English techniques and things to use in exams Flashcards
Pathetic fallacy
Giving human feelings to an inanimate object to describe the mood (usually the weather)
E.g. The sun was smiling down upon him
Hyperbole
An over exaggerated statement used to add extra effect/emphasis to a point.
E.g. ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse’
Oxymoron
Where two words that are typically not associated with one another are used together.
E.g. Small crowd, deafening silence, awfully good
Irony
A statement that signifies the opposite of something or an event that has happened that was unlikely to
E.g. if it were a cold, rainy day, you might say, “What a beautiful day!”
Cliché
An over-used, common expression
Anecdote
A short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person
Colloquial language
Informal language or casual forms of communication in the written form
E.g. ‘Wanna’ is a colloquialism meaning ‘do you want to’
Enjambment
The continuation of a phrase or clause past a line break
(used in many poems)
What is a motif?
Recurring theme throughout the text
E.g. blood in Macbeth
Use this to show understanding of the text
Semantic field
A group of words linked by an overall topic/idea
E.g. darkness and gloom have a semantic field of death
Words for alternative interpretation
Alternatively
Conversely
On the other hand
Contrastingly
Juxtaposingly
Syntax
Order of words in a sentence
E.g. the king led and the men followed - king before the men showing the hierarchical difference
Paradox
A self-contradictory statement but one that is true
