APLANG Vocab Packet: F-J

Fact - a piece of information presented as having verifiable certainty or reality

Figures of speech - brief imaginative comparisons that highlight the similarities between things that are basically dissimilar. Also known as similes, metaphors, and personification.

Fiction -comes from a latin word meaning to invent, form or imagine. Works of fiction can be based on actual occurrences but their status as fiction means that something has been imagined or invented in the telling of the occurrence.

Figurative language - umbrella term for all uses of language that imply an imaginative comparison. e.g. "You've just earned your wings", similes, metaphors, symbols

Focus - the limitation that a writer gives their subject. The writer's task is to select a manageable topic given the constraints of time, space, and purpose.

Foreshadowing - a purposeful hint placed in a work of literature to suggest what may occur later in the narrative

Grammar - a set of rules that specify how a given language is ued effectively

Hyperbole - a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used to achieve emphasis. The emphasis is on exaggeration rather than literal representation. Hyperbole is the opposite of understatement. e.g. "my feet are as cold as an iceberg." "I'll die if I don't see you soon"

Idiom - a word or a phrase that is used habitually with a particular meaning in a language. The meaning of an idiom is not always readily apparent to nonnative speakers of that language. e.g. catch cold, hold a job, make up your mind, give them a hand.

Image - a mental picture that is conjured by specific words and associations, but there can be auditory and sensory components to imagery as well. Nearly all writing depends on imagery to effective and imagery. Used by metaphors similes, symbols and personification.

Induction - process of reasoning to a conclusion about all members of a class through an examination of only a few members of the class. This form of reasoning moves from the particular to the general.

Irony - Irony occurs when a situation produces an outcome that is the opposite of what is expected. Also when an author uses words are phrases that are in opposition to each other to describe a person or idea, an ironic tone results.

Juxtaposition - when two contrasting things - ideas, words or sentence elements - are placed next to each other for comparison. Juxtaposition sheds light on both elements in the comparison