AP LANGUAGE

1
AP LANGUAGE COMPOSITION

• Rhetorical Terms Review
• Set 5
• Language Devices

2
Periphrasis

• Definition substitution of a descriptive word
  or phrase for a proper name or of a proper name
  for a quality associated with the name.
• Examples
• The big man upstairs hears your prayers.
• They do not escape Jim Crow they merely
  encounter another, not less deadly variety.
  (James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name,)

3
Imagery

• Definition lively descriptions which appeal to
  the five senses.
• Example
• The dog stood up and growled like a lion,
  stiff-standing hackles, teeth uncovered as he
  lashed up his fury for the charge (Hurston,
  Their Eyes Were Watching God)
• "When the others went swimming my son said he was
  going in, too. He pulled his dripping trunks from
  the line where they had hung all through the
  shower and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no
  thought of going in, I watched him, his hard
  little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince
  slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the
  small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the
  swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of
  death. (E.B. White, "Once More to the Lake,"
  1941)

4
Metaphor

• Definition a figure of speech in which one thing
  is compared to another by being spoken of as
  though it were that thing
• Examples
• The question of federal aid to parochial schools
  is a bramble patch.
• David was a lion in battle.

5
Oxymoron

• Definition a figure of speech in which
  contradictory terms or ideas are combined
• Examples
• "O brawling love! O loving hate! / O anything of
  nothing first create! / O heavy lightness,
  serious vanity! / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming
  forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold
  fire, sick health!" (Romeo, Act One from Romeo
  and Juliet)
• Jumbo shrimp

6
Paralipsis

• Definition drawing attention to something by
  pretending to pass over it.
• Examples
• Mark Antonys famous Friends, Romans, Countrymen
  speech Let the commons hear this
  testament,/Which (pardon me) I do not mean to
  read,/And they would go and kiss dead Caesars
  wounds/have patience, gentle friends I must not
  read it./It is not meet you know how Caesar lovd
  you/Tis good you know not that you are his
  heirs.
• "The music, the service at the feast,The noble
  gifts for the great and small,The rich adornment
  of Theseus's palace . . .All these things I do
  not mention now."(Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale,"
  The Canterbury Tales)

7
Personification

• Definition a figure of speech in which an
  inanimate object or abstract concept is endowed
  with human attributes.
• Examples
• And indeed there will be time/for the yellow
  smoke that slides along the street,/Rubbing its
  back upon the window panes. (T.S. Eliot, The
  Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock)
• A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/Against the
  earths sweet-flowing breast."(Joyce Kilmer,
  Trees)

8
Simile

• Definition an explicit comparison of two
  things, usually with the word as or like
• Examples
• He had a posture like a question mark.
• Like an arrow, the prosecutor went directly to
  the point.

9
Symbol

• Definition a person, place, action, or thing
  that represents something other than itself.
• Examples
• The rose bush outside the prison in The Scarlet
  Letter
• The conch shell in Lord of the Flies

10
Alliteration

• Definition the repetition of initial or medial
  consonants in two or more adjacent words
• Examples
• A sable, silent, solemn forest stood. (James
  Thomson, The Castle of Indolence)
• Already American vessels had been searched,
  seized, and sunk. (JFK, Profiles in Courage)

11
Assonance

• Definition the repetition of similar vowel
  sounds in the stressed syllables of adjacent
  words.
• Examples
• Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the
  distant Aidenn,It shall clasp a sainted maiden
  whom the angels name Lenore--Clasp a rare and
  radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.
  (The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe)Whales in the
  wake like capes and Alps. (from Ballad of the
  Long-Legged Bait, Dylan Thomas)