AP English Lang. Glossary Flashcards
Active Voice
The subject of the sentence performs the action.
Allusion
An indirect reference to something with which the reader is supposed to be familiar.
Alter-ego
When the author speaks directly to the audience through a character.
Anecdote
The brief recounting of a relevant episode.
Antecedent
The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun.
Classicism
Art or literature characterized by a realistic view of people and the world.
Comic relief
When a humorous scene is inserted into a serious story.
Diction
Word choice, as an element of style.
Colloquial
Ordinary or familiar type of conversation.
Connotation
Implied meaning rather than literal meaning.
Denotation
The literal meaning of a word.
Jargon
The diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity.
Vernacular
Language that could be from a particular country, regional clan or group; pain everyday speech.
Didactic
Describes fiction, nonfiction, or poetry that teaches a specific lesson or moral.
Adage
A folk saying with a lesson.
Allegory
A story (fiction or nonfiction) in which characters, things, and events represent qualities or concepts.
Aphorism
A terse statement which expresses a general truth or moral principle. Can be a memorable summation of the author’s point.
Ellipsis
The deliberate omission of a world or phrase from prose done for effect by the author.
Euphemism
A more agreeable or less offensive substitue for generally unpleasant words or concepts.
Figurative Language
Writing that is not meant to be taken literally.
Analogy
An analogy is a comparison of one pair of variables to a parallel set of variables.
Hyperbole
Exaggeration
Idiom
An expression that doesn’t make sense if taken literally.
Metaphor
Making an implied comparison, not using “like, “as” or other such words.
Metonymy
Replacing an actual word or idea with a related word or concept.
Synecdoche
A kind of metonymy when a whole is represented by naming one of its parts, or vice versa.
Simile
Using words such as “like” or “as” to make a direct comparison between two very different things.
Synesthesia
A description involving a “crossing of the senses.”
Personification
Giving human-like qualities to something that is not human.
Foreshadowing
When an author gives hints about what will occur later in a story.
Genre
The major category into which a literary work fits.
Gothic
Writing characterized by gloom, mystery, fear and/or death.
Imagery
Word or words that create a picture in the readers mind.
Invective
A long, emotionally violent, attack using strong, abusive language.
Irony
When the opposite of what you expect to happen does.
Verbal Irony
When you say something and mean the opposite/something different.
Dramatic Irony
When the audience knows something that the character doesn’t and would be surprised to find out.
Situational Irony
Found in the plot of a book, story, or movie. Sometimes it makes you laugh because it;s funny how things turn out.
Juxtaposition
Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison.
Mood
The atmosphere created by the literature and accomplished through diction.
Motif
A recurring idea in a piece of literature.
Oxymoron
When apparently contradictory terms are grouped together and suggest a paradox.
Pacing
The speed or tempo of an author’s writing.
Paradox
A seemingly contradictory situation a which is actually true.
Parallelism
Sentence construction which places equal grammatical constructions near each other, or repeats identical grammatical patterns.
Anaphora
Repetition of a word, phrases or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences or clauses in a row.
Chiasmus
When the same words are used twice in a succession, But the second time, the order of the words is reversed.
Antithesis
Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure.
Zuegma (syllepsis)
When a single word governs or modifies two or more other words, and the meaning of the first word must change for each of the other words it governs or modifies.
