Language Terms/ Techniques Flashcards
Verb
A doing or being word
Adverb
a word or phrase that modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb
Adjective
a word naming an attribute of a noun
Common noun
a noun denoting a class of objects or a concept as opposed to a particular individual.
Proper noun
Name of an individual
Collective noun
A noun referring to a group of individuals
Abstract noun
A word referring to an idea or concept, not something physical
Pronoun
a word that can function as a noun phrase used by itself and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g. I, you ) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g. she, it, this ).
Concrete noun
Concrete nouns are things that you can experience through your five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch
Personal pronoun
each of the pronouns in English ( I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, and them ) comprising a set that shows contrasts of person, gender, number, and case.
Phrase
a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause.
Clause
a unit of grammatical organization next below the sentence in rank and in traditional grammar said to consist of a subject and predicate.
Alliteration
The repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of a group of words
Onomatopoeia
A word that is associated with the sound it makes
E.g. Bang
Personification
When you give something not human, human qualities
Pathetic Fallacy
the attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, usually the weather!
Foreboding
implying that something bad is going to happen
Dramatic Irony
When the audience know something the character(s) don’t
Foreshadowing
A warning or indication of a future event
Modal verbs
Verb that expresses necessity
Fronted adverbial
‘Fronted’ adverbials are ‘fronted’ because they have been moved to the front of the sentence, before the verb.
Agent noun
An agent noun defines who or what is carrying out the action of a verb. It is usually spelt with the suffix -er.
E.g. driver
Cliché
A cliché is a phrase used over and over, to the point that it betrays a lack of original thought.
Empathize
To understand and share someone else’s feelings
Motif
a pattern or recurring idea in an artistic
work.
Symbolism
the use of symbols to represent
ideas or qualities.
Slang
Informal words used mostly in speech within a particular social group
Jargon
Specialist language. When someone is talking in a way not understood by others.
Colloquialism
General informal language. Understood by all.
Narrative Structure
A narrative or story is a report of connected event
Descriptive Writing
Describing a scene or person without moving everywhere. Wether that is physically or metaphorically
