Language Features Flashcards
Diction: Anachronism
The misplacing of any person, thing, custom or event outside of its proper historical time.
In Julius Caesar, Cassius announces “the clock hath stricken three.” During Caesar’s day, there would have been no mechanical clocks.
Diction: Antiphrasis
A single word is used in a sense directly opposite to its meaning.
For example, naming a giant ‘Tiny.’
Diction: Antonomasia
The replacing of a proper name with an epithet. For example, referring to Shakespeare as ‘The Bard.’
Diction: Apophasis
(a) Raising an issue by refusing to discuss it;
(b) Describing something by defining what it does not have.
(a) “We shall not discuss Tom’s secret plans.”
(b) “God lacks certainty, but rather is mysterious.”
Diction: Archaism
The use of a piece of language that is obsolete or has passed out of common use at the time of writing.
Examples will be dependent upon the writer’s context.
Diction: Autological Word
A word that expresses a property, which it also possesses.
“Short” is a short word. “Noun” is a noun.
Diction: Bombast
The use of extravagant and grandiloquent diction,
disproportionate to its subject.
“Our quivering lances… shall threat the gods more than Cyclopean wars.”
Diction: Catachresis
The misapplication of a word, or the extension of a word’s meaning in a surprising and illogical way.
E.g. Replacing “disinterested” with “uninterested.”
Diction: Colloquialism
The use of informal expressions appropriate to everyday speech, rather than to the formality of writing.
“When ‘Omer smote is bloomin’ lyre
He’d ‘eard men sing by land and sea.”
Diction: Litote
Something is affirmed indirectly by denying its opposite.
E.g. ‘No mean feat’
Diction: Malapropism
A confused, comically inaccurate use of a long word or words.
E.g. “The very pineapple of politeness” instead of “The pinnacle of politeness”
Diction: Meosis
Understatement or belittling. In which something is referred to in terms less important than what it deserves. Litotes are often used for a meiotic effect.
E.g. When Mercutio refers to his stab wound as a “scratch.”
Diction: Metonymy
The name of a thing is replaced with something closely associated with it.
E.g. ‘The bottle’ for an alcoholic drink; ‘skirt’ for woman.
Diction: Neologism
A word or phrase newly invented or newly introduced into language.
E.g. ‘Webinar’
Diction: Periphrasis/Euphemism
A roundabout way of referring to something by means of several words, instead of naming it directly.
E.g. ‘Passed away’ for died.
Diction: Synecdoche
Something is referred to by naming only a part of it, or a comprehensive entity of which it is part.
E.g. ‘Hands’ for manual labourers; ‘the law’ for a police officer.
Diction: Intensifier
An adjective or adverb that adds intensity to a noun or verb, adjective or adverb.
E.g. really, completely, absolutely, totally
Diction: Modifier
An adjective or adverb that modifies a noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
Diction: Oxymoron
A self-contradictory combination of words that achieve a singular meaning when combined together.
E.g. ‘Definitely maybe’, ‘pretty ugly’
Diction: Prepositional Phrase
A group of words that contain a preposition, its object and any other words it modifies.
E.g. ‘In the evening’
Diction: Comparative
An adjective that compares.
E.g. ‘Better’, ‘more intelligent’
Diction: Superlative
An adjective that implies a noun expresses the highest form of a quality.
E.g. ‘Best’, ‘most intelligent’
Diction: Coordinating Conjunction
Any of the words ‘for’, ‘and’, ‘nor’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘yet’ or ‘so’ that joins together two clauses.
Diction: Subordinating Conjunction
Any conjunction that is not a coordinating conjunction.
Diction: Determiner
A word placed before a noun that implies quantity.
An Article (a/an, the) A Demonstrative (this, that, these, those) A Possessive (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) A Quantifier (common examples include many, much, more, most, some)
Diction: Pejorative
A term with disparaging connotations.
Diction: Synaesthesia
The description of a sense experience using a different sense (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell)
E.g. If music be the food of love, play on.
Syntax: Anadiplosis
The repetition of a word or words in successive sentences – the last word of a sentence starts the beginning of the next.
“I beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.”
“When I give, I give myself.”
Syntax: Anaphora
The same word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive lines, clauses or sentences.
“Mine – by the Right of White Election!
Mine – by the Royal Seal!
Mine – by the Sign in the Scarlet Prison.”
Syntax: Antimetabole
A pair of words is repeated in reverse order.
“All for one, and one for all.”
Syntax: Chiasmus
A repetition in which the order of terms in the first two parallel clauses is repeated in the second.
“Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.”
Syntax: Epanlepsis
The initial word or a sentence or verse line repeats at the end.
“Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.”
Syntax: Epistrophe
The same word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive clauses.
“The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.”
Syntax: Epizeuxis
A word is repeated for emphasis, with no other words intervening.
“Sick! Sick! Sick!”
Syntax: Polyptoton
Partial repetition arises from the use in close proximity of two related words having different forms.
“Going, going, gone!”
Syntax: Polysyndeton
The repetition of repeated conjunctions to link clauses together.
“And soon it dipped lightly, and rose, and sank, and dipped again.”
Syntax: Anacoluthon
A change in construction of a sentence that leaves the initial construction unfinished.
“Either you go – but we’ll see.”
Syntax: Aposiopesis
A sentence in which the speaker suddenly breaks off in the middle, leaving the sense unfinished.
“Get out, or else-”
Syntax: Caesura
A rhythmical pause in a poetic line or sentence.
- Masculine caesura: occurs after an accented syllable;
- Feminine caesura: occurs after an unaccented syllable.
“Oh but, my friends – and ah, my foes-”
Syntax: Asyndeton
A form of verbal compression which consists of the omission of connecting word (usually conjunctions or pronouns).
“Veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Syntax: Inversion/Anastrophe
A reversal of the usually expected order of words
E.g. ‘The body electric’; ‘said she’; ‘sweetly blew the breeze’
Syntax: Solecism
A grammatical error that exposes the perpetrator’s ignorance.
“I a’int got no money” (both ‘a’int’ and ‘no money’ are grammatically incorrect here)
Syntax: Auxesis
Listing a series of things in ascending order of importance.
“O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state.”
Syntax: Paratactic
The juxtaposition of clauses or sentences, without the use of connecting words.
“I’ll go; you stay here.”
Diction: Antanaclasis
The repetition of a word, where it has distinct meanings in each usage.
Rhetoric: Irony
A statement that expresses the contrary sentiment to its intended meaning.
Rhetoric: Aphorism
A concise statement that is made in a matter of fact tone to state a principle or an opinion that is generally understood to be a universal truth. They are often adages, wise sayings and maxims aimed at imparting sense and wisdom. Upon seeing the shoddy work done by the employee the boss told him to “either shape up or ship out”.
