Literary Devices Flashcards
Anecdotes
means a short verbal accounting of a funny, amusing, interesting event in someone’s life. It helps build up the reader’s emotions.
Examples of anecdotes will be found in speech or Op-Ed.
Simile
A comparison that uses like or as.
Ex: “She is beautiful as a Sunday morning”
Hyperbole
Exaggeration of something.
Ex: “He’s got the intelligence of 20 IB teachers”
Antithesis
When the writer employs two sentences of contrasting meanings in close proximity to one another. Whether they are words or phrases of the same sentence, an antithesis is used to create a stark contrast using two divergent elements that come together to create one uniform whole.
Amplification
adding things to a sentence to increase its worth and understandability. For example when someone is trying to prove a point like in a speech.
The thesis paper was difficult → The thesis paper was difficult: it required extensive research, data collection, sample surveys, interviews and a lot of fieldwork.
Euphemism
Using a comparatively milder or less abrasive form of a negative description instead of its original, unsympathetic form. Used when writing about matters such as sex, violence, death, crimes and things “embarrassing”.
Analogy
helps establish a relationship based on some concepts and ideas.
In the same way one cannot have the rainbow without the rain, one cannot achieve success and riches without hard work.
Allusion
reference to something else
Carefully now, you don’t want to go opening a Pandora’s box
Allegory
has a deeper meaning with the use of metaphors, such as political message { a story within a story}
The surface story might be about two neighbors throwing rocks at each other’s homes, but the hidden story would be about war between countries.
Anadiplosis
repetition of last word in a sentence, clause or phrase at the very near, the beginning of a sentence.
Antimetabole
he repetition of a word or phrase in one phrase but its inverse:
“East and West don’t distrust each other because they are armed, we’re armed because we mistrust each other.”
Alliteration
the repetition of sound at the beginning of several words such as tribe, strife and style
“The wicked witch of the west went her own way.”
Anaphora
The repetition of words such as it takes, it takes…
Bandwagon effect
The bandwagon effect is a propaganda technique that suggest that one should do something because everyone else is doing it
Hypothera
Answer a rhetorical question
