Rhetorical Terms - Argument
antagonist - The character who opposes the interests of the protagonist.
Ex: In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien creates Lord Sauron as the antagonist to Frodo.
antanaclasis - Repetition of a word in two different senses.
Ex: If we do not hang together, we will hang separately.
anticipated objection - The technique a writer or speaker uses in an argumentative text to address and
answer objections, even though the audience has not had the opportunity to voice these objections.
Ex: "You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air…You ask, what is our aim? I
can answer in one word. It is victory." (Winston Churchill)
antimetabole - The repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.
Ex: One should eat to live, not live to eat.
apologist - A person or character who makes a case for some controversial, even contentious, position.
Ex: In Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, Romeo makes a case for marrying Juliet, despite the
controversy over the issue.
apology - An elaborate statement justifying some controversial, even contentious, position.
Ex: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'" (Martin Luther King Jr.)
apostrophe - The direct address of an absent person or personified object as if he/she/it is able to reply.
Ex: "O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" (William Shakespeare)
appeal to authority - In a text, the reference to words, action, or beliefs of a person in authority as a
means of supporting a claim, generalization, or conclusion.
Ex: Isaac Newton was a genius and he believed in God. Therefore, God must exist.
appeal to emotion - The appeal of a text to the feelings or interests of the audience.
Ex: If you don't graduate from high school, you will always be poor.
argument by analysis - An argument developed by breaking the subject matter into its component parts.
Ex: The Virginians failed miserably at initial colonization and suffered through disease, war, and famine
because of their high expectations and greed, which also molded their colony socially and economically.
asyndeton - The omission of conjunctions between related clauses.
Ex: "This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who meant to betray you
completely." (Aristotle)
basic topic - One of the four perspectives that Aristotle explained could be used to generate material
about any subject matter: greater or less, possible and impossible, past fact, and future fact.
Ex: Topics include justice, peace, rights, and movie theaters.
brain-storming - Within the planning act of the writing process, a technique used by a writer or speaker
to generate many ideas, some of which he or she will later eliminate.
Ex: I brainstorm before history essays by writing down as many specific Exs as I can think of for the
prompt.
cloze test - A test of reading ability that requires a person to fill in missing words in a text.
Ex: The SAT's language portion contains questions modeled in this way.
common topic - One of the perspectives, derived from Aristotle's topics, used to generate material. The
six common topics are definition, division, comparison, relation, circumstances, and testimony.
Ex: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson's political opinions can be the subject of a common topic,
such as division.
compound subject - A sentence in which two or more nouns, noun phrases, or noun clauses constitute
the grammatical subject of a clause
Ex: The dog and the cat scurried away from the approaching car.
confirmation - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker or writer could offer
proof or demonstration of the central idea.
Ex: In Julius Caesar's speech, the confirmation was scattered throughout.
conflict - The struggle of characters with themselves, with others, or with the world around them.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, migrants conflict with property owners.
connotation - The implied meaning of a word, in contrast to its directly expressed "dictionary meaning."
Ex: Home literally means one's house, but implies feelings of family and security.
consulting - Seeking help for one's writing from a reader.
Ex: I often consult my parents.
dramatistic pentad - The invention strategy, developed by Kenneth Burke, that invites a speaker or
writer to create identities for the act, agent, agency, attitude, scene, and purpose in a situation.
effect - The emotional or psychological impact a text has on a reader or listener.
Ex: The Grapes Of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, causes the reader to have sympathy for migrant workers.
ellipsis - The omission of words, the meaning of which is provided by the overall context of a passage.
Ex: "Medical thinking . . . stressed air as the communicator of disease, ignoring sanitation or visible
carriers" (Tuchman).
epanalepsis - Repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause.
Ex: Blood hath brought blood.
epithet - A word of phrase adding a characteristic to a person's name.
Ex: Alexander the Great.
figurative language - Language dominated by the use of schemes and tropes.
Ex: "The ground is thirsty and hungry."
flashback - A part of the plot that moves back in time and then returns to the present.
Ex: In Oedipus Rex, both Oedipus and Iocaste recall previous events.
generalization - A point that a speaker or writer generations on the basis of considering a number of
particular examples.
Ex: "All French people are rude."
genre - A piece of writing classified by type.
Ex: Science Fiction.
investigating - Activities that writers use, during the writing process, to locate ideas and information.
