LANGUAGE TECHNIQUES DEFINITION/WHAT TO LOOK FOR concrete nouns words for things you can see/touch e.g. table/church/book etc. abstract nouns words for things you can imagine/feel e.g. love/pain/idea/thought adjectives words that describe nouns e.g. large/impressive/private verbs doing words e.g. pray/kiss/stab adverbs words that describe verbs e.g. slowly/bravely/foolishly personal pronouns e.g. me/you/him/her possessive pronouns e.g. mine/yours/his/hers exclusive pronouns e.g. me vs you / us vs them inclusive pronouns e.g. we/us/our prepositions words that tell you where something is e.g. on/above/opposite groups of words related to a particular topic e.g. animal imagery, imagery to do imagery with light, religious imagery, natural imagery etc. visual imagery when there are lots of words to do with things that you can see tactile imagery when there are lots of words to do with different textures olfactory imagery when there are lots of words to do with smells/tastes aural imagery when there are lots of words to do with sounds simile comparing two things using as/like describing one thing as if it was something else without using as/like/than e.g. metaphor She is the ship on which I must travel personification describing an object as if it were a person e.g. The walls fell to their knees words that are linked to emotion, or provoke strong emotions in the audience emotive language e.g. hate, love, children hyperbole exaggerations superlatives words that show extremity e.g. tallest, shortest, cleverest, biggest exclamations sentences ending with an exclamation mark rhetorical questions questions with an obvious answer imperative verbs commands declarative statements statements of fact e.g. I felt sad, she came home, we gave up pun a play on words, sometimes sexual innuendo use of sexual puns foreshadowing words that hint at what will happen later on when you suggest the weather has emotions e.g. the heavens wept pathetic fallacy or when the weather echoes a character’s emotions e.g. rain > sad repetition of a letter sound at the start of several words repetition of ‘s’ sounds is called sibilance repetition of ‘f’/‘ph’ sounds is called fricative alliteration repetition of ‘h’ sounds is called aspirant alliteration alliteration repetition of ‘m’ sounds is called bilabial alliteration repetition of ‘l’ sounds is called liquid alliteration repetition of ‘p’/’b’ sounds is called plosive alliteration repetition of ‘d’/’t’ sounds is called dental alliteration the main purpose of alliteration is to emphasise other techniques any letter other than a, e, i, o, u consonant can be hard like 'b'/'d'/'p'/'t'/'c'/'k'/'ck' or can be soft like 'l'/'f'/'ph'/'s' repetition of a particular consonant within a sentence consonance can be hard like 'b'/'d'/'p'/'t'/'c'/'k'/'ck' or can be soft like 'l'/'f'/'ph'/'s' a, e, i, o, u vowel can be long like 'ah', 'ee', or 'oo' or can be short like 'a' or 'e', 'i', 'o', or 'u' repetition of a vowel sound within a sentence assonance can be long vowels like 'ah' or 'ee' or 'oo' or can be short vowels like 'a' or 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' FORMAL TECHNIQUES DEFINITION/WHAT TO LOOK FOR stanza what poems are divided into (like paragraphs, but in poetry) free verse where there’s no clear pattern in terms of how many lines per stanza block-form where the whole poem’s just one stanza couplets where each stanza’s two lines long tercets where each stanza’s three lines long quatrains where each stanza’s four lines long pentains where each stanza’s five lines long sestet where you have a stanza of six lines octet where you have a stanza of eight lines sonnet A poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter with a regular rhyme scheme A type of sonnet featuring alternating rhyme in the first three quatrains, Elizabethan sonnet followed by a rhyming couplet: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG A type of sonnet featuring arch rhyme for the first two quatrains, followed by Petrarchan sonnet various rhyming patterns in the remaining six lines: e.g. ABBA CDDC EFG EFG blank verse A type of verse, but without any rhyming lines rhymed verse A type of verse with one/more rhymed lines irregular rhyme Where there’s no obvious rhyming pattern regular rhyme Where there is an obvious pattern to the rhyme rhyming couplet Two lines of verse, often rhymed to suggest harmony or a sense of completion When the first and third lines rhyme, and the second and fourth lines rhyme: alternating rhyme e.g. ABAB When the first and fourth lines rhyme and the second and third lines rhyme: arch-rhyme e.g. ABBA half-rhyme When the rhyme words sort of rhyme, but not perfectly e.g. love/prove When a poem is written in quatrains, and the first and third line don’t rhyme but ballad rhyme the second and fourth lines do e.g. ABCB A line of 10 syllables with five stressed beats e.g. di-DUM-di-DUM-di-DUM-di- iambic pentameter DUM-di-DUM A line of 8 syllables with four stressed beats e.g. di-DUM-di-DUM-di-DUM-di- iambic tetrameter DUM when most of the lines have the same number of syllables, but one or two lines hypermetric lines have more those lines are hypermetric when most of the lines have the same number of syllables, but one or two lines catalectic lines have fewer those lines are catalectic when a sentence starts on one line and runs onto the next line with no enjambment punctuation at the end of the line to stop it end-stopping when there is punctuation at the end of the line caesura when there’s punctuation somewhere in the middle of a line STRUCTURAL TECHNIQUES DEFINITION/WHAT TO LOOK FOR juxtaposition placing two things together for effect antithesis placing two opposite/contrasting things or ideas together for effect oxymoron/paradox placing two impossible things together for effect sentences with more than one clause; clauses are often separated by commas, complex sentences hyphens, or brackets longer sentences featuring connectives such as and/but/so/for/or/nor/yet/so/ compound sentences because/although etc. simple sentences sentences with a subject, a verb, and sometimes an object; tend to be short grammatically incomplete sentences; they might be missing a verb or might only fragments contain a verb e.g. My only love! / e.g. Come! / e.g. Now! repetition repetition of the same word/phrase asyndetic listing listing without connectives e.g. bread, milk, cheese, rice, eggs syndetic listing listing with connectives e.g. bread and milk and chees and rice and eggs Sentences that have a similar structure but slightly different words e.g. I have a parallel sentences vision, I have a purpose, I have a dream.