Midterm English 2 Honors Flashcards
Alliteration:
The repetition of similar consonant sounds within a phrase or sentence
Allusion:
A reference to a well-known person, event, place, literary work, or work of art
Anaphora:
repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines
Antithesis
two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect
Example: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Asyndeton:
the absence of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses or words.
Example: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Purpose – helps in reducing the indirect meaning of the phrase and presents it in a concise form; typically used to give a list energy and spontaneity.
Catharsis
:The purging of pity and fear (the ultimate goal of a tragedy).
Conduplicatio
repetition of a key word over successive phrases or clauses
Example: “We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future.” (Robert F. Kennedy’s Eulogy for Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968)
Purpose - Serves as an effective focusing device showing the reader what to concentrate on
epiphany:
A moment of sudden revelation or insight
foreshadowing:
Giving clues to the reader about what will happen next.
Hubris:
excessive pride or arrogance
Imagery:
Language that creates a sensory impression within the reader’s mind (includes appeals to the visual (eyes), auditory (ears), tactile (touch), thermal (heat or cold), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and kinesthetic
Inference:
an educated guess made by the reader, based on evidence in the story
Irony:
When the opposite of what is expected occurs
situational irony: when the opposite of what is expected in a situation occurs (such as a teacher’s kid getting detention)
verbal irony: when someone says the opposite of what they mean
dramatic irony: when the audience knows what will happen next but the characters do not
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which something is described as though it were something else without using “like” or “as.”
motif:
Any element, subject, idea or concept that is consistently present through the entire body of literature
Paralipsis
pretending to omit something
Example: “I will not even mention the fact that my opponent was a poor student.”
Purpose – Saying that one will not mention the person, subject, event, etc. has the opposite effect; it draws the audience’s attention in that direction.
parenthesis:
a piece of punctuation ()
paradox:
a statement that appears at first to be contradictory, but upon reflection then makes sense.
parallel structure/parallelism
Similarity in structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.
Example: “They are protesting for the perpetuation of injustice in the community; we’re protesting for the birth of justice. . . .”
Note: It is the repetition of grammatical structures, not words (as in anaphora or conduplicatio).
polysyndeton
repetition of conjunctions such as “and”, “or”, “for” and “but” in close succession, especially when most of them could be replaced with a comma.
Example: “In years gone by, there were in every community men and women who spoke the language of duty and morality and loyalty and obligation” (William F. Buckley).
Purpose – using conjunctions to emphasize rhythm and therefore emphasize a certain point
Repetition
The act of using words or phrases several times for effect.
Symbol/symbolic:
the use of one object, character, or idea to represent something larger than itself
Synecdoche
figure of speech in which the part of something is used to represent the whole
Purpose – Writers give otherwise common ideas and objects deeper meanings and thus draw readers’ attention and helps writers be more concise.
Example: “Soldiers were equipped with steel” is more concise than saying, “The soldiers were equipped with swords, knives, daggers, arrows, etc.”
Tone:
the author’s attitude towards a subject
Also, be able to identify tone shifts
Understatement
intentionally make a situation seem less important than it really is.
