11 KiB
11 KiB
Grade 11 HL English
The course code for this page is ENG3UZ.
Literary Techniques/Devices
Description
- Allusion: A brief and indirect reference to a thing or idea of
significance.
- e.g., “Look at Einstein over there, thinking he’s so smart.”
- Anecdote: A short and usually personal story used to support a point.
- e.g., “You should all be grateful! When I was a young lad, there was this girl that I liked, so what did I do about it? I went straight-up told to her face that I loved her! Of course, she smacked me away as if I were a stray dog, but if I was able to stand up to someone like her, you young’uns should be able to send a simple text message!”
- Hyperbole: An exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis.
- e.g., “If you null pointer me one more time I am going to crush you into two billion pieces!”
- Imagery: The use of words to describe concepts in a way that
involves the five senses.
- e.g., “My mother…how sweet and juicy her tender limbs are.”
- Metaphor: An implicit comparison between two unlike things without
the use of “like” or “as”, used especially to describe abstract ideas
indirectly.
- e.g., “My computer is an absolute potato.”
- Simile: An explicit comparison between two unlike things
with the use of “like” or “as”, used especially to describe
abstract ideas indirectly.
- e.g., “She’s as stupid as an elephant!”
- Litotes: An understatement by negating a very positive or negative
expression.
- e.g., “My marks aren’t the best in the world.”
- Personification: The application of human concepts to non-humans,
such as human-like speech. This is a common example of a metaphor.
- e.g., The rock blinked at me with a cute face unlike any other I had seen before. “…Owo. Uwu?”
- Adjectives and adverbs: Words that directly describe and modify
nouns and verbs, respectively.
- e.g., The traitorous man died painfully.
Sound
- Alliteration: A number of words with the same beginning sound that
appear close together.
- e.g., The dancing damsel dazzled the crowd.
- Assonance: A number of words with the same vowel sound, not at the
beginning, that appear close together.
- e.g., The cat in the hat knows a lot about that!
- Cacophony: The use of words and phrases that are harsh to the ear by
using consonants that require pressure to to say (e.g., p, b, d, g, k,
ch-, sh-).
- e.g., How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
- Consonance: A number of words with the same consonant sound, not at
the beginning, that appear close together.
- e.g., Shelley sells shells by the seashore.
- Dialect: A regional variety of language with spelling, grammar, and
pronunciation that differentiates a population from others around them.
- e.g., “There’s five of them dirty ducks flappin’ out and about, sir!”
- Euphony: The use of words and phrases that are pleasing to the ear
by using long vowel sounds, harmonious constants (l, m, n, r, f, v), and
soft consonants or semi-vowels (w, s, y, th, wh).
- e.g., “The velvet…it’s so lovely, and so very soft…”
- Onomatopoeia: A word which imitates a sound effect.
- e.g., The cat meowed as he looked on with adoring eyes that tore through my squealing heart.
- Pun: A play on words that involve words with similar sounds but
different meanings.
- e.g., “Lettuce finish our salads.”
- Repetition: Using a phrase for emphasis multiple times within close
proximity.
- e.g., “I was too late. I was far too late. My dog…she tried her best.”
- Rhyme: A repetition of words whose end syllables sound similar.
- e.g., Roses are red / Violets are blue / Your family is dead / And you will be too
- Rhyme scheme: The rhyming pattern or structure at the end of each
line of poetry.
- e.g., the above poem uses ABAB as its rhyme scheme.
- Rhythm: The usage of stressed and unstressed syllables to
demonstrate patterns, especially in verses.
- Anapest: Three syllables, in which the first two are unstressed
while the last is stressed.
- e.g., “’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house“
- Dactyl: Three syllables, in which the first is stressed while the
rest are unstressed.
- e.g., “Marvelous!”
- Iamb: Two syllables, in which the first is unstressed while the
second is stressed.
- e.g., To be, or not to be, that is the question.
- Spondee: Two syllables, both of which are stressed.
- e.g., “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Dylan Thomas)
- Trochee: Two syllables, in which the first is stressed while the
second is unstressed.
- e.g., Double, double, toil and trouble (William Shakespeare)
- Anapest: Three syllables, in which the first two are unstressed
while the last is stressed.
Organisation and Pace
- Blank verse: An non-rhyming verse with a regular rhythmic structure,
most commonly iambic pentameter (10 syllables/line,
unstressed-to-stressed pattern)
- e.g., But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, / So far from cheer and from your former state (William Shakespeare)
- Enjambment: A single thought in a line of poetry using two lines.
- e.g., If I were a potato / The world would be a tomato.
- Caesura: A pause, represented by two vertical lines (“||”), most
commonly found in the middle of a line. Masculine caesurae follow
stressed syllables while feminine caesurae follow ununstressed ones.
