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PRAXIS (0041) Terms
PRAXIS (0041) Terms
82
English
Undergraduate 4
02/19/2012

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Term
Allegory
Definition
A story in which people (or things or actions) represent an idea or a generalization about life. Allegories usually have a strong lesson or moral.
Term
Alliteration
Definition
A repetition or initial consonant sounds in words.
Term
Allusion
Definition
A reference to a familiar person, place, thing, or event.
Term
Analogy
Definition
A comparison of objects or ideas that appear to be different but are alike in some important way.
Term
Anapestic meter
Definition
Meter that is composed of feet that are short-short-long or unaccented-unaccented-accended, usually used in light or whimsical poetry, such as a limerick.
Term
Anecdote
Definition
A brief story that illustrates or makes a point.
Term
Antagonist
Definition
A person or thing working against the hero of a literary work (the protagonist)
Term
Aphorism
Definition
A wise saying, usually short and written.
Term
Apostrophe
Definition
A turn from the general audience to address a specific group of persons (or personified abstraction) who is present or absent. For example, in a recent performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet turned to the audience and spoke directly to one women about his father's death.
Term
Assonance
Definition
A repetition of the same sound in words close to one another - for example, white stripes.
Term
Blank verse
Definition
Unrhymed verse, often occuring in iambic pentameter.
Term
Caesura
Definition
A break in the rhythm of language, particularly a natural pause in a line of verse, makred in prosody by a double vertical line.
Term
Characterization
Definition
A method an author uses to let readers know more about the characters and their personal traits.
Term
Cliche
Definition
An expression that has been used so often that it loses its expressive power.
Term
Consonance
Definition
Repetition of the final consonant sound in words containing different vowels - for example, stroke of luck.
Term
Couplet
Definition
A stanza made up of two rhyming lines.
Term
Diction
Definition
An author's choice of words based on their clearness, conciseness, effectiveness, and authenticity.
Term
Archaic
Definition
Old-fashioned words that are no longer used in common speech.
Term
Colloquialisms
Definition
Expressions that are usually accepted in informal situations or regions.
Term
Dialect
Definition
A variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic region.
Term
Jargon
Definition
Specialized language used in a particular field or content area.
Term
Profanity
Definition
Language that shwos disrespect for others or something sacred.
Term
Slang
Definition
Informal language used by a particular group of people among themselves.
Term
Vulgarity
Definition
Language widely considered crude, disgusting, and oftentimes offensive.
Term
End rhyme
Definition
Rhyming of the ends of lines of verse.
Term
Enjambment
Definition
Also know as run-on line in poetry. Enjambment occurmes when on line ends and continues onto the next line completing meaning. For example, in Thoreau's poem "My life has been the poem I woudl have writ," the first line is "My life has been the poem I would have writ," and hte second line completes the meaning - "but I could not both live and utter it."
Term
Existentialism
Definition
A philosophy that values human freedom and personal responsibility.
Term
Flashback
Definition
A literary device in which the author jumps back in time in the chronology of a narrative.
Term
Foot
Definition
A metrical foot is defined as one stressed syllable and a number of unstressed syllables (from zero to as many as four).
Term
Iambic
Definition
Unstressed, stressed.
Term
Trochaic
Definition
Stressed, unstressed.
Term
Anapestic
Definition
Unstressed, unstressed, stressed.
Term
Dactylic
Definition
Stressed, unstressed, unstressed.
Term
Foreshadowing
Definition
A literary technique in which the author gives hints or clues about what is to come at some point later in the story.
Term
Free verse
Definition
Verse that contains an irregular metrical pattern and line length; also known as vers libre.
Term
Genre
Definition
A category of literature defined by its style, form, and content.
Term
Heroic couplet
Definition
A pair of lines of poetic verse written in iambic pentameter.
Term
Hubris
Definition
The flaw that leads to the downfall of a tragic hero.
Term
Hyperbole
Definition
An exaggeration for emphasis or rhetorical effect.
Term
Imagery
Definition
The use of words to create pictures in the reader's mind.
Term
Internal Rhyme
Definition
Rhyme that occurs within the line of a verse.
Term
Irony
Definition
The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or expected meaning.
Term
Dramatic irony
Definition
The reader sees the character's errors, but the character does not.
Term
Verbal irony
Definition
The writer says one thing and means another.
Term
Situation irony
Definition
The purpose of a particular action differs greatly from the result.
Term
Malapropism
Definition
A type of pun, or a play on words, that results when two words become mixed up in the speaker's mind.
Term
Metaphor
Definition
A figure of speech in which a comparison is implied but not stated, such as "This winter is bear."
Term
Meter
Definition
A rhythmical pattern in verse that is made up of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Term
Mood
Definition
The feeling a text evokes in the reader, such as a sadness, tranquility, or elation.
Term
Moral
Definition
A lesson a work of literature is teaching.
Term
Narration
Definition
The telling of a story.
Term
Onomatopoeia
Definition
The use of sound words to suggest meaning, as in buzz, click, or vroom.
Term
Oxymoron
Definition
A phrase that consists of two contradictory terms - for example, "deafening silence."
Term
Paradox
Definition
A contradictory statement that makes sense.
Term
Personification
Definition
A literary device in which animals, ideas, and things are represented as having human traits.
Term
Point of view
Definition
The perspective from which a story is told.
Term
First person
Definition
The story is told from the point of view of one character.
Term
Third person
Definition
The story is told by someone outside the story.
Term
Omniscient
Definition
The narrator of the story shares the thoughts and feelings of one character.
Term
Limited omniscient
Definition
The narrator shares the thoughts and feelings of one character.
Term
Camera view
Definition
The narrator records the action from his or her point of view, unaware of any of the other character's thoughts or feelings. This perspective is also known as the objective view.
Term
Refrain
Definition
The repetiton of a line or phrase of a poem at regular intervals, particularly at the end of each stanza.
Term
Rhetoric
Definition
Persuasive writing.
Term
Rhythm
Definition
The regular or random occurence of sound in poetry.
Term
Setting
Definition
The time and place in which the action of a story takes place.
Term
Simile
Definition
A comparison of two unlike things, usually includes the word like or as.
Term
Style
Definition
How the author uses words, phrases, and sentences to form ideas.
Term
Symbol
Definition
A person, place, thing, or event used to represent something else, such as the white flag that represents surrender.
Term
Tone
Definition
Teh overall feeling created by an author's use of words.
Term
Transcendentalism
Definition
Philosophical movement focused on protesting the Puritan ethic and materialism.
Term
Verse
Definition
A metric line or poetry. A verse is named based on the kind and number of feet composing it.
Term
Voice
Definition
Distinctive features of a person's speech and speech pattern.
Term
Ballad
Definition
A short poem, often written by an anonymous author, comprised of short verses intended to be sung or recited.
Term
Canto
Definition
The main section of a long poem.
Term
Elegy
Definition
A poem that is a mournful lament for the dead.
Term
Epic
Definition
A long narrative detailing a hero's deads.
Term
Haiku
Definition
A type of Japenese poem that is written in 17 syllables with three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively.
Term
Limerick
Definition
A humorous verse form of five anapestic (composed of feet that are short-short-long or unaccented-unaccented-accented) lines with a rhyme scheme of aabba.
Term
Lyric
Definition
A short poem about personal feelings and emotions.
Term
Sonnet
Definition
A fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme.
Term
Stanza
Definition
A division of poetry named for the number of lines it contains.
Term
Denouement
Definition
The outcome or resolution of plot in a story.
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