Ex: For my research paper, I have investigated many sources in the library and online.
irony - Writing or speaking that implies the contrary of what is actually written or spoken.
Ex 1: "Of course I believe you," Joe said sarcastically.
Ex 2: "I can't describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her…I even hoped for a while that
she'd throw me over" (Fitzgerald 157).
narration - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker provided background
information on the topic.
Ex: Julius Caesar used narration in many of his speeches.
pace - The speed with which a plot moves from one event to another.
Example: In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck paces the story somewhat slowly, interspersing it with
main-idea chapters.
parallelism - A set of similarly structured words, phrases, or clauses that appears in a sentence or
paragraph.
Ex 1: The dog ran, stumbled, and fell.
Ex 2: "After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day…" (Fitzgerald 17).
parenthesis - An insertion of material that interrupts the typical flow of a sentence.
Ex: The dog (which was black) ran, stumbled, and fell.
people's topics - The English translation of konnoi topoi, the four topics that Aristotle explained could be
used to generate material about any subject matter; also called basic topics.
Ex: Topics include justice, peace, rights, and movie theaters.
Rhetorical Terms - Diction
act - In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent material, the words the
speaker or writer uses to describe what happened or happens in a particular situation.
Ex: "With the cunning typical of its breed, the automobile never breaks down while entering a filling
station with a large staff of idle mechanics. It waits…" (Russell Baker)
agency - In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent material, the words
the speaker or writer uses to describe the means by which something happened or happens in a
particular situation.
Ex: "As a general rule, any object capable of breaking down at the moment when it is most needed will
do so. The automobile is typical of the category." (Russell Baker)
agent - In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent material, the words the
speaker uses to describe the person or persons involved in taking action in a particular situation.
Ex: "Thus [the automobile] creates maximum misery, inconvenience, frustration, and irritability among
its human cargo, thereby reducing its owner's life span." (Russell Baker)
anecdote - A brief narrative offered in a text to capture the audience's attention or to support a
generalization of claim.
Ex: "A good man, gray on the edges, an assistant manager in a brown starched and ironed uniform, is
washing the glass windows of the store...Good night, m'ijo! he tells a young boy coming out after playing
the video game..." (Dagoberto Gilb)
compound sentence - A sentence with two or more independent clauses.
Ex: Canada is a rich country, but it still has many poor people.
conclusion (of syllogism) - The ultimate point or generalization that a syllogism expresses.
Ex: All mortals die. All men are mortals. All men die.
contraction - The combination of two words into one by eliminating one or more sounds and indicating
the omission with an apostrophe.
Ex: "Do not" becomes "don't." "Should have" becomes "should've."
contraries - See contradiction.
Ex: The book is red. The book is not green. If the book is read, then the book is not green. If the book is
not red, then the book may be green.
data (as evidence) - Facts, statistics, and examples that a speaker or writer offers in support of a claim,
generalization, or conclusion.
Ex: Conserve electricity. 42% of America's carbon dioxide emissions come from electricity generation.
deductive reasoning - Reasoning that begins with a general principle and concludes with a specific
instance that demonstrates the general principle.
Ex: "Gravity makes things fall. The apple that hit my head was due to gravity."
delivery - The presentation and format of a composition.
Ex: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, is formatted by chapters, which either present general
information about farmers or the specific story of Joe and his family.
editing - The final observation, before delivery, by a writer or speaker of a composition to evaluate
appropriateness and to locate missteps in the work.
Ex: For process papers, I edit my work many times before submitting a final draft.
efferent reading - Reading to garner information from a text.
Ex: For history, I perform efferent reading of the textbook.
enthymeme - Logical reasoning with one premise left unstated.
Ex: We cannot trust this man, for he has perjured himself in the past. (Missing: Those who perjure
themselves cannot be trusted.)
euphemism - An indirect expression of unpleasant information in such way as to lesson its impact.
Ex 1: "Passed way" for "died."
Ex 2: "You see, I carry on a little business on the side, a sort of a sideline, you understand"(Fitzgerald 87).
image - A passage of text that evokes sensation or emotional intensity.
Ex: "Waves crashing on the ocean look like knives."
inference - A conclusion that a reader or listener reaches by means of his or her own thinking rather
than by being told directly by a text.
Ex: I infer that America became isolationist during the 1920s because of the horrors of World War I.
memory - Access to information and collective information.