They are also distinguished by their location in the line: Caesurae near
the beginning, middle, or end of a line are referred to as initial,
medial, and terminal caesurae, respectively.
- e.g., You’re stupid! || But so am I.
- Form:
- Ballad: A poetic story set to music relying on simple language, commonly containing romance and tragedy.
- Concrete poem: A poem written, arranged, or “drawn” in a way that its visual appearance is most important in conveying meaning.
- Couplet: Two consecutive rhyming lines in a verse with the same rhythmic structure.
- Dirge: A somber song expressing grief or mourning.
- Dramatic monologue: A character’s speech written in the form of poetry.
- Lyric: A collection of verses and choruses with a single speaker to create a non-narrative poem or song.
- Ode: A complex poem praising or glorifying an event or individual, typically formal and solemn.
- Quatrain: A verse or poem with four lines.
- Sonnet: A 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter (10 syllables/line, stressed-to-unstressed pattern).
- Free verse: A poem without rhythm or rhyme schemes.
- Genre: A work classified by its form, content, and style. Poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction are the four main genres of literature.
- Line: A typically straight sequence of characters that ends at the last character before a newline.
- Meter: The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a verse or poem.
- Stanza: A collection of four or more lines of poetry with with a fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme, similar to a paragraph in prose.
- Sentence types: The use of simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.
- Sentence lengths: The number of characters or words present in a sentence.
- Syntax: A set of rules in a language regarding the order of words.
- e.g., Die, he will, versus He will die.
- Dialogue vs. narrative: The use of explicit speech versus a description of events.
Meaning
- Abstract language: The use of words that connect intangible ideas or
emotions as opposed to physical actions or things.
- e.g., She was beautiful.
- Allegory: The use of characters and events to describe an abstract
idea to teach a moral lesson.
- e.g., Animal Farm by George Orwell, which uses farm animals and their actions to describe the Russian Revolution.
- Ambiguity: A statement or phrase whose meaning is unclear. This can
usually be resolved via context.
- e.g., Nintendo sold 22 million of them.
- Colloquialism: The use of informal phrases or slang in writing.
- e.g., “Pog!”
- Concrete language: The use of words that reference physical actions
or things as opposed to intangible ideas or emotions.
- e.g., She had black hair that reached down to her neck.
- Connotation: An implied meaning from a phrase that differs from its
explicit and direct meaning.
- e.g., I carried him for the entire assignment.
- Contrast/Juxtaposition: A comparison between multiple ideas or
things by placing them side by side.
- e.g., It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… (Charles Dickens)
- Denotation: The literal meaning of a word.
- e.g., “My old computer no longer functions.”
- Diction: The word choice used by a speaker or writer to create an
effect.
- e.g., “I shall take Her Majesty back to the carriage.”
- Epigram: A brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising
or satirical statement.
- e.g., “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
- Irony: An unexpected event or statement revealing what was believed
to be true was false.
- e.g., Thunder boomed as rain poured down all around the classroom. “Nice weather we’re having today.” (Verbal)
- e.g., The fire station burned down. (Situational)
- e.g., The cat fell over, its head completely severed. Meanwhile, Johnny whistled in his car, thinking of all the treats and belly rubs he would give his precious kitty. (Dramatic)
- Jargon: Specialised terms that use actual words, which are usually
unfamiliar to the layman.
- e.g., p53 is responsible for holding the cell cycle at the G1/S checkpoint and will induce apoptosis if damage to the cell’s deoxyribonucleic acid is too great.
- Motif: An recurring object or idea used to explain the theme.
- e.g., The usage of life in Maycomb to show goodness and recurring images of gloomy areas supports the central idea of co-existence of good and evil.
- Oxymoron: The pairing of two opposing or contradictory words.
- e.g., It was her only choice.
- Paradox: A statement that appears to be self-contradictory at first
glance, typically used to allow the reader to think over an idea
differently.
- e.g., All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. (George Orwell)
- Pathetic fallacy: A form of personification in which inanimate
objects in nature are given emotions.
- e.g., The wind roared as the earth shook in fury at our insolence.
- Symbol: The use of objects to represent an abstract idea.
- e.g., I smiled at the group of people assembled before me. They smiled back. “With the power of friendship and determination, we can overcome anything!”
- Tone: The attitude of a writer or character toward a subject or
audience, typically through word choice.
- e.g., “I don’t want to! That candy is MINE, and no one is going to take it from ME! Mine, mine, MINE!”
- Theme: The “main idea” or underlying meaning of a literary work,
which can be given directly or indirectly.
- e.g., “Never forget that you are royalty, and that hundreds of thousands of souls have suffered and perished so you could become what you are. By their sacrifices, you have been given the comforts you take for granted. Always remember them, so that their sacrifices shall never be without meaning. (ScytheRider)