Tuesday, 17 September 2013

529. ENGLISH - 101 Key Terms


101 Key Terms

Glossary of Important Grammatical, Literary, and Rhetorical Terms

  • Ad Hominem
    An argument based on the failings of an adversary rather than on the merits of the case; a logical
    fallacy that involves a personal attack.



  • Allegory
    Extending a
    metaphor so that objects, persons, and actions in a text are equated with meanings that lie outside the text.


  • Allusion
    A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or event--real or fictional.

  • Ambiguity
    The presence of two or more possible meanings in any passage.

  • Analogy
    Reasoning or arguing from parallel cases.

  • Anaphora
    The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.


  • Antithesis
    The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

  • Aphorism
    (1) A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion.
    (2) A brief statement of a principle.

  • Apostrophe
    A rhetorical term for breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing.

  • Appeal to Authority
    A fallacy in which a speaker or writer seeks to persuade not by giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution.

  • Appeal to Ignorance
    A fallacy that uses an opponent's inability to disprove a conclusion as proof of the conclusion's correctness.

  • Argument
    A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood.

  • Assonance
    The identity or similarity in sound between internal
    vowels in neighboring words.



  • Chiasmus
    A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.

  • Circular Argument
    An argument that commits the logical fallacy of assuming what it is attempting to prove.

  • Claim
    An arguable statement, which may be a claim of fact, value, or policy.


  • Climax
    Mounting by degrees through words or sentences of increasing weight and in
    parallel construction with an emphasis on the high point or culmination of a series of events.

  • Colloquial
    Characteristic of writing that seeks the effect of informal spoken language as distinct from formal or literary English.

  • Comparison
    A rhetorical strategy in which a writer examines similarities and/or differences between two people, places, ideas, or objects.


  • Concession
    An argumentative strategy by which a speaker or writer acknowledges the validity of an opponent's point.

  • Confirmation
    The main part of a text in which logical arguments in support of a position are elaborated.


  • Connotation
    The emotional implications and associations that a word may carry.

  • Coordination
    The grammatical connection of two or more ideas to give them equal emphasis and importance. Contrast with
    subordination.

  • Deduction
    A method of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated
    premises.

  • Denotation
    The direct or dictionary meaning of a word, in contrast to its figurative or associated meanings.


  • Diction
    (1) The choice and use of words in speech or writing.
    (2) A way of speaking, usually assessed in terms of prevailing standards of pronunciation and
    elocution.

  • Didactic
    Intended or inclined to teach or instruct, often excessively.

  • Encomium
    A tribute or
    eulogy in prose or verse glorifying people, objects, ideas, or events.

  • Epiphora
    The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses. (Also known as epistrophe.)

  • Epitaph
    (1) A short inscription in prose or verse on a tombstone or monument.
    (2) A statement or speech commemorating someone who has died: a funeral oration.

  • Ethos
    A persuasive appeal based on the projected character of the speaker or narrator.

  • Eulogy
    A formal expression of praise for someone who has recently died.

  • Euphemism
    The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.

  • Exposition
    A statement or type of composition intended to give information about (or an explanation of) an issue, subject, method, or idea.

  • Extended Metaphor
    A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.

  • Fallacy
    An error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.

  • False Dilemma
    A fallacy of oversimplification that offers a limited number of options (usually two) when in fact more options are available.


  • Figures of Speech
    The various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance.

  • Flashback
    A shift in a
    narrative to an earlier event that interrupts the normal chronological development of a story.

  • Genre
    A category of artistic composition, as in film or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content.

  • Hasty Generalization
    A fallacy in which a conclusion is not logically justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence.

  • Hyperbole
    A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement.

  • Imagery
    Vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses.

  • Induction
    A method of reasoning by which a rhetor collects a number of instances and forms a generalization that is meant to apply to all instances.

  • Invective
    Denunciatory or abusive language; discourse that casts blame on somebody or something.

  • Irony
    The use of words to convey the opposite of their
    literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is directly contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

  • Isocolon
    A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.

  • Jargon
    The specialized language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders.

  • Litotes
    A figure of speech consisting of an
    understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.


  • Metaphor
    A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

  • Metonymy
    A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (such as "crown" for "royalty").


  • Mood
    (1) The quality of a verb that conveys the writer's attitude toward a subject.
    (2) The emotion evoked by a text.

  • Narrative
    A rhetorical strategy that recounts a sequence of events, usually in chronological order.


  • Onomatopoeia
    The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

  • Oxymoron
    A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

  • Paradox
    A statement that appears to contradict itself.

  • Parallelism
    The similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

  • Parody
    A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.

  • Pathos
    The means of persuasion that appeals to the audience's emotions.

  • Periodic Sentence
    A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended syntax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic
    climax.

  • Personification
    A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

  • Point of View
    The perspective from which a speaker or writer tells a story or presents information.

  • Predicate
    One of the two main parts of a sentence or clause, modifying the
    subject and including the verb, objects, or phrases governed by the verb.


  • Prose
    Ordinary writing (both fiction and nonfiction) as distinguished from verse.

  • Refutation
    The part of an argument wherein a speaker or writer anticipates and counters opposing points of view.

  • Repetition
    An instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage--dwelling on a point.

  • Rhetoric
    The study and practice of effective communication.


  • Running Style
    Sentence style that appears to follow the mind as it worries a problem through, mimicking the "rambling, associative syntax of conversation"--the opposite of
    periodic sentence style.

  • Sarcasm
    A mocking, often ironic or satirical remark.

  • Satire
    A text or performance that uses
    irony, derision, or wit to expose or attack human vice, foolishness, or stupidity.

  • Simile
    A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by "like" or "as."

  • Style
    Narrowly interpreted as those figures that ornament speech or writing; broadly, as representing a manifestation of the person speaking or writing.

  • Subject
    The part of a sentence or clause that indicates what it is about.


  • Subordination
    Words, phrases, and clauses that make one element of a sentence dependent on (or subordinate to) another. Contrast with
    coordination.

  • Symbol
    A person, place, action, or thing that (by association, resemblance, or convention) represents something other than itself.

  • Synecdoche
    A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole or the whole for a part.

  • Syntax
    (1) The study of the rules that govern the way words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.
    (2) The arrangement of words in a sentence.


  • Tone
    A writer's attitude toward the subject and audience. Tone is primarily conveyed through
    diction, point of view, syntax, and level of formality.

  • Transition
    The connection between two parts of a piece of writing, contributing to
    coherence.

  • Understatement
    A figure of speech in which a writer deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.


  • Voice
    (1) The quality of a
    verb that indicates whether its subject acts (active voice) or is acted upon (passive voice).
    (2) The distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or narrator.

  • Zeugma
    The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words although its use may be grammatically or logically correct with only one.


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