Ex: I will use my memory to remember these terms.
narrative intrusion - A comment that is made directly to the reader by breaking into the forward plot
movement.
Ex: Narrator: The dog ran very fast across the street, dodging two cars.
point of view - The perspective or source of a piece of writing. A first-person point of view has a narrator
or speaker who refers to himself or herself as "I." A third-person point of view lacks "I" in perspective.
Ex: The Great Gatsby is written in first-person point of view.
ratio - Combination of two or more elements in a dramatistic pentad in order to invent material.
reading - The construction of meaning, purpose, and effect in a text.
Ex: I am reading The Great Gatsby.
reading journal - A log in which readers can trace developing reactions to what they are reading.
Ex: I am maintaining a character log while reading The Great Gatsby.
rhetorical choices - The particular choices a writer or speaker makes to achieve meaning, purpose, or
effect.
Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby chooses to use imagery, similes, and metaphors often.
stock settings - Stereotypical time and place settings that let readers know a text's genre immediately.
Ex: For science fiction, if the text takes place in the future, on another planet, or in another universe.
periodic sentence - A sentence with modifying elements included before the verb and/or complement.
Ex: "John, the tough one, the sullen kid who scoffed at any show of sentiment, gave his mother flowers."
scheme - An artful variation from typical formation and arrangement of words or sentences.
Ex: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Rhetorical Terms - Scheme
alliteration - The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning or in the middle of two or more
adjacent words.
Ex: "To make a man to meet the moral need/ A man to match the mountains and the sea" (Edwin
Markham)
anadiplosis - The repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause.
Ex: "Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and
servants of business." (Francis Bacon)
anaphora - The repetition of a group of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
Ex: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the
seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence…" (Winston Churchill)
antecedent-consequence relationship - The relationship expressed by "if…then" reasoning.
Ex: If industries poison rivers with pollutants, then many fish will die.
anthimeria - The substitution of one part of speech for another.
Ex: "The thunder would not peace at my bidding." (William Shakespeare)
appeal - One of three strategies for persuading audiences--logos, appeal to reason; pathos, appeal to
emotion; and ethos, appeal to ethics.
Ex: "I elicited the anger of some of the most aggressive teenagers in my high school. A couple of nights
later, a car pulled up in front of my house, and the angry teenagers in the car dumped garbage on the
lawn of my house as an act of revenge and intimidation." (James Garbarino)
appositive - A noun or noun phrase that follows another noun immediately or defines or amplifies its
meaning.
Ex: Orion, my orange cat, is sitting on the couch.
argument - A carefully constructed, well-supported representation of how a writer sees an issue,
problem, or subject.
Ex: The Patriots prevailed over the Loyalists, who they violently persecuted due to their conflicting
position; both betrayed the African slaves to temporarily bolster their military.
Aristotelian triangle - A diagram showing the relations of writer or speaker, audience (reader or listener),
and text in a rhetorical situation.
canon - One of the traditional elements of rhetorical composition -- invention, arrangement, style,
memory, or delivery.
Ex: Frederick Douglass's style (one aspect of canon) is both objective and subjective.
casuistry - A mental exercise to discover possibilities for analysis of communication.
dramatic narration - A narrative in which the reader or viewer does not have access to the unspoken
thoughts of any character.
dynamic character - One who changes during the course of the narrative.
Ex: Romeo is a dramatic character in Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare.
evidence - The facts, statistics, anecdotes, and examples that a speaker or writer offers in support of a
claim, generalization, or conclusion.
Ex: "Recent studies in the brain chemistry of rats show that when they play, their brains release large
amounts of dopamine . . ." (Rifkin).
metonymy - An entity referred to by one of its attributes or associations.
Ex: "The press" for the news media.
symbol - In a text, an element that stands for more than itself and, therefore, helps to convey a theme
of the text.
Ex: Purple symbolizes royalty.
East Egg in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolizes the ""old rich."""
tautology - A group of words that merely repeats the meaning already conveyed.
Ex: "If you don't get any better, then you'll never improve."
thesis - The main idea in a text, often the main generalization, conclusion, or claim.
Ex: The corruption of America's rich in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
thesis statement - A single sentence that states a text's thesis, usually somewhere near the beginning.
