AP Rhetorical Terms

The relationship between the author, the audience, the text/message, and the context.

• Rhetorical Appeals

• DIDLS

• Aristotelian appeals

• Rhetorical Triangle

Similar to mood, this term describes the author’s attitude toward his material, the audience, or both

• Tone

• Mood

• Style

• Atmosphere

This term has two purposes: (1) an evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices. Some authors’ _______ are so idiosyncratic that we can quickly recognize works by the same author (or a writer emulating that author’s _________).

• Style

• Diction

• Imagery

• Details

The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Usually it is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction, it may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing.

• Theme

• Tone

• Attitude

• Mood

A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them. It can explain something unfamiliar by associating it with or pointing out its similarity to something more familiar.

• Ambiguity
• Analogy
• Anecdote
• Antecedent

The use of language in a non-literal way; i.e. metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole

• Aristotelian appeals

• Figurative Language

• Evidence

• Symbolism

Three different methods of appealing to an audience to convince them—ethos, logos, and pathos.

• Persuastive Tools

• Argumentation

• Ariestrotsky Appeals

• Aristotelian appeals

Reasoning in which a conclusion is reached by stating a general principle and then applying that principle to a specific case

• Deductive Reasoning

• Inductive Reasoning

• Argumentation

• Logical Reasoning

In order to fully understand the novel Great Gatsby, it is important to know that the time period is in the Jazz Age soon after World War I and the crash of the Stock Market.

• Exposition

• Setting

• Historical Context

• Background

Placing two elements side by side to present a comparison or contrast.

• Irony

• Juxtaposition

• Simile

• Metaphor