Saturday, January 4, 2020
AP English Language and Composition Exam Key Terms
On this page, youll find brief definitions of grammatical, literary, and rhetorical terms that have appeared on the multiple-choice and essay portions of the AP* English Language and Composition exam. For examples and more detailed explanations of the terms, follow the links to expanded articles. *AP is a registered trademark of the College Board, which neither sponsors nor endorses this glossary. Ad Hominem: An argument based on the failings of an adversary rather than on the merits of the case; a logical fallacy that involves a personal attack.Adjective: The part of speech (or word class) that modifies a noun or a pronoun.Adverb: The part of speech (or word class) that modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb.Allegory: Extending a metaphor so that objects, persons, and actions in a text are equated with meanings that lie outside the text.Alliteration: The repetition of an initial consonant sound.Allusion: A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or eventâ€â€real or fictional.Ambiguity: The presence of two or more possible meanings in any passage.Analogy: Reasoning or arguing from parallel cases.Anaphora: The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.Antecedent: The noun or noun phrase referred to by a pronoun.Antithesis: The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phr ases.Aphorism: (1) A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion. (2) A brief statement of a principle.Apostrophe: A rhetorical term for breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing.Appeal to Authority: A fallacy in which a speaker or writer seeks to persuade not by giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution.Appeal to Ignorance: A fallacy that uses an opponents inability to disprove a conclusion as proof of the conclusions correctness.Argument: A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood.Assonance: The identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.Asyndeton: The omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses (opposite of polysyndeton).Character: An individual (usually a person) in a narrative (usually a work of fiction or creative nonfiction).Chiasmus: A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.Circular Argument: An argument that commits the logical fallacy of assuming what it is attempting to prove.Claim: An arguable statement, which may be a claim of fact, value, or policy.Clause: A group of words that contains a subject and a predicate.Climax: Mounting by degrees through words or sentences of increasing weight and in parallel construction with an emphasis on the high point or culmination of a series of events.Colloquial: Characteristic of writing that seeks the effect of informal spoken language as distinct from formal or literary English.Comparison: A rhetorical strategy in which a writer examines similarities and/or differences between two people, places, ideas, or objects.Complement: A word or word group that completes the predicate in a sentence.Concession: An argumentative strategy by which a speaker or writer acknowledges the validity of an opponents point.Confirmation: The main part of a te xt in which logical arguments in support of a position are elaborated.Conjunction: The part of speech (or word class) that serves to connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.Connotation: The emotional implications and associations that a word may carry.Coordination: The grammatical connection of two or more ideas to give them equal emphasis and importance. Contrast with subordination.Deduction: A method of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated premises.Denotation: The direct or dictionary meaning of a word, in contrast to its figurative or associated meanings.Dialect: A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, and/or vocabulary.Diction: (1) The choice and use of words in speech or writing. (2) A way of speaking usually assessed in terms of prevailing standards of pronunciation and elocution.Didactic: Intended or inclined to teach or instruct, often excessively.Encomium: A tribut e or eulogy in prose or verse glorifying people, objects, ideas, or events.Epiphora: The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses. (Also known as epistrophe.)Epitaph: (1) A short inscription in prose or verse on a tombstone or monument. (2) A statement or speech commemorating someone who has died: a funeral oration.Ethos: A persuasive appeal based on the projected character of the speaker or narrator.Eulogy: A formal expression of praise for someone who has recently died.Euphemism: The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.Exposition: A statement or type of composition intended to give information about (or an explanation of) an issue, subject, method, or idea.Extended Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.Fallacy: An error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.False Dilemma: A fallacy of oversimplif ication that offers a limited number of options (usually two) when, in fact, more options are available.Figurative Language: Language in which figures of speech (such as metaphors, similes, and hyperbole) freely occur.Figures of Speech: The various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance.Flashback: A shift in a narrative to an earlier event that interrupts the normal chronological development of a story.Genre: A category of artistic composition, as in film or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content.Hasty Generalization: A fallacy in which a conclusion is not logically justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence.Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement.Imagery: Vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses.Induction: A method of reasoning by which a rhetor collects a number of instances and forms a generalizat ion that is meant to apply to all instances.Invective: Denunciatory or abusive language; discourse that casts blame on somebody or something.Irony: The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is directly contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.Isocolon: A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.Jargon: The specialized language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders.Litotes: A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.Loose Sentence: A sentence structure in which a main clause is followed by subordinate phrases and clauses. Contrast with periodic sentence.Metaphor: A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.Metonymy: A figur e of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (such as crown for royalty).Mode of Discourse: The way in which information is presented in a text. The four traditional modes are narration, description, exposition, and argument.Mood: (1) The quality of a verb that conveys the writers attitude toward a subject. (2) The emotion evoked by a text.Narrative: A rhetorical strategy that recounts a sequence of events, usually in chronological order.Noun: The part of speech (or word class) that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action.Onomatopoeia: The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.Paradox: A statement that appears to contradict itself.Parallelism: The similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. Parody: A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.Pathos: The means of persuasion that appeals to the audiences emotions.Periodic Sentence: A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended syntax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic climax.Personification: A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.Point of View: The perspective from which a speaker or writer tells a story or presents information.Predicate: One of the two main parts of a sentence or clause, modifying the subject and including the verb, objects, or phrases governed by the verb.Pronoun: A word (a part of speech or word class) that takes the place of a noun.Prose: Ordinary writing (both fiction and nonfiction) as distinguished from verse.Refutation: The part of an argument wherein a speaker o r writer anticipates and counters opposing points of view.Repetition: An instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage--dwelling on a point.Rhetoric: The study and practice of effective communication.Rhetorical Question: A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected.Running Style: Sentence style that appears to follow the mind as it worries a problem through, mimicking the rambling, associative syntax of conversationâ€â€the opposite of periodic sentence style.Sarcasm: A mocking, often ironic or satirical remark.Satire: A text or performance that uses irony, derision, or wit to expose or attack human vice, foolishness, or stupidity.Simile: A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or asStyle: Narrowly interpreted as those figures that ornament speech or writing; broadly, as representing a manifestation of the person speaking or wri ting.Subject: The part of a sentence or clause that indicates what it is about.Syllogism: A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.Subordination: Words, phrases, and clauses that make one element of a sentence dependent on (or subordinate to) another. Contrast with coordination.Symbol: A person, place, action, or thing that (by association, resemblance, or convention) represents something other than itself.Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole or the whole for a part.Syntax: (1) The study of the rules that govern the way words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. (2) The arrangement of words in a sentence.Thesis: The main idea of an essay or report, often written as a single declarative sentence.Tone: A writers attitude toward the subject and audience. Tone is primarily conveyed through diction, point of view, syntax, and level of formality.Tr ansition: The connection between two parts of a piece of writing, contributing to coherence.Understatement: A figure of speech in which a writer deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.Verb: The part of speech (or word class) that describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state of being.Voice: (1) The quality of a verb that indicates whether its subject acts (active voice) or is acted upon (passive voice). (2) The distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or narrator.Zeugma: The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words, although its use may be grammatically or logically correct with only one.
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