Language Device List

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.

Alliteration
The repetition of an initial consonant sound.

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 rhetor seeks to persuade not by giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for the famous.

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.

Asyndeton
The omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses (opposite of “polysyndeton”).

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.

Clause
A group of words that contains a subject and a predicate.

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 concedes a disputed point or leaves a disputed point to the audience or reader to decide.

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.

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.

Dialect
A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.

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.

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.

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

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 reality more options are available.

Figurative Language
Language in which figures of speech (such as metaphors, similes, and hyperbole) freely occur.

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.

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
The quality of a verb that conveys the writer’s attitude toward a subject.

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.

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.

Rhetoric
The study and practice of effective communication.

Rhetorical Question
A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected.

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.

Syllogism
A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

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, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.

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.

Thesis
The main idea of an essay or report, often written as a single declarative 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.

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.

RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES
FIGURES OF SPEECH
metaphor
simile
personification
oxymoron
metonymy
synecdoche
antithesis
irony
allusion
pathetic fallacy

REPETITION
anaphora
epistrophe
isocolon
tricolon
chiasmus
antimetabole
anadiplosis
polysyndeton

SYNTAX
periodic sentence
rhetorical question
rhetorical fragment
telegraphic sentence
balanced sentence
parallel structure
aposiopesis
anthyphophora

SYNTAX
periodic sentence
rhetorical question
rhetorical fragment
telegraphic
Source(s):
SYNTAX
periodic sentence
rhetorical question
rhetorical fragment
telegraphic sentence
balanced sentence
parallel structure
aposiopesis
anthyphophora

SYNTAX
periodic sentence
rhetorical question
rhetorical fragment
telegraphic sentence
balanced sentence
parallel structure
aposiopesis
anthyphophora

SOUND DEVICES
assonance
consonance
alliteration
onomatopoeia
euphony
rhyme
meter

SOUND DEVICES
assonance
consonance
alliteration
onomatopoeia
euphony
rhyme
meter

These are what I used to review for the AP Language exam and they helped.