| A | B |
|---|
| alliteration | repetition of beginning consonant sounds |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds within words |
| onomatopoiea | the use of words whose sounds imitate their meaning (i.e., buzz, splash) |
| diction | word choice, i.e., "bucketed" vs. "scored" |
| tone | a writer's implied attitude or feeling toward his or her subject |
| stanza | a division of lines in a poem |
| figurative language | language which is not to be understood literally, but by means of the imagination through images and comparison |
| simile | a comparison between two unlike things stated using "like" or "as" |
| metaphor | a comparison between two unlike things stated without the use of "like" or "as," as if one thing were another |
| personification | figurative language which gives a nonhuman subject human qualities or behaviors |
| rhythm | a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables |
| image | language which appeals to the five senses |
| repetition | using an element more than once to tie a poem together and/or to create emphasis |
| free verse | poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular rhythm |
| haiku | a Japanese form of poetry, with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third (some flexibility is evident) |
| sonnet | a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme |
| symbol | something that stands for itself and something beyond itself |
| allusion | a reference |
| literal language | language to be taken as meaning exactly what it says |
| denotation | the dictionary meaning of a word |
| connotation | associations we have with a word, beyond its dictionary meaning |
| inference | a conclusion you draw based on evidence |
| jargon | the specialized vocabulary of a particular trade or profession. |
| analyze | to break something apart and examine how it works |
| evaluate | to judge how well something is done |
| dialect | speech of a particular area or group |
