Unit+2


 * 1. allusion**. An indirect reference within a text to some person, place, or event outside the text. Such references usually involve characters and events of mythology, legends, religion, history, and literature. 'The face that launched a thousand ships' is an allusion to Helen of Troy.


 * 2. apostrophe**. (Greek, “turning away”). An exclamatory address to some person, thing, or personified abstraction, usually absent.


 * 3. asyndeton. **The omission of conjunctions between a series of clauses, usually producing more rapid prose. Julius Caesar’s “I came, I saw, I conquered.


 * 4. begging the question –** an argumentative ploy where the arguer sidesteps the question or conflict, evades or ignores the real question


 * 5. conceit**. A particularly fanciful metaphor. A comparison of two unlikely things drawn out within a piece of literature.


 * 6. convention**. A literary device, style, usage, situation, or form so widely employed that it has become accepted and even expected by knowledgeable readers or audiences.


 * 7. dialect** – the language idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region or group. For example, the Southern, “y’all.”


 * 8. elegy**. (Greek, //elegeia//, “mournful poem”). A poem or prose work meditating on the death of an individual or on the fact of mortality in general. Elegies are love poems for the dead, tributes and offerings to loss.

**9. eulogy**. A statement or oration in praise of a person, often deceased. An elegy laments, a eulogy praises. In //Julius Caesar//, Mark Anthony eulogizes Brutus : This was the noblest Roman of them all! All the conspirators, save only he, Did that they did in envy of great Caesar; He only, in general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and all the elements So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world 'This was a man!'

**10. extended metaphor –** a series of comparisons within a piece of wiring. If they are consistently once concept, it becomes a conceit.

**11. homily**. A sermon explaining part of the Bible and offering some guidance. More contemporary usage includes any serious talk, speech or lecture.


 * 12. inference** – a conclusion or proposition arrived at by considering facts, observations or data. Based on an author’s claims, you might be able to infer his viewpoint on an issue.


 * 13. Isocolon** – parallel structure in which the elements are similar not only in grammatical structure, but also in length. For example, “Many are called, few are chosen.”


 * 14. jargon**. a way of speech full of unfamiliar terms; the vocabulary of a science, profession, or art.


 * 15. litotes**. (Greek, //litos//, “plain”; “meager”). A rhetorical understatement in which a negative is substituted for a positive remark. For example, "it was no mean feat" means that it was a great accomplishment. Another example would be the phrase, “not bad” for something done well.


 * 16. metonymy**. (Greek, //metonumia//, “name-change”). A figure of speech in which a thing is represented by something closely associated with it. For example, substituting //crown// for //king//, or //Kremlin// for officials in the Russian government.


 * 17. oxymoron**. The combining in one expression of two words or phrases of opposite meaning, for effect. “jumbo shrimp” or “deafening silence.”


 * 18. paradox**. A statement which, though it seems to be self-contradictory, contains a basis for truth. 'Fighting for peace' is a paradoxical concept.


 * 19. personification**. The representation of inanimate objects or abstract ideas as persons, or endowed with personal attributes. Carl Sandburg personifies Chicago as the city with "broad shoulders."


 * 20. pun**. A play on words, of which there are at least two kinds: (1) the repetition of a word in different senses, as in Ben Franklin’s “If we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately”; (2) the use of words alike in sound but different in meaning, as in the riddle, “What’s black and white and //red// all over?” [a newspaper is //read//].


 * 21. semantics**. The branch of philology concerned with word meanings.


 * 22. simile**. An imaginative comparison using the words "like" or "as."


 * 23. synecdoche**. (Greek, “taking jointly”). A figure of speech in which the part is substituted for the whole. An example: All hands on deck; or 50 head of steer had to be moved.


 * 24. tone**. The author's prevailing spirit, mental attitude, moral outlook appearing in the work itself and determining its tone.


 * 25. zeugma**. (Greek, “a yoke or bond”). A figure of speech in which a verb or an adjective is applied to two nouns, without being repeated. It can be used to comic effect such as “the thief took my wallet and the bus” or “I’ve lost my keys and my mind.”