IB English HL Terms (Excluding Drama & Poetry)

Narrative of an extended metaphor with characters that are personified abstractions, which are sometmes capitalized

Death, Greed, Virtue

Repetition of the same consonant sounds

Reference to a person, text, or event outside the text

Doubftulness or uncertainty in interpretation

Coexsitence of opposing attitudes or feelings

Something that is out of its proper chronological order

Broad term for comparison based on similarity; simile, metaphor, conceit, and allegory are examples

Repetition of words that ends one clause at the beginning of the next

There is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false impression.

Repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of a series of phrases, lines, or sentences. Similar to parallelism, but in parallelism there is repetition of grammatical construction, not necessarily the same word or words at the beginning.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; / I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise

Brief story about an amusing or interesting (usually autobiographical) event.

Something trivial or commonplace that follows a series of significant events; usually these follow the climax of a story.

Figure of speech that emphasizes opposing ideas or attitudes by a juxtaposition of contrasting, but parallel words and phrases

Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.

Figure of speech in which the narrator/speaker addresses an inanimate object as if alive.

When a writer strives to express the sublime or sentimental, but goes too far and the piece becomes absurd, ridiculous, and subject to satire.

Account of a person’s life written, assembled, or produced by another.

Act of creating and developing a character.

Whe the writer states or directly describes a character’s traits.

When the writer shows a character's personality through his or her actions, thoughts, feelings, words, and appearance, or through another character's observations and reactions.

When the word order in one clause is inverted in the other; also called inverted parallelism:

I’ll do’t, but it dislikes me

Trite or overused expression or idea:

• Wise as an owl

• Be there for someone

• He didn't know his own mind

• See the writing on the wall

• Comfort zone

• Think outside the box

• Making the best of it

Elaborate extended metaphor comparing two very different things, creating a surprisingly apt parallel:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot:

• Human versus human

• Human versus Nature

• Human versus him/herself

Associative meanings of a word in addition to its literal sense, as in stench (negative), odor (negative/neutral), smell (neutral), aroma (positive). May be personal and individual, or general and universal.

Specific or direct meaning of a word found in the dictionary, in contrast to its figurative or associated meaning.

Philosophical doctrine that every event, action, and decision is the inevitable consequence of elements of fate, independent of human will.

Regional variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.

Choice and use of words in speech or writing, as part of a writer's style. May be, e.g., formal or informal, plain or ornate, common or technical, abstract or concrete, polysyllabic or monosyllabic; a writer could also use ______ from a certain area, such as natural or mechanical.

Repetition of a word or words at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause:

I am not what I am.

Extended simile elaborated in great detail.

Comprehension or perception of reality by a sudden realization or discovery of a truth that changes a character; also called a crystallized moment.

Repetition of a word or expression at the end of successive phrases or lines:

...of the people, by the people, ...for the people.

Philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the indivdual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.

Analogy that continues to be elaborated through detail.

Language that uses imagery and figures of speech, like simile, metaphor, personafication, hyperbole, etc.

Literary or cinematic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative; showing events that happened at an earlier time, often used in modern fiction.

Technique of arranging events and information so that later events are prepared for or hinted at early in a narrative.

Category of artistic composition, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content, such as epic, tragedy, lyric, comedy, satire, drama, novel, short story, and nonfiction.

Figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect:

• I could sleep for a year

• This book weighs a ton

Use of vivid language to represent objects, actions, or ideas. May be visual (from sight), auditory (from sound), olfactory (from smell), tactile (from touch), gustatory (from taste), or kinesthetic (from body movement).

Something in the work that shows a discrepancy or contradiction.

Various links in form and content that bind a text to other texts, such as when a novel contains a song or poem from outside the narrative.

Voabulary peculiar to a group or profession.

Act of placing things side by side for the purposes of comparing or contrasting.

A recurring or repeated theme in a musical, artistic, or literary work.

Primary, non-figurative meaning of a word.

Figure of speech that contains an understatement for emphasis, the opposite of hyperbole:

• Saying “not bad” to something that is very good or beautiful

• It took a few days to build the Great Wall of China

Use of detail peculiar to a particular region and environment to add interest and authenticity to a narrative, including description of the locale, dress, customs, and music.

The universe in its entirety, the larger reality or “big picture.”

A sort of miniature system that represents a larger system.

Technique in which highly imaginitive elements (supernatural, myth, dream, fantasy) invade and contrast with the realism of a work.

Incorrect use of a word by substituing a similar sounding, usually polysyllabic word, creating a comic effect:

I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious [contiguous] countries.

A type of writing that addresses the devices of fiction or written composition, self-consciously and draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually through irony and self-reflection.

• The Things They Carried

Figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison:

All the world's a stage.

Has a tenor (original subject) and vehicle (what gives the original subject new attributes; in the above example, world is the tenor, and stage is the vehicle.

Figure of speech which replaces or substitutes the name for something closely associated with it

• the crov for the monarchy

• the press for the news media

• the bench for the judiciary

• the law as the police

Recurring element in a work that has thematic significance; it may consist of a character, an object, a repeated image, or a verbal pattern. Differs from a theme in that a theme is an idea set forth by a text, where a _____is a recurring element which symbolizes that idea:

• The green light in The Great Gatsby

Explanations of the natural order and cosmic forces; story that is not “true,” involves supernatural events and explains how something came to exist.

