Syntax Flashcards
Audience
The person or persons who listen to a spoken text or read a written one and are capable of responding to it.
Ex: The audience of Michael Chabon’s lecture at the Mondavi Center was composed of many Oak Ridge students
Chiasmus
Inverted relationship between two elements in two parallel phrases. A rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form.
Ex 1: Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
Ex 2: “To stop too fearful and too faint to go.”
Claim
The ultimate conclusion, generalization, or point that a syllogism or enthymeme expresses. The point, backed up by support, of an argument.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck’s claim was that the poor are wrongly mistreated.
Climax
The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing number or importance.
Ex: “He risked truth, he risked honor, he risked fame, he risked all that men hold dear,—yea, he risked life itself…”
Climbing the Ladder
A term referring to the scheme of climax.
Isocolon
Parallel elements that are similar in structure and in length. Isocolon is a figure of speech in which a sentence is composed by two or more parts (cola) perfectly equivalent in structure, length and rhythm: it is called bicolon, tricolon, or tetracolon depending on whether they are two, three, or four. A figure of speech or sentence having a parallel structure formed by the use of two or more clauses, or cola, of similar length.
Ex 1: “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Ex 2: “… to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the scrupulous …”
Mnemonic Device
A systematic aid to memory. Any learning technique that aids information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the brain can retain better than its original form.
Ex 1: “Roy G. Biv” for the most common colors.
Ex 2: PEMDAS for math order of operations.
Onomatopoeia
A literary device in which the sound of a word is related to its meaning. The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.
Ex 1: Words like “bang,” and “click”.
Ex 2: Sizzle
Revising
Returning to a draft to rethink, reread, and rework ideas and sentences.
Ex: I am currently revising my research paper.
Scene
In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent material, the words the speaker or writer uses to describe where and when something happened or happens in a particular situation. Scene, which is associated with the setting of an act and answers the questions “when?” and “where?”, is related to materialism and minimal or non-existent free will.
Ex: “My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations” (Fitzgerald 2).
Simple Sentence
A sentence with one independent clause and no dependent clause.
Ex: The dog ran.
Situation
The convergence in a situation of exigency (the need to write), audience, and purpose.
Ex: Before drafting my research paper, I had to analyze my purpose and how much background information to provide for my audience.
