing, to give insight into the composer and evoke pathos. |
| Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds in a sentence. It creates a soft resonance or “a bad rhyme” as it is put in My Fair Lady. |
| Atmosphere | The mood of a piece – it is described using words of feeling, and is created by other techniques including sensory imagery. |
| Characterisation | The qualities and actions of the characters in a text; how they are made to be fleshed out drivers of action. Created with a variety of techniques including internal dialogue and dialogue. |
| Collective pronouns | The use of “we”, “us”, to create a sense of unity between author and audience and/or represent a collective. |
| Connotations – Negative and positive | The associations with a word, what we think of outside of its literal definition. This can be employed for specific audiences, but also broken down into negative and positive connotations. |
| Contrast | Putting two things side by side to reinforce their differences |
| Cumulative listing | The use of three or more verbs, nouns or adjectives in a row – creates a list that emphasises or shows diversity |
| Derogatory | Language that is used to hurt and abuse. Usually phrases directed at a particular group or person intending to cause harm. |
| Dialogue | The exchange between two or more people spoken aloud, represented by quotation marks and dialogue tags |
| Diction | “Word choice”: this is created through a variety of techniques not limited to but including connotations, slang or jargon and tone |
| Direct address | Use of second person pronouns “you” to speak directly to the audience. Creates a sense of immediate connection which can be used to influence, especially in persuasive pieces. |
| Emotive language | Words that capture emotions – they are often used in connection to Pathos |
| Enjambment | A poetic technique, running a sentence over two lines so a break occurs mid sentence. It keeps the sentence running and breaks the rhythm of a regular clause. |
| Ethos | A rhetorical appeal, used in persuasive texts, that establishes the credibility or trustworthiness of the author. This creates a bond between composer and audience. |
| Flashback and Flashforward | A shift in time to the past, to provide more context to a character or situation, or create a nuanced form. A flashforward is a shift in time to the future, often used to create suspense for the audience by revealing part of the plot’s outcome. |
| Foreshadowing | When a text preempts what will happen through inferences, atmosphere and tone. Foreshadowing is often ambiguous and so creates feelings of suspense and investment in the reader to discover the plot’s details. |
| Hyperbole | Exaggeration! Emphasises the impact, or feeling of a situation by taking it beyond realty. Often created with metaphor |
| Internal dialogue | The thoughts inside a character’s head. It gives perspective and characterisation into the way in which they think and what they feel. Can be created with techniques including diction, slang and modality. |
| Jargon | Words specific to a profession, skillset or field of work. It creates specificity and can denote knowledge specific to characters and/or the target audience, it is similar to slang. |
| Juxtaposition | The same as contrast, placing two things side by side to emphasise their differences. |
| Logos | A rhetorical appeal, used in persuasive texts, that establishes the logic of an argument. It evokes trust in audiences and clarity of understanding. |
| Metaphor | Comparing two things saying one thing is another – similar effect to a simile but with greater abstraction. |
| Modality – high or low | The confidence of language used. High modality is very forward and strong, low modality is less certain |
| Motif | When a symbol is repeated throughout a text, reinforcing the ideas it represents and is exploring. |
| Natural imagery | Similar to sensory imagery; using the sense to describe the natural world. It evokes location, tone and can symbolise key ideas. |
| Onomatopoeia | Words that represent the sounds they are making – they build interest and quickly convey noise in the written form. |
| Oxymoron | When two words directly contradict each other to create a new meaning that doesn’t make complete logical sense |
| Pathos | A rhetorical appeal, as constructed by Aristotle, often used in persuasive texts, pathos evokes the emotion of the audience. Often created with emotive language, sensory imagery and/or symbolism. |
| Paradox | The connecting of two ideas that are inherently contradictory. It creates a cognitive dissonance to arrive at a new idea. |
| Personification | Giving an object or animal human qualities – the effect is to gather human empathy by making it more relatable. |
| Plosives | Explosive consonant sounds made by the rapid release of air – “p”, “b” “d” “k” “ch” “g” are all plosives. The effect is short and sharp. |
| Pun | A play on words where one word has a double meaning in the context of the sentence. Often used to create humour and layers of meaning. |
| Repetition | Repeating a word or phrase two or more times to provide emphasis. |
| Rhetorical question | Often used in persuasive pieces, a question asked of the audience without the expectation of an answer. Effect is to provoke thought without needing the form of a discussion. |
| Sensory Imagery – Auditory – Gustatory – Olfactory – Visual – Tactile | auditory imagery is hearing, gustatory imagery is taste, olfactory imagery is smell. Visual imagery is sight, and tactile imagery is touch. The effect of using these creates a better understanding of the world we are building or reading about. |
| Sibilance | Repetition of the ‘s’ consonant in a sentence. It creates a smooth sound as ‘s’ is a fricative sound (a slow release of air between the tongue and roof of the mouth) and so elongated. |
| Simile | Comparing two things using “like” or “as” – the effect links two images/ideas/things – mostly for descriptive effect. |
| Superlative | A description that takes something to its furthest extreme. |
| Symbolism | When an object, character, location, etc represents an abstract idea. The effect is to ground abstraction and convey it in something more concrete. |
| Tone | Similar to atmosphere, however it is also related to our relationship with the audience. Tone is often described as formal or informal/casual and is created by our choice of diction. |
| Truncated sentences | Short sentences. They can emphasise high emotion and/or create a rapid or broken rhythm on the page |
| Zoomorphism | Like personification but instead assigning animal attributes to a human, idea, or object. |