- Allegory: A narrative that has two separate meanings.
- Alliteration: Where two or more words begin with the same sound and occur in
sequence.
- Allusion: A reference to something completely separate from the text in which it
appears.
- Ambiguity: When a word or phrase has a double meaning.
- Ambivalence: Having mixed feelings about something.
- Analogy: Illustrating the subject under discussion by making a parallel comparison.
- Analysis: The detailed study and explanation of a text.
- Anecdote: The recounting of a small incident to illustrate a point; sometimes
humorous.
- Anthropomorphism: Talking or writing about animals as though they were human
beings.
- Aphorism: A pithy observation which contains a general truth. For example “the
child is father to the man.”
- Appeal: An appeal is a text, usually part of a campaign, most often aiming to
fundraise.
- Association of ideas: When one idea calls to mind another, often used in
advertising.
- Assonance: Where two or more similar vowel sounds within words occur in
sequence. For example “with wise lies lure me.”
- Atmosphere: A general way of describing mood.
- Ballad: A long, narrative poem characterised by regularity of rhythm and rhyme.
- Bathos: Comic device where a climax is met with something unimportant and
anticlimactic.
- Bias: Promoting one specific point of view in a text and deliberately excluding others.
- Cacophony: Unpleasant, inharmonious sound effect.
- Caesura: A pause or break in the middle of a line of verse.
- Campaign: A series or collection of different text types with one specific aim,
frequently used in fundraising and in advertising.
- Caption: Brief text accompanying and explaining and image.
- Caricature: An exaggerated depiction of a person.
- Catharsis: The effect on the audience of the downfall of the tragic hero/ine; a feeling
of relief or pity.
- Characterisation: The way a writer creates a character in order to convince the
reader.
, - Colloquial: Informal language; often specific to a particular social, local or age-
related group.
- Comedy: A broad literary genre which ends happily or satisfactorily.
- Comic exaggeration: Exaggeration for humorous effect.
- Commentary: Close, detailed description of a literary or non-literary text. This can be
either written or oral and in both cases is structured as an essay.
- Connotation: The connotations of a word are its secondary meanings, overtones
and implications.
- Consonance: The repetition of consonant sounds at the end of a word often found in
poetry and in advertisements.
- Conventions: The particular aspects of language use that typify a text type are
called its language conventions. They are the aspects of language use you would
expect to find in a given text type. For example, persuasive devices in an
advertisement.
- Critique: A reasoned criticism of a piece of writing.
- Dialogue: A conversation between two people.
- Diction: Choice of vocabulary and phrases; for instance, can be conversational,
rhetorical, formal or informal.
- Dissonance: Organisation of words that is not harmonious but discordant.
- Dramatic Irony: Occurs in plays where the audience knows more about the events
than the characters do. As such the characters do not understand the magnitude of
what they are saying, but the audience does.
- Editorial: The article in a newspaper or journal which expresses the publication’s
opinions on the news.
- Elegy: A formal literary tribute to someone who has died.
- Emotive: Creating emotion in the reader; not simply describing emotion.
- End rhyme: Where rhyme occurs at the end of lines of verse.
- Enjambement: Where one line of poetry runs into the next.
- Eye rhyme: Where words look the same but sound different.
- Fable: A story with a moral, intending to teach a lesson. George Orwell called Animal
Farm a fable.
- Figurative language: Language that is not literal.
- Form: In poetry, usually the arrangement of lines and stanzas.
- Genre: The word used to describe a literary text type.
- Homonym: A word with more than one meaning, often used in puns.
- Homophone: A word that sounds the same as another but is spelt differently.
- Hyperbole: An extreme exaggeration.
- Alliteration: Where two or more words begin with the same sound and occur in
sequence.
- Allusion: A reference to something completely separate from the text in which it
appears.
- Ambiguity: When a word or phrase has a double meaning.
- Ambivalence: Having mixed feelings about something.
- Analogy: Illustrating the subject under discussion by making a parallel comparison.
- Analysis: The detailed study and explanation of a text.
- Anecdote: The recounting of a small incident to illustrate a point; sometimes
humorous.
- Anthropomorphism: Talking or writing about animals as though they were human
beings.
- Aphorism: A pithy observation which contains a general truth. For example “the
child is father to the man.”
- Appeal: An appeal is a text, usually part of a campaign, most often aiming to
fundraise.
- Association of ideas: When one idea calls to mind another, often used in
advertising.
- Assonance: Where two or more similar vowel sounds within words occur in
sequence. For example “with wise lies lure me.”
- Atmosphere: A general way of describing mood.
- Ballad: A long, narrative poem characterised by regularity of rhythm and rhyme.
- Bathos: Comic device where a climax is met with something unimportant and
anticlimactic.
- Bias: Promoting one specific point of view in a text and deliberately excluding others.
- Cacophony: Unpleasant, inharmonious sound effect.
- Caesura: A pause or break in the middle of a line of verse.
- Campaign: A series or collection of different text types with one specific aim,
frequently used in fundraising and in advertising.
- Caption: Brief text accompanying and explaining and image.
- Caricature: An exaggerated depiction of a person.
- Catharsis: The effect on the audience of the downfall of the tragic hero/ine; a feeling
of relief or pity.
- Characterisation: The way a writer creates a character in order to convince the
reader.
, - Colloquial: Informal language; often specific to a particular social, local or age-
related group.
- Comedy: A broad literary genre which ends happily or satisfactorily.
- Comic exaggeration: Exaggeration for humorous effect.
- Commentary: Close, detailed description of a literary or non-literary text. This can be
either written or oral and in both cases is structured as an essay.
- Connotation: The connotations of a word are its secondary meanings, overtones
and implications.
- Consonance: The repetition of consonant sounds at the end of a word often found in
poetry and in advertisements.
- Conventions: The particular aspects of language use that typify a text type are
called its language conventions. They are the aspects of language use you would
expect to find in a given text type. For example, persuasive devices in an
advertisement.
- Critique: A reasoned criticism of a piece of writing.
- Dialogue: A conversation between two people.
- Diction: Choice of vocabulary and phrases; for instance, can be conversational,
rhetorical, formal or informal.
- Dissonance: Organisation of words that is not harmonious but discordant.
- Dramatic Irony: Occurs in plays where the audience knows more about the events
than the characters do. As such the characters do not understand the magnitude of
what they are saying, but the audience does.
- Editorial: The article in a newspaper or journal which expresses the publication’s
opinions on the news.
- Elegy: A formal literary tribute to someone who has died.
- Emotive: Creating emotion in the reader; not simply describing emotion.
- End rhyme: Where rhyme occurs at the end of lines of verse.
- Enjambement: Where one line of poetry runs into the next.
- Eye rhyme: Where words look the same but sound different.
- Fable: A story with a moral, intending to teach a lesson. George Orwell called Animal
Farm a fable.
- Figurative language: Language that is not literal.
- Form: In poetry, usually the arrangement of lines and stanzas.
- Genre: The word used to describe a literary text type.
- Homonym: A word with more than one meaning, often used in puns.
- Homophone: A word that sounds the same as another but is spelt differently.
- Hyperbole: An extreme exaggeration.
