Language Terms

1. Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program www.rpdp.net Language Terms SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

2. #1 Identify the device being used: “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” (The Wizard of Oz) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

3. #1 Answer • Polysyndeton • The device of repeating conjunctions in close succession. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

4. #2 Identify the device being used: “Of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

5. Answer #2 • Epistrophe • The repetition of a word or group of words at the end of successive phrases, clauses, verses, or sentences SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

6. #3 Identify the term/device: A pleasing arrangement of sounds SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

7. Answer #3 • Euphony SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

8. #4 Identify the device being used: “Heard melodies are sweet.” (John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

9. Answer #4 • Synaesthesia • The use of one kind of sensory experience to describe another SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

10. #5 Identify the device being used: “All the other lads there were / Were Itching to have a bash.” (Philip Larkin, “Send No Money”) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

11. Answer #5 • Colloquialism • An informal or slang expression, especially in the context of formal writing SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

12. #6 Identify the term/device: The atmosphere of a work of literature; the emotion created by the work SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

13. Answer #6 Mood SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

14. #7 Identify the device being used: Saying “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide” SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

15. Answer #7 • Euphemism • The use of less offensive language to express unpleasant or vulgar ideas, events, or actions SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

16. #8 Identify the term/device: The person (sometimes a character) who tells a story; the voice assumed by the writer. Not necessarily the author (but it can be). SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

17. Answer #8 Narrator SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

18. #9 • The following are examples: • Richard Wright’s Black Boy • Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life • Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

19. Answer #9 • Autobiography • The narrative of a person’s life, written by that person. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

20. #10 Identify the device being used: The moon smiled down at us as we sat by the river. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

21. Answer #10 • Personification • The use of human characteristics to describe animals, objects, or ideas. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

22. #11 Identify the term/device: The character an author assumes in a written work. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

23. Answer #11 Persona SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

24. #12 Identify the term/device: An author’s individual way of using language to reflect his or her own personality and attitudes. An author communicates this through tone, diction, and sentence structure. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

25. Answer #12 Voice SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

26. #13 Identify the term/device: The works of Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Bronte and other great writers. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

27. Answer #13 Canon • An evolving group of literary works considered essential to a culture’s literary tradition. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

28. #14 • The following are examples: • Richard the Lionheart • Shoeless Joe Jackson • The Brooklyn Bomber SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

29. Answer #14 • Epithet • An adjective or phrase that describes a prominent or distinguishing feature of a person or thing SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

30. #15 Identify the device being used: In Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, the nightmares Lockwood has the night he sleeps in Catherine’s bed prefigure later events in the novel. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

31. Answer #15 • Foreshadowing • An author’s deliberate use of hints or suggestions to give a preview of events or themes that do not develop until later in the narrative. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

32. #16 Identify the device being used: The ship was crewed by fifty hands. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

33. Answer #16 Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part of an entity is used to refer to the whole (In this case, “hands” alludes to the people—all of the people—manning the ship.) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

34. #17 Identify the term/device: A technique of detachment that draws awareness to the discrepancy between words and their meanings, between expectation and fulfillment, or, most commonly, between what is and what seems to be. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

35. Answer #17 • Irony (Five types = verbal, situational, romantic, dramatic/tragic, and cosmic) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

36. #18 Identify the term/device: Specific facts or examples used to support a claim in a piece of writing. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

37. Answer #18 Evidence SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

38. #19 Identify the device being used: “Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 129) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

39. Answer #19 Parallelism • The use of similar grammatical structures or word order in two or more sentences, clauses, or phrases to suggest a comparison or contrast between them. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

40. #20 Identify the term/device: The art of persuasion, or the art of speaking or writing well. This involves the study of how words influence audiences. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

41. Answer #20 Rhetoric SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

42. #21 Identify the term/device: The main idea, or principal claim, that is supported in a work of nonfiction. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

43. Answer #21 Thesis statement SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

44. #22 Identify the term/device: The author’s attitude toward the subject or characters of a story or poem, or toward the reader. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

45. Answer #22 tone SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

46. #23 Identify the device being used: Asking the wealthy nations of the world to feed the impoverished nations is like asking people on a full lifeboat to take on more passengers. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

47. Answer #23 Analogy • A comparison based on a specific similarity between things that are otherwise unlike, or the inference that if two things are alike in some ways, they will be alike in others. Often analogies draw a comparison between something abstract and something more concrete or easier to visualize. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

48. #24 Identify the device being used: “And all men kill the thing they love.” (Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”) SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

49. Answer #24 Paradox • A statement that seems absurd or even contradictory but that often expresses a deeper truth. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA

50. #25 Identify the device being used: My teacher is a total psychopath. SNRPDP: Common Core State Standards ELA