UNIT 1 Literary Terms Academic Vocabulary Grammar Terms

Literary Term: Voice ■Voice is a writer’s (or speaker’s) distinctive use of language to express ideas as well as his or her persona.

Literary Term: Tone ■Tone is a writer’s (or speaker’s) attitude toward the subject. Tone is conveyed through the person’s choice of words and detail.

Literary Term: Diction ■Diction refers to a writer’s word choices, which often convey voice and tone.

Literary Term(s): Narrative/Narrator ■ A narrative is a story about a series of events that included character development, plot structure, and theme. A narrative can be a work of fiction or nonfiction. ■ A narrator is the person telling the story and is often the protagonist or main character of the story.

Figurative Language ■Figurative Language: The use of words to describe one thing in terms of another. (such as similes and metaphors)

Imagery ■ Imagery – The words or phrases, including specific details and figurative language, that a writer uses to represent persons, objects, actions, feelings, and ideas descriptively by appealing to the five senses (touch, smell, taste, sound, sight).

Academic Vocabulary: Infer/Inference ■ To infer or to make an inference is to come to a conclusion about ideas or information not directly stated. You infer something based on reasoning and evidence (details).

Academic Vocabulary ■ testament – evidence that something is true ■ terminal – extreme, severe ■ inconspicuous – not easy to see or notice ■ reconstitute – to change something by adding water to it

Grammar Terms: ■ Dash – Writer’s uses dashes to indicate a break in thought or speech, Dashes provide a sharper break than commas, and emphasize certain content. Dashes can also be used to indicate an unfinished statement or question.

Grammar Term: compound sentence ■ A compound sentence is two or more simple sentences joined by a comma and a coordinating conjunction—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

Grammar Term: Parallel Structure ■ Parallel Structure – A sentence has parallel structure when related ideas are expressed in the same grammatical form. By using parallel structure, writers can create sentences that communicate even complex ideas very clearly.