The Language of Composition: Additional Glossary Terms

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. alliteration
    use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word
  2. allusion
    passing reference or indirect mention
  3. anaphora
    repetition of a word or phrase to begin successive clauses
  4. anecdote
    short account of an incident
  5. annotation
    the act of adding notes
  6. archaic
    so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period
  7. assertion
    a declaration that is made emphatically
  8. asyndeton
    omission of conjunctions where they would normally be used
  9. beg the question
    assume that the argument one is trying to prove is true
  10. bias
    a partiality preventing objective consideration of an issue
  11. exordium
    the introductory section of an oration or discourse
  12. figurative
    not literal
  13. focus
    the concentration of attention or energy on something
  14. hortative
    serving to urge or call to action
  15. inversion
    the reversal of the normal order of words
  16. irony
    incongruity between what is expected and what occurs
  17. metonymy
    substituting the name of a feature for the name of the thing
  18. modifier
    a content word that qualifies the meaning of a noun or verb
  19. paradox
    a statement that contradicts itself
  20. parallelism
    repetition of similar or equivalent syntactic constructions
  21. peroration
    the concluding section of a rhetorical address
  22. polysyndeton
    using several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted (as in `he ran and jumped and laughed for joy')
  23. qualitative
    involving distinguishing attributes
  24. rhetorical question
    an inquiry that is not supposed to be answered
  25. satire
    a literary genre that uses humor to ridicule human failings and vices
  26. stance
    a rationalized mental attitude
  27. synecdoche
    using part of something to refer to the whole thing
  28. synthesis
    the combination of ideas into a complex whole
  29. synthesize
    combine so as to form a more complex product
  30. trope
    language used in a nonliteral sense
  31. understatement
    something said in a restrained way for ironic contrast
  32. wit
    verbal skill that has the power to evoke laughter
  33. zeugma
    rhetorical use of a word to govern two or more words
Created on Tue Apr 27 15:28:39 EDT 2021 (updated Tue Jul 20 11:02:50 EDT 2021)

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