Ex: "Sweatt v. Painter advanced equality by ultimately improving African American educational rights,
thus transforming American democracy for a better today."
topic - A place where writers go to discover methods for proof and strategies for presentation of ideas.
Ex: Gun control laws, the environment, or communism.
trope - An artful variation from expected modes of expression of thoughts and ideas.
Ex: Pun or metonymy.
voice - The textual features, such as diction and sentence structure, that convey a writer's or speaker's
persona.
Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald's voice is made up of mystery.
writing process - The acts a writer goes through, often recursively, to complete a piece of writing:
inventing, investigating, planning, drafting, consulting, revising, and editing.
Ex: I used this to write my research paper.
Rhetorical Terms - Syntax
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.
Ex: "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.
Ex: See climax.
isocolon - Parallel elements that are similar in structure and in length.
Ex: "… to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the scrupulous …"
mnemonic device - A systematic aid to memory.
Ex: "Roy G. Biv" for the most common colors.
onomatopoeia - A literary device in which the sound of a word is related to its meaning.
Ex: Words like "bang," and "click".
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.
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.
Rhetorical Terms - Trope
allegory - An extended metaphor.
Ex 1: "During the time I have voyaged on this ship, I have avoided the cabin; rather, I have remained on
deck, battered by wind and rain, but able to see moonlight…"
Ex 2: "This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and
grotesque gardens, where ashes take forms of houses and...of men..." (Fitzgerald 27).
allusion - A reference in a written or spoken text to another text or to some particular body of
knowledge.
Ex 1: "I doubt if Phaethon feared more -- that time/ he dropped the sun-reins of his father's chariot/ and
burned the streak of sky we see today" (Dante's Inferno).
Ex 2: "Have you read 'The rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?" (Fitzgerald 17).
anastrophe - Inversion or reversal of the usual order of words.
Ex: Echoed the hills.
anthimeria - The substitution of one part of speech for another.
Ex: The thunder would not peace at my bidding.
antithesis - The juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas, often in parallel structure.
Ex 1: "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." (Barry
Goldwater)
Ex 2: "…found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress--and as drunk as a
monkey" (Fitzgerald 81).
flat character - A figure readily identifiable by memorable traits but not fully developed.
Ex: Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.
format - The structural elements that constitute the presentation of a written text.
Ex: The Modern Language Association (MLA) has created a format for research papers.
freewriting - Intuitive writing strategy for generation of ideas by writing without stopping.
Ex: In English 1, I performed freewriting for two short pieces.
functional part - A part of a text classified according to its function.
Ex: The introduction.
hyperbole - An exaggeration for effect.
Ex 1: "I told you a billion times not to exaggerate."
Ex 2: "…we scattered light through half Astoria…" (Fitzgerald 72).
invention - The art of generating material for a text; the first of the five traditional canons of rhetoric.
Ex: I use brainstorming before an essay as invention.
journal - A text in which writers produce informal compositions that help them "think on paper" about
topics and writing projects.
Ex: I had a journal last year for Honors English in which I recorded my thoughts on various novels I read.
journaling - The process of writing in a journal.
Ex: I wrote a journal last year for Honors English on the books I read.
loose sentence - A sentence that adds modifying elements after the subject, verb, and complement.
Ex: "Bells rang, filling the air with their clangor, startling pigeons into flight from every belfry, bringing
people into the streets to hear the news."
meiosis - Representation of a thing as less than it really is to compel greater esteem for it.
Ex: Calling an act of arson a prank.
metaphor - An implied comparison that does not use the word like or as.
Ex: "No man is an island" (Donne).
oxymoron - Juxtaposed words with seemingly contradictory meanings.
Ex: "O miserable abundance! O beggarly riches!" (Donne).
paralipsis - Irony in which one proposes to pass over a matter, but subtly reveals it.
Ex: "She is talented, not to mention rich."
peroration - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker would draw together
the entire argument and include material designed to compel the audience to think or act in a way
consonant with the central argument.
Ex: In Julius Caesar's speech, the peroration came at the end.
protagonist - The major character in a piece of literature; the figure in the narrative whose interests the
reader is most concerned about and sympathetic toward.
Ex: Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.
repretoire - A set of assumptions, skills, facts, and experience that a reader brings to a text to make
meaning.
setting - The context--including time and place--of a narrative.
Ex: The area surround New York City in the 1920s is the setting of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott
Fitzgerald.
sharing - A system calling for writers to read or listen to one another's work and suggest ways to
improve it.
