Literacy Terms and Practices
Grammar refers to the correctness of what you write.
Rhetoric refers to the effectiveness of what you write.
Appeals:
Logic -- appeals to reason
Ethical -- appeals to authority; persona is knowledgeable
Pathos -- appeals to emotion
Tone: Speaker’s attitude to his audience or subject. The tone can be formal or intimate,
outspoken or reticent, abstruse or simple, solemn or playful, arrogant or prayerful, angry
or loving, serious or comic, condescending or obsequious, happy or sad, didactic or
questioning ect.
Point of view:
The mode or perspective established by an author. First person: “I” tell the story.
Third person observer, third person limited, third person omniscient.
Narrative: Telling a story or depicting a series of related events, usually in chronological
order.
Grotesque and Arabesque: Poe distinguishes between the two by calling anything with
an element of horror “grotesque,” and anything with an element of wonder “arabesque.”
Persona: By calling speakers in literature personae, we stress the fact that they are all a
part of the fiction, characters invented for a particular artistic purpose.
Style: This encompasses everything pertaining to the way in which you write. You
might have a poetic style, a didactic style, ironic or satirical style etc.
Diction: The choice of words. High, low neutral, horrific, colloquial or formal,
technical or common, concrete or metaphoric, ironic/satirical or serious/sincere, dull or
vivid.
Imagery: All of the objects and qualities or sense perception, whether by literal
description, by allusion, or by use of figures of speech -- similes, metaphors,
personification, hyperbole, litotes, metonymy, symbols, analogy, allegory, paradox etc.
Syntax, Semantics and Repetitions:
Syntax refers to the way words are strung together
Semantics refers to the meaning of words, either denotative or
connotative
Repetitions: In addition to simple repetition, this refers to stylistic
repetition such as parallelism, alliteration, chiasmus, anaphora, ect.
Allegory: A narrative in which the agents and action, and sometimes the setting are
contrived so as to make sense on the literal level and to signify a second, correlated level
of meaning.
Metonymy: The time of a thing is applied to another thing or person with which it is
closely associated. Example: Kneel to the crown; the White House announced.
Synecdoche: A form of metonymy in which a part is used to symbolize the whole.
Example: I give you my heart. Lend me a hand. Lend me your ears.
Paradox: a statement which seems on its face to be self-contradictory or absurd, yet
turns out to make sense. Example: Dark with excessive bright.
Apostrophe: speaking to an imaginary or absent person, thing, or abstract idea. Oh muse!
Visit me with thy divine inspiration.
Allusion: A reference without explanation to another book, political occurrence, poem,
myth, ect. (This is not direct discussion) “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
Hyperbole: Deliberate exaggeration for effect.
Meiosis: Deliberate understatement for heightened effect. Example: “Last week I saw a
woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her appearance for the
worse.”
Litotes: A form of under statement in which a thing is affirmed by stating the negative of
its opposite. To say “She was not unmindful” when one means that “she gave careful
attention” is to employ litotes.
Onomatopoeia: The words sound like what they mean. Examples: Buzz, burble, wham,
pow, smack.
Anthropomorphism: The ascription to animals or inanimate objects of human forms,
emotions or characteristics. In most mythologies the gods are described as having human
form and attributes. Anthropomorphism is the conceptual presentation of some
nonhuman entity.
Personification: Is the much more limited rhetorical presentations of some non human
entity in figuratively human form or with figuratively human qualities. To represent Zeus
as an “all-father” with human qualities is anthropomorphism, whereas to represent time
as “Father Time” carrying a scythe and an hourglass is personification.
Simile: a direct comparison using like or as. Example: “He is as stubborn as a mule.”
Metaphor: a less direct comparison not using like or as. Example: “He is a mule.”
Extended Metaphor: a metaphor which extends the comparison over several phrases or
sentences.
Analogy: A comparison of the relationship of two things, alike in certain aspects, used
usually to explain or prove a point. These are frequently used on SAT tests and generally
read, A is to B, as C is to?
Schemes
Parataxis: A paratactic style is one in which the members within a sentence, or else a
sequence of complete sentences, are put one after the other without expression of their
connection or relations except (at most) the noncommittal connective and. “It was dim
and dark and the pillars went high up, and there were people praying, and it smelt of
incense, and there were some wonderful big buildings,” (this could also be an example of
polysyndeton.) Example: “Nick was coming over the hills. A bass jumped, making a
circle in the water. Nick put his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the
morning.”
Alliteration: repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words.
The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And murmuring of innumerable bees, Tennyson.
Sigmatism: The marked use of sibilants (hissing sounds) such as s, z, zh, she ect. Too
much of this is a fault that good writers avoid, but sometimes poets use it for special
effect.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless--Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
-Edgar Allan Poe
Ellipsis: deliberate omission of a word or words which are readily implied by context.
Example: And he to England shall along with you.
Aphaeresis: The deliberate omission of a letter (usually a vowel) or a syllable at the
beginning of a word. Example: ‘Mid, for amid; ‘near for beneath;
Asyndeton: deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses or
phrases. Example: I came, I saw, I conquered. …of the people, by the people, for the
people… I have done. You have heard me. The facts are before you. I ask for your
judgment. The principal effect of asyndeton is to produce a hurried rhythm in the
sentence. It is especially appropriate for the conclusion of discourse to produce an
emotional reaction.
Polysyndeton: This is the opposite of asyndeton. The deliberate use of many
conjunctions. Proliferation of conjunctions slows up the rhythm and produces an
impressively solemn note. Example: This semester I am taking English and History and
Math and Science and Theater.
Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds preceded and followed by different
consonants in the stressed syllables of adjacent words.
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king.
Anaphora: repetition of the same word or groups of words at the beginning of successive
clauses, lines or sentences.
This is the essence—this is the heart—this is the day-to-day stuff of our duty.
Epistrophe: The repetition of the same word or groups of words at the end of successive
clauses, lines or sentences.
All the night he did nothing but weep Philoclea, sigh Philoclea, and cry out
Philoclea.
Antimetabole: repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical
You like it, it likes you.
Hypotaxis: all the temporal, logical, and syntactic relations are expressed by words such
as when, then, because, therefore, or by phrases such as in order to, as a result, or by the
use of subordinate phrases and clauses. Example: When it was dark, we left.
Schemes of Balance
Balance: is the pairing of parts of the whole either to compare or contrast in which
neither element of the pairing outweighs the other. Example: “The memory of other
authors is kept alive by their works; but the memory of Johnson keeps many of his works
alive.”
Parallelism: similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases or clauses.
He tried to make the law equitable, precise and comprehensive. (series of single
adjectives)
To contain the enemy forces, to reinforce his own depleted resources, to inspirit
the sagging morale of his troops, and to re-assess the general strategy of the
campaign--these were his objectives when he took command. (series of infinitive
phrases)
Isocolon: when parallel elements are similar not only in structure but in length.
Example: “His purpose was to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and
to confound the scrupulous.” Therefore, isocolonic structure is parallelism, but
not all parallelism is isocolonic. Isocolon is a more narrow type of parallelism.
Antithesis: the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure.
Example: Many things difficult to design prove easy to perform.
Schemes of Unusual or Inverted Word Order
Anastrophe: Inversion of the natural or usual word order. Example: With folly no man is
willing to confess himself very intimately acquainted. Or Him, I like; her, I do not.
Parenthesis: insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal
syntactic flow of the sentence but does not rename the subject. Example: He tried – who
could do more?—to restrain the fury of the mob.
This has the pronounced rhetorical effect of allowing us for a brief moment to hear the
author commenting or editorializing. This gives an emotional and personal effect that it
wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Apposition: placing side by side two co-ordinate elements, the second of which serves as
an explanation, modification, or renaming of the first. Example: John Morgan, the
president of the republic, could not be reached by phone. Apposition interrupts the flow
of a sentence to provide gratuitous information or explanation.
Polyptoton: repeating the same root in different forms. Example: We must battle or be
embattled.
Chiasmus: is similar to antimetabole except chiasmus reverses grammatical structure in
successive clauses but does not repeat the words. Example: I am indisposed to work, but
to beg I am ashamed. Chiasmus is often used to reinforce antithesis.
Climax: arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing importance.
Example: Let him acknowledge obligations to his family, his country, and his God.
Anticlimax: The arrangement of descriptive or narrative details such that the lesser, the
trivial, or the ludicrous appears at the point where something greater and more serious is
expected. The term is customarily used to describe a stylistic effect resulting from a
sudden or gradual decrease in interest or importance in the items in a series. When
effectively and intentionally used, it greatly increases emphasis through its humorous
effect. An example of its deliberate use, heightened by anaphora is found in Pope’s Rape
of the Lock.
Not youthful kings in battle seiz’d alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb’d of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus’d a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau’s pinn’d awry,
E’er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin! For thy ravish’d hair.
When unintentionally used, it also results in humor, but also in pathos.
The duty of a sailor in the navy is to protect his country and to peel potatoes.
Syllepis: A grammatically correct construction in which one word is placed in the same
grammatical relationship to two words but in quite different senses. Example: “Or stain
her honor, or her new brocade.”
Most instances of syllepsis involve a word that can take an object and can have both a
concrete and an abstract meaning, or else a literal and a metaphorical meaning. The two
kinds of words that fit this category are prepositions and transitive verbs. Syllepsis occurs
when one of these object-taking words takes two or more objects that are on different
levels. “Stain,” is a transitive verb capable of taking both a concrete object (“brocade”)
and an abstract (“honor”). By putting “honor” first and “brocade” second, Pope adds
anticlimax to syllepsis, since the step from abstract to concrete is downward, as is the
relative importance of “honor” and “brocade.”
Syllogism: A formula for presenting an argument logically. The syllogism affords a
method of demonstrating the logic of an argument through analysis. In its simplest form,
it consists of three divisions: a major premise; a minor premise, and a conclusion.
Major premise: All public libraries should serve the people.
Minor premise: This is a public library.
Conclusion: therefore: This library should serve the people.
Reductio ad absurdum: This is a kind of syllogism which proves a goofy premise.
To be healthy, one must get a lot of sleep.
Bill, who has sleeping sickness, sleeps 20 hours a day.
Therefore, Bill is in excellent health.
Loose sentence: A sentence grammatically complete before the end (often consists of
independent clause followed by a dependent clause) Example: I’m still hungry, although
I just ate. Or Horatio watches the “today” show, and he eats breakfast at the same time.
Periodic sentence: A sentence not grammatically complete before the end; effective in
arousing suspense or curiosity (often consists of parallel phrases or clauses at the
opening) Example: I made cereal out of grits, juice out of oranges, and toast out of wheat
bread, but I’m still hungry. Or Before going to work and while eating his breakfast,
Horatio watches the “Today” show.
Inverted sentence: The placing of a sentence element out of its normal position.
Example: The “Today” show Horatio does watch.