Person or entity telling a story to a reader in a literary work; in a poem, though, the preferred term is persona or speaker. A reader needs to determine to what extent they are reliable or unreliable.

Works that show as strong interest in, sympathy with, and love of natural beauty: a belief that everything that exists is apart of nature and can be explained by natural causes.

Statement that bears no relatioship to the context preceding.

A point of view in a narrative in which a third- person narrator is able to reveal insights into characters and settings that would not be otherwise apparent from the events of the story and which no single character could be aware of.

A point of view in a narrative in which a third person narrator reveals the thoughts of one character.

The writer is otside the work, writing about other people and therefore is detached from it.

Formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

Figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined:

• A deafening silence

• Sweet sorrow

• Honest thief

Seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true:

Standing is more tiring than walking.

Repetition of a sentence pattern or grammatical structure (not necessarily the same exact words).

The absence of connecting words such as conjunctions or transitions; the effect is terseness and compression:

He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac.

Imitative use of words, style, attitude, tone, and ideas of an author in such a way as to make the author or his or her ideas look ridiculous.

Literary work that portrays or evokes rural life, usually in an idealized manner, displaying nostalgia for the past or a hypothetical state of love and peace that has been lost.

Either the speaker (1st), the individual addressed (2nd), or the individual or thing spoken (3rd).

Figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions given human qualities or are represented possessing human form.

Repetition of a word or phrase for emphasis, or to extend meaning by using different grammatical forms of a word:

• Make war upon themselves—brother to brother / Blood to blood, self against self

• Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death?

Position of a narrator in a piece of literature: first person ("I"), third person limited omniscient (narrator enters the mind of one character), and third person omniscient (the narrator enters the minds of all characters).

Repetition of words derived from the same root, such as different parts of speech:

• Thou art of blood, joy not to make things bleed

• Not as a call to battle, though embattled we are

• Greeks are strong, and skillful to their strength, fierce to their skill, and their fierceness valiant

• With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder

Repetition of conjunctions (and, nor, for, etc.) in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses:

• Either by speaking too loud, or tainting his discipline, or from what over course you please

• Around the dinner table sat my father and my mother and her sister and me and an empty chair for my brother

Short, pithy saying in frequent and widespread use that expresses a basic truth or practical precept:

• Actions speak louder than words

• Kindness begets kindness

Play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

The documenting of life with bare truth, not idealsm; focus on gritty, truthful scenes of people and their (usually difficult) lives.

The process of looking for evidence to support beliefs, conclusions, actions, or feelings. There are three types.

A type of reasoning. Valid because the argument’s conclusion must be true when the premises are true:

• Humans are mortal. Margaret is human. Margaret is mortal.

A type of reasoning. The premises do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Instead, the conclusion follows with some degree of probability:

• The sun has risen in the east every morning up until now. The sun will also rise in the east tomorrow.

A type of reasoning. It is invalid because of logical fallacies in the form or content of the argument:

• If A, then B. Not A, therefore not B.

• She is the best poet I have ever read because she is the best poet.

Verbal irony that is intended to make its victim the subject of contempt or ridicule.

Literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.

False or exaggerated emotion used to evoke a reader response.

Figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as:

• How like the winter hath my absence been

• So are you to my thoughts as food to life

Language of the street, common, informal language, also called colloquial speech.

Conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image:

Southerners are lazy and Northerners are smart.

Literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as the thoughts develop:

Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him good.

The way or manner in which something is written. May be analyzed by studying diction, figurative language, rhetorical devices, syntax, and a piece’s formal structure.

Conveys personal experience and feeling (such as anecdote and autobiography).

What is implied but not written.

Anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation.

Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. Dependent on culture. Common examples:

• fire - passion or anger

• lily - purity or innocence

• light and darkness - life and death or knowledge and ignorance or joy and sorrow

• dove - peace

• closed fist -- aggression

• raised hands -- surrender

The use of anaphora and epistrophe in the same sentence:

When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.

A figure of speech in which a part of something is substituted for the whole (it is a type of metonymy):

• Hands ~ workers

• Suits ~ businesspeople

Description of one kind of sense impression by using words that usually describe another, such that it appeals to multiple senses:

• Blinding roar

• Soft wind

• Heavy silence

• Black look

• Hard voice

• Cold eye

Order or sequence of words in a sentence.. May be conventional (as in everyday speech, which in English is subject-verb-object), unconventional (breaking the rules or conventions of grammar), or balanced (word arrangement for parallelism or contrast).

Sometimes a writer will invert normal ______ to enhance compression or rhythm:

Whose woods these are I think know.

Redundancy or needless repetition of the same sense in different words; saying the same thing twice.

General quality, effect, atmosphere, and mood; the writer's attitude or manner toward the subject or readers/audience. Some adjectives to describe it:

• formal or informal

• intimate or impartial

• ironic

• defensive or condescending

• somber, anxious, serious

• playful, celebratory, empathetic