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1. Researching, Writing and Presenting Information - A How To Guide: Glossary of Literary Terms

Glossary of Literary Terms

Affective: Relating to a thoughtful consideration and evaluation of emotions and values associated with an idea or set of ideas.

Allegory: An extended metaphor in the form of a narrative in which characters, actions and settings are used to construct meanings outside the narrative.

Alliteration: The repetition of consonants in words and phrases.

Allusion: A reference to a historical, literary or mythological event, person or place.

Analogy: A form of comparison which points to a clear similarity between two things.

Anecdote: A brief story or narrative of a particular event.

Antagonist: An opponent, one who strives against the protagonist.

Appropriated Text: A text which has been taken from one context and translated into another. The process of translation allows new insights into the original text and emphasises contextual differences between the two.

Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds in words and phrases.

Colloquial: A term used to describe speech or language use which is informal, perhaps careless, as in ordinary conversation.

Composing: The activity that occurs when students produce written, spoken, or visual texts. Composing typically involves the shaping and arrangements of textual elements to explore and express ideas and values. It involves the processes of imagining, drafting, appraising, reflecting and refining. It depends on knowledge of the texts, their language forms, features and structures.

Connotation: The suggestions or implication evoked by a word, phrase or statement

Context: The range of personal, social, historical, cultural and workplace conditioned in which a text is responded to and composed.

Dramatic Irony: The implication or knowledge possessed by an audience but not by a character.

Evaluate: To estimate the worth of a text in a range of contexts and to justify that estimation and its process.

Figurative: Involving a figure of speech especially metaphor, not literal. Free Verse Poetry which seems to have no set pattern, stanzas or rhyme scheme.

Genre: A category of text that can be recognised by specific aspects of its subject matter, form and language.

Hyperbole: Exaggeration used in order to provide emphasis. Imagery The representation in words of a sensory experience, often forming a mental picture, usually through the use of comparison.

Irony, Ironical: Use of a statement whose form or tone indicates a meaning contrary to its apparent or stated meaning.

Juxtaposition: An act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.

Language Forms And Features: The symbolic patterns and conventions that shape meaning in texts. These vary according to the particular mode or meaning of production of each text.

Literal: The primary or strict meaning of a word, true to fact.

Literary Device: A technique or strategy used to create an effect in a literary text, eg metaphor.

Medium: The physical form in which the text exists or though which the text is conveyed.

Metaphor: A comparison that says one thing is another.

Metre: A regular rhythm in verse; the measurement of poetry.

Motif: A recurring image, theme or phrase in literature.

Onomatopoeia: Words which describe sounds and also sound like that which they describe.

Paradigm: Organising principles and underlying beliefs that form the basis of a set of shared concepts.

Paradox: A statement which appears to contradict itself but which contains a truth.

Parody: A satirical imitation of a piece of serious writing, designed to mock the original. Perspective A way of regarding situations, facts and texts and evaluating their relative significance.

Personification: Objects are given human characteristics.

Popular Culture: Cultural experiences widely enjoyed by members of various groups within a community.

Prose: A piece of continuous writing which is not verse or dialogue.

Protagonist: The main character of a literary text, whose conflict constitutes the chief interest of the text and who strives against the antagonist.

Pun: A play on words in which two meanings for a single word are emphasised for comic effect.

Register: The use of language in a text appropriate for its purpose, audience and context. A register suited to one kind of text may be inappropriate in another.

Representation: The ways ideas are portrayed through texts.

Satire: Comic writing in which the purpose is to attach through mockery.

Symbolism: Objects which are used to represent something else.

Synthesis: The collecting and connecting of many specific elements or ideas from various sources to form something new.

Texts: Communication of meaning produced in any medium that incorporates language, including sound, print, film, selection and multimedia representations. Texts include written, spoken, non-verbal or visual communication of meaning. They may be extended unified works or series of related pieces.

Tone: The feeling or atmosphere of a text conveyed by the words.