Academic Vocabulary Terms

a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics.

• metaphor
• personification
• anadiplosis
• ellipsis

consists of descriptive language that can function as a way for the reader to better imagine the world of the piece of literature.

• simile
• irony
• imagery
• anaphora

A comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words like or as.    

• simile
• metaphor
• epistrophe
• alliteration

the use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest future action.

• flashback
• rhyme
• onomatopoeia
• foreshadowing

occurs when a situation turns out differently from what one would normally expect—though often the twist is oddly appropriate.      

• verbal irony
• situational irony
• dramatic irony
• sarcastic irony

a poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, often creating an effect of surprise and wit.    

• parallellism
• juxtaposition
• epanalepsis
• epistrophe

The speed an author chooses to take when connecting important points or sections of the story

• narrative pace
• juxtaposition
• polysyndeton
• parellellsim

central message of a literary work. It’s the idea the author wishes to convey about that subject

• author's purpose
• theme
• main idea
• thesis

a comparison of two unlike things not using like or as:

• simile
• anaphora
• metaphor
• alliteration

  a form of personification in which the absent or dead are spoken to as if present, and the inanimate as if animate.  

• apostrophe
• asyndedton
• epistrophe
• antithesis