Ex: In AP US History, we peer reviewed each other's take-home DBQs.
simile - A type of comparison that uses the word like or as.
Ex: "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if
he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away"
(Fitzgerald 2).
syllogism - Logical reasoning from inarguable premises.
Ex: All mortals die. All humans are mortal. All humans die.
synecdoche - A part of something used to refer to the whole.
Ex: "The hired hands are not doing their jobs."
syntax - The order of words in a sentence.
Ex: "The dog ran" not "The ran dog."
theme - The message conveyed by a literary work.
Ex: The decline of the American dream in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
tone - The writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject matter.
Ex: Light-hearted in the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
understatement - Deliberate playing down of a situation in order to make a point.
Ex: "I think there's a problem between Shias and Sunnis."
unity - The sense that a text is, appropriately, about only one subject and achieves one major purpose or
effect.
Ex: Pride by Dagoberto Gilb
unreliable narrator - An untrustworthy or naïve commentator on events and characters in a story.
Ex: The people at Gatsby's parties like Jordan who spread rumors about Gatsby's past in The Great
Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
verisimilitude - The quality of a text that reflects the truth of actual experience.
Ex: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon has medium verisimilitude.
zeugma - A trope in which one word, usually a noun or the main verb, governs two other words not
related in meaning.
Ex: He governs his will and his kingdom.
Rhetorical Terms - Writing Material
aesthetic reading - Reading to experience the world of the text.
Ex: One often reads John Steinbeck's novels, like The Grapes of Wrath, to experience his detailed
settings.
aim - The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text -- for example, to clarify difficult
material, to inform, to convince, to persuade. Also called intention and purpose.
Ex: In Pride, Dagoberto Gilb's aim is to define pride and what it means to him.
Anglo-Saxon diction - Word choice characterized by simple, often one- or two- syllable nouns,
adjectives, and adverbs.
Ex: Words include "thinking," "kingly," "bridge," "stone," and "early."
apposition - Two nouns that are adjacent to each other and reference the same thing.
Ex: I know the dog Toto.
arrangement - In a spoken or written text, the placement of ideas for effect.
Ex: In essays, writers often strategically arrange their essays into paragraphs and order their points from
most convincing to least.
assonance - The repetition of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more adjacent words.
Ex: "Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies" (John Keats)
assumption - An opinion, a perspective, or a belief that a writer or speaker thinks the audience holds.
Ex: "We think a problem is weakness, mental laziness, intellectual inflation, but an issue is deep-rooted,
interior, and personal." (Allison Amend)
attitude - In an adapted dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent materials,
the manner in which an action is carried out.
Ex: "Truth be told, we have replaced problem with issue in our vocabulary. And issue is a euphemism."
(Allison Amend)
auxesis - Magnifying the importance or gravity of something by referring it with a disproportionate
name.
Ex: Calling a scratch on an arm a wound.
begging of the question - The situation that results when a writer or speaker constructs an argument on
an assumption that the audience does not accept.
Ex: This painting is horrible because it is obviously worthless.
causal relationship - The relationship expressing, "If X is the cause, then Y is the effect," or, "If Y is the
effect, then X caused it."
Ex: If the dog runs away, then the boy will be sad.
character - A personage in a narrative.
Ex: Romeo was a character in Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare.
complex sentence - A sentence with one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
Ex: As long as it isn't cold, it doesn't matter if it rains.
compound-complex sentence - A sentence with two or more independent clauses and one or more
dependent clauses.
Ex: The package arrived in the morning, but the courier left before I could check the contents.
context - The convergence of time, place, audience, and motivating factors in which a piece of writing or
a speech is situated.
Ex: Kate Chopin lived in the late 1800s in Southern America as a feminist. This background formed the
foundation of The Awakening.
contradiction - One of the types of rhetorical invention included under the common topic of
relationships. Contradiction urges the speaker or writer to invent an example or a proof that is counter
to the main idea or argument.
Ex: "If war is the cause of our misery, peace is the way to promote our happiness."
denotation - The "dictionary definition" of a word, in contrast to its connotation, or implied meaning.
Ex: A house is literally a dwelling usually for a family.
descriptive writing - Writing that relies on sensory images to characterize a person or place.
