Language Techniques - Basic Flashcards
Types of Imagery and Meaning
Visual, Auditory (sound), Olfactory (smell), Gustatory (taste), Tactile (touch)
descriptive language that appeals to the senses and re-creates sensory experience.
Synesthesia
effect of multiple senses.
Simile
a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, resembles etc.
Types of Metaphors
simple metaphor: one thing is spoken of as though it were something else
mixed metaphor: the inconsistent mixture of two or more metaphors
dead metaphor: or a cliche, it is overused
extended metaphor: metaphor that is extended or developed over several lines of writing
Synecdoche
a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole
Antithesis
a figure of speech in which contrasting or opposite ideas are presented in parallel form.
Hyperbole
a deliberate exaggeration or overstatement.
Personification
a figure of speech in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics.
Apostrophe
a figure of speech in which the speaker directly and often emotionally addresses a person who is dead or otherwise not physically present, an imaginary person or entity, something inhuman, or a place or concept .
Types of Irony and Meaning
irony: a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality - between what is said and what is really meant, between what is expected to happen and what really does happen, or between what appears to be true and what is really true.
verbal: a writer or speaker says one thing but means another
situational: a contrast between what would seem appropriate and what really happens e.g. dying day after winning lottery
dramatic: a discrepancy between a character’s perception and what the reader or audience knows to be true
Rhetorical Question
any question asked for a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks.
Oxymoron
a figure of speech that fuses two contradictory or opposing ideas.
Allusion
a reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing that is known from literature, history, religion, myth, politics, sport, science or pop culture.
Symbol
anything that stands for or represents something larger and more complex.
Symbolism
the serious and relatively sustained use of symbols to represent or suggest other things or ideas.
Alliteration
the repetition of initial consonant sounds, or simply the repetition of sounds in words.
Assonance
the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.
Consonance
the repetition of consonant sounds in stresses syllables.
Repetition
the use, more than once, of any element of language - a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, a sentence, a grammatical pattern, or a rhythmical pattern.
Pun
a play on words, either using a word or a phrase that has two different meanings or two different words or phrases with the same sound.
Ellipsis
three periods used to show a pause in dialogue due to hesitancy, perhaps, or to show that words or sentences have been left out.
Anaphora
repetition or words, or phrases at the beginning of successive lines or sentences.
Paralellism
the use of grammatically similar constructions, often repetition, to accentuate ideas or images.
Onomatopoeia
the use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest their meanings.
