Terminology Flashcards
An indirect reference, often to another text or an historic event.
Allusion
The repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of consecutive words or syllables.
Alliteration
An extended comparison between two seemingly dissimilar things.
Analogy
The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
Anaphora
A short account of an interesting event.
Anecdote
Explanatory or critical notes added to a text.
Annotation
The noun to which a later pronoun refers.
Antecedent
The repetition of words in an inverted order to sharpen a contrast.
Antimetabole
Parallel structure that juxtaposes contrasting ideas.
Antithesis
A short, astute statement of a general truth.
Aphorism
A word or phrase that renames a nearby noun or pronoun.
Appositive
The use of words common to an earlier time period; antiquated language.
Archaic dictation
A statement put forth and supported by evidence.
Argument
A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see rhetorical triangle).
Aristotelian triangle
An emphatic statement; declaration. An assertion supported by evidence becomes an argument.
Assertion
A belief or statement taken for granted without proof.
Assumption
Leaving out conjunctions between words, phrases, clauses.
Asyndeton
The speaker’s position on a subject as revealed through his or her tone.
Attitude
One’s listener or readership; those to whom a speech or piece of writing
is addressed.
Audience
A reliable, respected source—someone with knowledge.
Authority
Prejudice or predisposition toward one side of a subject or issue.
Bias
Identifying a part of a piece of writing as being derived from a source.
Cite
An assertion, usually supported by evidence.
Claim
A careful reading that is attentive to organization, figurative language, sentence structure, vocabulary, and other literary and structural elements
of a text.
Close reading
An informal or conversational use of language.
Colloquialism
Shared beliefs, values, or positions.
Common ground
A sentence that includes one independent clause and at least
one dependent clause.
Complex sentence
A reluctant acknowledgment or yielding.
Concession
That which is implied by a word, as opposed to the word’s literal meaning (see denotation).
Connotation
Words, events, or circumstances that help determine meaning.
Context
Grammatical equivalence between parts of a sentence, often
through a coordinating conjunction such as and, or but.
Coordination
A challenge to a position; an opposing argument.
Counterargument
An independent clause followed by subordinate clauses or phrases that supply additional detail.
Cumulative sentence
A sentence that makes a statement.
Declarative sentence
Reasoning from general to specific
Deduction
The literal meaning of a word; its dictionary definition.
Denotation
Word choice.
Diction
Bibliographic information about the sources used in a piece of writing.
Documentation
Mournful over what has passed or been lost; often used to describe tone.
Elegiac
A brief witty statement.
Epigram
A Greek term referring to the character of a person; one of Aristotle’s
three rhetorical appeals (see logos and pathos).
Ethos
The use of tropes or figures of speech; going beyond literal meaning to achieve literary effect.
Figurative language
The use of tropes or figures of speech; going beyond literal meaning to achieve literary effect.
Figure of speech
Exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis.
Hyperbole
Vivid use of language that evokes a reader’s senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing).
Imagery
A sentence that requests or commands.
Imperative sentence
Reasoning from specific to general.
Induction
A sentence in which the verb precedes the subject.
Inversion
A contradiction between what is said and what is meant; incongruity between action and result.
Irony
Placement of two things side by side for emphasis.
Juxtaposition
A Greek term that means “word”; an appeal to logic; one of Aristotle’s
three rhetorical appeals (see ethos and pathos) .
Logos
A figure of speech or trope through which one thing is spoken of as
though it were something else, thus making an implicit comparison.
Metaphor
Use of an aspect of something to represent the whole.
Metonymy
An aspect of context; the cause or reason for writing.
Occasion
A figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms.
Oxymoron
A statement that seems contradictory but is actually true.
Paradox
The repetition of similar grammatical or syntactical patterns.
Parallelism
A piece that imitates and exaggerates the prominent features of another;
used for comic effect or ridicule.
Parody
A Greek term that refers to suffering but has come to be associated with broader appeals to emotion; one of Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals (see
ethos and logos).
Pathos
The speaker, voice, or character assumed by the author of a piece of
writing.
Persona
Assigning lifelike characteristics to inanimate objects.
Personification
An argument against an idea, usually regarding philosophy, politics, or religion.
Polemic
The deliberate use of a series of conjunctions.
Polysendeton
Two parts of a syllogism. The concluding sentence of a syllogism takes its predicate from the major premise and its subject from the
minor premise.
Major premise: All mammals are warm-blooded.
Minor premise: All horses are mammals.
Conclusion: All horses are warm-blooded (see syllogism).
Premise: major, minor
A negative term for writing designed to sway opinion rather than
present information.
Propaganda
A negative term for writing designed to sway opinion rather than
present information.
Propaganda
A negative term for writing designed to sway opinion rather than
present information.
Purpose
To discredit an argument, particularly a counterargument.
Refute
The study of effective, persuasive language use; according to Aristotle,
use of the “available means of persuasion.”
Rhetoric
Patterns of organization developed to achieve a specific purpose; modes include but are not limited to narration, description, comparison
and contrast, cause and effect, definition, exemplification, classification and
division, process analysis, and argumentation.
Rhetorical modes
A question asked more to produce an effect than to summon
an answer.
Rhetorical question
A diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see Aristotelian
triangle).
Rhetorical triangle
An ironic, sarcastic, or witty composition that claims to argue for something, but actually argues against it.
Satire
A pattern of words or sentence construction used for rhetorical effect.
Scheme
The arrangement of independent and dependent clauses
into known sentence constructions—such as simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex.
Sentence patterns
Using a variety of sentence patterns to create a desired effect.
Sentence variety
A figure of speech that uses “like” or “as” to compare two things.
Simile
A statement containing a subject and predicate; an independent clause.
Simple sentence
A book, article, person, or other resource consulted for information.
Source
A term used for the author, speaker, or the person whose perspective (real or imagined) is being advanced in a speech or piece of writing.
Speaker
A logical fallacy that involves the creation of an easily refutable position; misrepresenting, then attacking an opponent’s position.
Straw man
The distinctive qualitiy of speech or writing created by the selection and arrangement of words and figures of speech.
Style
In rhetoric, the topic addressed in a piece of writing.
Subject
Created by a subordinating conjunction, a clause that modifies an independent clause.
Subordinate clause
The dependence of one syntactical element on another in a sentence.
Subordination
A form of deductive reasoning in which the conclusion is supported
by a major and minor premise (see premise; major, and minor).
Syllogism
Sentence structure.
Syntax
Combining or bringing together two or more elements to produce something more complex.
Synthesize
The central idea in a work to which all parts of the work refer.
Thesis
A statement of the central idea in a work, may be explicit or implicit.
Thesis statement
The speaker’s attitude toward the subject or audience.
Tone
A sentence, most often appearing at the beginning of a paragraph, that announces the paragraph’s idea and often unites it with the work’s
thesis.
Topic sentence
Artful diction; the use of language in a nonliteral way; also called a figure of speech.
Trope
Lack of emphasis in a statement or point; restraint in language often used for ironic effect.
Understatement
In grammar, a term for the relationship between a verb and a noun (active
or passive voice). In rhetoric, a distinctive quality in the style and tone of
writing.
Voice
A construction in which one word (usually a verb) modifies or governs—often in different, sometimes incongruent ways—two or more
words in a sentence.
Zeugma