Ex: "so much depends/ upon/ the red wheel/ barrow/ glazed with rain/ water/ beside the white/
chickens" (William Carlos Williams)
dialect - The describable patterns of language--grammar and vocabulary--used by a particular cultural or
ethnic population.
Ex: A Caribbean dialect is often "sing-songish" and leaves out words from sentences.
dialogue - Conversation between and among characters.
Ex: "Jim, I don't get it," Blair said.
Jim raised an eyebrow. "Don't get what?"
diction - Word choice, which is viewed on scales of formality/informality, concreteness/abstraction,
Latinate derivation/Anglo-Saxon derivation, and denotative value/connotative value.
Ex: Using "issue" instead of "problem."
double entendre - The double meanings of a group of words that the speaker or writer has purposely
left ambiguous.
Ex 1: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" (Shelley).
Ex 2: "West Egg especially still figures into my more fantastic dreams" (Fitzgerald 185).
drafting - The process by which writers get something written on paper or in a computer file so that they
can develop their ideas and begin moving toward an end, a start-to-finish product; the raw material for
what will become the final product.
Ex: For the research paper, we will have to revise and draft many times to perfect our papers.
dramatic monologue - A type of poem, popular primarily in the nineteenth century, in which the speaker
is delivering a monologue to an assumed group of listeners.
Ex: In "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning, shows off a painting of his late wife and reveals his
cruelty to her.
epistrophe - The repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses.
Ex: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us" (Emerson).
erotema - Asking a question to assert or deny something obliquely not for an answer.
Ex: "How much longer must our people endure this injustice?"
ethos - The appeal of a text to the credibility and character of the speaker, writer, or narrator.
Ex: If you don't graduate from high school, you will always be poor.
exaggeration - An overstatement.
Ex: The Matrix is the best movie ever made.
example - An anecdote or a narrative offered in support of a generalization, claim, or point.
Ex: Animals have more intelligence than imagined. "On human IQ tests, she [a gorilla named Koko]
scores between 70 and 95" (Rifkin).
exordium - In ancient roman oratory, the introduction of a speech; literally, the "web" meant to draw
the audience in the speech.
Ex: Julius Caesar's speech begins with an exordium.
extended analogy - An extended passage arguing that if two things are similar in one or two ways, they
are probably similar in other ways as well.
Ex: In "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts," Catton argues some similarities between Grant and Lee.
extended example - An example that is carried through several sentences or paragraphs.
Ex: In "Pride," Dagoberto Gilb extends an Ex of pride in the form of an anecdote through two
paragraphs.
fable - A narrative in which fictional characters, often animals, take actions that have ethical or moral
significance.
Ex: Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, is a fable.
figures of rhetoric - Schemes--that is, variations from typical word or sentence formation--and tropes,
which are variations from typical patterns of thought.
Ex: "When I first saw her, my soul began to quiver."
flashforward - A part of the plot that jumps ahead in time and returns to the present.
Ex: Oedipus is told he will sleep with his mother and kill his father by a prophet.
heuristic - A systematic strategy or method for solving problems.
Ex: Lawrence Lessig has argued that patents in different industries should be given different amounts of
time, using this strategy.
house analogy - In ancient Roman oratory, the method that speakers used to memorize their speeches,
connecting the introduction to the porch of a house, the narration and partition to the front foyer, the
confirmation and refutation to rooms connected to the foyer, and the conclusion to the back door.
Ex: Julius Caesar most likely used this method to memorize his speeches.
hyperbaton - Unusual or inverted word order.
Ex: "Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?" (Yoda).
imagery - Language that evokes particular sensations or emotionally rich experiences in a reader.
Ex 1: Edgar Allan Poe uses imagery in The Fall of the House of the Usher.
Ex 2: "…ran for a huge black knotted trees whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain…"
(Fitzgerald 93).
implied metaphor - A metaphor embedded in a sentence rather than expressed directly as a sentence.
Ex 1: "John swelled and rustled his plumage." (John was a peacock.)
Ex 2: "Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no
longer nourished his peremptory heart" (Fitzgerald 25).
inductive reasoning - Reasoning the begins by citing a number of specific instances or examples and then
shows how collectively they constitute a general principle.
Ex: This ice is cold. Thus, all ice is cold.
intention - The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text.
Ex: One of John Steinbeck's intentions in The Grapes of Wrath was to end humans' inhumanity to fellow
humans.
jargon - The specialized vocabulary of a particular group.
