ap english
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AP English. Terms 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. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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