English 8 Master Terms (definition first) Flashcards
A conclusion or opinion that draws on known facts, evidence, or intuition to fill in missing information.
Inference
A figure of speech that gives life or human characteristics to non-human objects or ideas.
Personification
A person represented in a story.
Character
A figure of speech or other indirect comparison of two things that are dissimilar, using the words like or as (or other words of comparison).
Simile
A figure of speech in which two things that are basically unlike but have some qualities in common are compared using a direct comparison.
Metaphor
A literary technique that involves surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions.
Irony
A group of words that has its own subject and verb but may or may not express a complete thought or be a complete sentence.
Clause
A piece of writing which takes a stance on an issue, supports a claim with evidence and logic, and stands against the opposing side with logical reasons.
Argumentative
An explicit or implicit reference, in a work of literature, to a person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage.
Allusion
An inference that if two or more things are alike in some respects, they will probably agree in others.
Analogy
An intentional exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect.
Hyperbole
Describe or portray (something) precisely.
Delineate
Events forming the outcome of the climax of a play or story.
Resolution
Expresses the writer’s attitude toward his or her subject
Tone
Language that deviates from a standard significance or sequence of words in order to achieve a special meaning or effect (e.g. similes and metaphors).
Figurative Language
Relating to, or inserted as a parenthesis.
Parenthetical
The action or fact of forming a united whole. When the elements of a piece of writing “go together.”
Cohesion
The eight classes into which words are grouped according to their uses in a sentence: adjective, adverb, conjunction, interjection, noun, preposition, pronoun, and verb.
Parts of Speech
The emotional association(s) suggested by the primary meaning of a word, which affects its interpretations; things suggested by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes.
Connotation
The general idea or insight about life that a work of literature reveals. This may be stated or implied.
Theme
The objective meaning of a word independent of other associations the word calls to mind.
Denotation
The person or group for whom a selection is written or performed.
Audience
The perspective or perspectives established by an author through which the reader is presented with the characters, actions, setting, and events that constitute the narrative in a work of fiction.
Point of View
The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
Plagiarism
The repetition in words of identical or similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds.
Assonance
The repetition of speech sounds, usually applied only to consonants, at the beginning of a word or of a stressed syllable within a word.
Alliteration
The structure of the actions in a dramatic narrative or work, ordered and rendered toward achieving particular emotional and artistic effects.
Plot
The term used to describe words whose pronunciations suggest their meaning (e.g. meow, buzz).
Onomatopoeia
The time and place in which a narrative takes place; the physical and psychological background against which the action of a story takes place; the scenery and stage effects for a dramatic production.
Setting
The voice of a verb whose subject performs the action.
Active Voice
The voice of a verb whose subject receives an action.
Passive Voice
To be believed, trusted, or found to be reliable.
Credible
To examine and appraise characteristics or qualities in order to discover differences.
Contrast
To examine and appraise characteristics or qualities in order to discover similarities
Compare
To quote (a passage, book, or author) as evidence for or justification of an argument or statement, especially in a scholarly work.
Cite
To state or assert that something is the case.
Claim
Vocabulary relating to a particular subject, art, or craft, or its techniques.
Technical Vocabulary
A category used to classify literary works, usually by form, technique, or content.
Genre