Ex: Bilateral periorbital hematoma (a black eye).
konnoi topoi - People's topics; ordinary patterns of reasoning; also called basic topics.
Ex: Topics include justice, peace, rights, and movie theaters.
Latinate diction - Vocabulary characterized by the choice of elaborate, often complicated words from
Latin roots.
Ex: Words like "deviate," "aqueduct," and "insulate".
limited narration - A narrative in which the reader or viewer has access to the unspoken thoughts of one
character or partial thinking of more than one character.
Ex: "Murgatroyd met Madeline on New Year's Eve in 2002. He attended a party and she opened the
door. Her hair! Only a goddess could have hair so fine."
litotes - Understatement.
Ex 1: "This is no ordinary city" rather than "this is an impressive city".
Ex 2: "I lived at West Egg, the--well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial
tag…" (Fitzgerald 9).
logic - The art of reasoning.
Ex: All humans are mortal. Socrates is human. Thus, Socrates is mortal.
logos - The appeal of a text based on the logical structure of its argument or central ideas.
Ex: "If there really were such strong evidence of racial bias in the justice system it would be newsworthy.
. ." (Taylor 6).
mood - The feeling that a text is intended to produce in the audience.
Ex: In John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, the mood is mostly dark and gloomy.
narrative - An anecdote or a story offered in support of a generalization, claim, or point. Also, a function
in texts accomplished when the speaker or writer tells a story.
Ex: "A good man, gray on the edges, an assistant manager in a brown starched and ironed uniform, is
washing the glass windows of the store...Good night, m'ijo! he tells a young boy coming out after playing
the video game..." (Dagoberto Gilb)
omniscient narration - A narrative in which the reader or viewer has access to the unspoken thoughts of
all the characters.
Ex: Our Town by Thornton Wilder.
parable - A usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.
Ex: Ignacy Krasicki's "The Blind Man and the Lame."
paradox - A statement that seems untrue on the surface but is true nevertheless.
Ex: "Not having a fashion is a fashion."
paronomasia - To call with a slight change of name; a play on words.
Ex: "Independence is what a boy wants from his father when he wants to be let a loan."
partition - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech where the speaker would divide the main
topic into parts.
Ex: Julius Caesar used partitions to better communicate his argument.
pathos - The appeal of a text to the emotions or interests of the audience.
Ex: ". . . Helped feed a wave of national breast-beating over the unfairness of the juvenile justice
system" (Taylor 1).
peer review - A system calling for writers to read or listen to one another's work and suggest ways to
improve it.
Ex: In AP US History, we peer reviewed each other's take-home DBQs.
pentad - Kenneth Burke's system for analyzing motives and actions in communication. The five points of
the pentad are act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose.
periphrasis - The substitution of an attributive word or phrase for a proper name, or the use of a proper
name to suggest a personality characteristic.
Ex 1: "He was no Romeo; but then again, she was no Juliet."
Ex 2: "…I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple…" (Fitzgerald 93).
persona - The character that a writer or speaker conveys to the audience; the plural is personae.
Ex: In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is a persona.
personae - The plural of persona.
Ex: Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby.
personification - The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects.
Ex: The fall season has been personified as "sitting on a granary floor" (Keats).
persuasion - The changing of people's minds or actions by language.
Ex: Protect the environment, for it is what the lives of your children and the future of the world will
depend on.
petitio principi - Begging of the question; disagreeing with premises or reasoning.
Ex: "The bible says god exists and the bible must be right since it is the revealed word of god, so god
exists."
planning - Determining appropriateness of information for audience and for purpose.
Ex: I am in the planning and drafting stages of my research paper.
plot - Arrangement of events in a story.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, Joe and his family meet up, go to California, search for jobs, and live in
various camps. In the end, the only benefit the gain is unity.
plot devices - Elements of plot that operate to cause or resolve conflicts and to provide information.
Ex: Foreshadowing.
poem - Louise Rosenblatt's term for the interpretive moment when reader and text connect.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, this occurs when Steinbeck first describes the surrounding setting with
figurative language.
polyptoton - Repetition of words derived from the same root.
Ex: Repeating words like "strong," "skillful," and "strength."
polysyndeton - Repetition of conjunctions in close succession.
Ex: "We have ships and men and money and stores."
premise, major - The first premise in a syllogism. The major premise states an irrefutable generalization.
