Glossary Terms Flashcards
adjective
a describing word
e.g. red, evil
alliteration
effect created when words that are next to each or nearly next to each other begin with the same letter
e.g. terrible twins
bias
weighting a text in favour of one side of the argumetn
characterisation
how an author presents and develops their characters
clause
a group of words in a sentence which express a single idea
comedy
a Shakespearean play with a happy ending
complex sentence
a sentence with one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses
compound sentence
a sentence made up of 2 or more simple sentences linked by ‘and’, ‘but’ or ‘or’.
connective
a word or phrase which links clauses and sentences, to signal to the audience where the text is going
direct address
using the second person (‘you’) to hold the reader’s attention in a text
emotive language
words, phrases or ideas designed to make the audience understand why or how something is as it is
formal language
writing or speech that follows the strictest rules of Standard English
imagery
the use of language to create and image or a picture
informal language
language that doesn’t follow the rules of Standard English
metaphor
a type of imagery that describes something as something else
e.g. ‘you are an island’
motivation
why a character behaves as he or she does
person
a way of referring to pronouns and verbs according to whether they indicate the speaker/writer (1st person: ‘I’, ‘we’), the audience (2nd person: ‘you’) or someone else (3rd person: ‘s/he’, ‘it’, ‘they’)
personification
the type of imagery which refers to objects as if they were human
e.g. the sun punished them
phrase
a group of words that go together
e.g. the garden gate
plot
the story line
purpose
the aim of a text
rhetorical question
a question asked for effect, not for an answer
rhetorical technique
a technique used to persuade the audience
e.g. emotive language, sound effects, repetition, rhetorical questions
romance
a Shakespearean play that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy
simile
a type of imagery which compares something with something else, making the comparison clear by using a phrase such as ‘like’; or ‘as if’
e.g. she swam like a fish
tone
a measure of the quality, mood or style of a piece of writing
theme
the underlying ideas or issues that a story or play deals with
tragedy
a Shakespearean play with an unhappy ending
verb
a word that refers to an action or a state of being
e.g. ‘runs’ or ‘feels’
