Exam Key Vocab Flashcards
(24 cards)
Etymology
The study of the history of a word or phrase, its development and its origin.
Germanic languages
Languages such as Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse; words inherited from these languages are often associated with simplicity or strength.
Romance languages
Languages that derive from Latin; words inherited from these languages are often associated with beauty or sophistication.
Morphology
The study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words.
Derived word
A word formed from a root word combined with a prefix or a suffix.
Dialect
A particular form of a language specific to a region or social group.
Colloquial language
Words or turns of a phrase specific to a region or country.
Revitalization (of language)
An attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one.
Tragic hero
A character who is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but on the good side of middling, who falls from a position of good fortune to a position of misery, suffering or death as a result of his/her hamartia.
Hamartia
A word of Greek origin originally meaning ‘to miss the mark’ or ‘to err,’ it comes to mean a great or fatal flaw in the character of a tragic hero.
Soliloquy
An extended speech made while a character is alone or unheard on stage, representing the inner thoughts of a character voiced aloud for the benefit of the audience.
Verse
Written or spoken language arranged to fit a metre.
Rhyming couplet
A pair of successive lines that rhyme, often used in Shakespeare’s plays to signal the end of a scene or act, to indicate high emotion, or in speeches of magic.
Dramatic irony
A literary or theatrical situation where an audience knows something that the characters do not, used to increase a sense of tension or for comedic effect.
Imagery
Figurative and/or metaphorical language used to stimulate the reader’s senses and to create a strong, symbolic or memorable sensory impression.
The great chain of being
The belief in a set hierarchical structure of all matter and life, beginning with God and angels, to monarchs, nobles, and other humans, then to animals, plants, and finally rocks and minerals at the bottom.
Character Type
A method of categorising characters based on the perception of conventions and/or commonalities.
The Outsider
A character who does not belong to a particular circle, community, or group because s/he is in some way different. Often this character gains insights from standing on the edge of belonging.
Antagonist
A character in a narrative who actively opposes the protagonist, often as a rival or enemy.
Narrative arc
A framework that gives chronological structure to a story by guiding the plot. From inciting incidents, through rising tensions, a climactic moment, falling tensions and some form of clear resolution.
Idealism
Having an unrealistic belief in perfection that is opposite to realism; often characterized by understanding and representing ideas or events in over-simplified terms.
Realism
Attempting to understand or represent things and events they believe actually is true. Seen as the opposite to idealism.
Satire
The use of humour, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticise a person’s ignorance or vices.
(particularly in the context of politics or social issues)
Writing back
A process where an author in a colonized space opposes the literary canon in their writing by challenging its traditional conceptions, conventions and/or ideas.