Ex: All men are mortal.
premise, minor - The second premise in a syllogism. The minor premise offers a particular instance of
generalization stated in the major premise.
Ex: Some philosophers are men.
prosopopoeia - The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects.
Ex: The window winked at me.
pun - A play on words. Types of puns include anataclasis, words that sound alike but have different
meanings; paranomasia, words alike in sound but different in meaning; and syllepsis, a word used
differently in relation to two other words it governs or modifies.
Ex: "I moss say I'm taking a lichen to that fungi."
purpose - The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text. Also called aim and intention. In a
dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order in invent material, the words the speaker or
writer uses to describe the reason something happened or happens in a particular situation.
Ex: In Pride, Dagoberto Gilb's aim is to define pride and what it means to him.
reader's repertoire - The collection of predictions and revisions a person employs when reading a text.
recursive - Referring to the moving back and forth from invention to revision in the process of writing.
Ex: In writing my research paper, I invent material and revise previously invented material.
refutation - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker would anticipate
objections to the points being raised and counter them.
Ex: Julius Caesar used this method in his speeches to better argue his point.
reliable narrator - A believable, trustworthy commentator on events and characters in a story.
Ex: In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is a reliable narrator, though somewhat secretive.
repetition - In a text, repeated use of sounds, words, phrases, or clauses to emphasize meaning or
achieve effect.
Ex 1: The dog ran, the dog jumped, and the dog whimpered.
Ex 2:"'Hot!' said the conductor to familiar faces. 'Some Weather! … Hot! … Hot! … Hot! … Is it hot
enough … '" (Fitzgerald 121).
rhetor - The speaker who uses elements of rhetoric effectively in oral or written text.
Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald is the rhetor in The Great Gatsby.
rhetoric - The art of analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener
might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective; the specific
features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for
readers or listeners in a situation.
Ex: Diction, scheme, trope, argument, and syntax.
rhetorical intention - Involvement and investment in and ownership of a piece of writing.
Ex: F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby has rhetorical intention.
rhetorical question - A question posed by the speaker or writer not to seek an answer but instead to
affirm or deny a point simply by asking a question about it.
Ex: "Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?" (Shakespeare).
rhetorical 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.
rhetorical triangle - A diagram showing the relations of writer or speaker, reader or listener, and text in a
rhetorical situation.
romance language - A language that is derived from Latin.
Ex: French, Italian.
round character - A figure with complexity in action and personality,
Ex: Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
sarcasm - The use of mockery or bitter irony.
Ex: "That's so funny I forgot to laugh!"
scenic narration - Narration in which an event or a moment of a plot is stretched out for dramatic effect.
Ex: In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the scene in which Myrtle is accidentally killed.
six-part oration - In classical rhetoric, a speech consisting of exordium, narration, partition, confirmation,
refutation, and peroration.
Ex: Franklin D. Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address follows this structure.
slang - Informal language, often considered inappropriate for formal occasions and text.
Ex: "This is sick."
soliloquy - Dialogue in which a character speaks aloud to himself or herself.
Ex: "To be or not to be, that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them"
(Shakespeare).
speaker - The person delivering a speech, or the character assumed to be speaking a poem.
Ex: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
stance - A writer's or speaker's apparent attitude toward the audience.
Ex: Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced the audience in his First Inaugural Address.
static character - A figure who remains the same from the beginning to the end of a narrative.
Ex: Nick Carraway is essentially a static character in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
style - The choices that writers or speakers make in language for effect.
Ex: Part of John Steinbeck's style is to focus on the setting in novels like The Grapes of Wrath.
subject - One of the points on the Aristotelian or rhetorical triangle; the subject matter a writer or
speaker is writing or speaking about.
Ex: John Steinbeck was writing about the Dust Bowl in The Grapes of Wrath.
subordinate clause - A group of words that includes a subject and verb but that cannot stand on its own
as a sentence; also called dependent clause.
Ex: After the dog slept, the dog ran.
summary narration - Narration in which a brief statement of events moves the plot quickly.
Ex: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon includes many summary narrations
when they jump years in time.
support - In a test, the material offered to make concrete or to back up a generalization, conclusion, or
claim.
Ex: "Recent studies in the brain chemistry of rats show that when they play, their brains release large
amounts of dopamine . . ." (Rifkin).