Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Summer Assignment Resource

Schemes & Tropes

Schemes:

Schemes of Balance
Parallelism – similarity in structure of related words, phrases, or clauses
(Example: John waited, hoped, and prayed the car would start)
Antithesis – contrasting ideas
(Example: Both chocolate and vanilla are good.)
Tricolon – 3 parallel words, phrases, or clauses
(Example: "You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe.")

Schemes of unusual or inverted word order (hyperbaton)

Anastrophe – inversion of natural word order (i.e. “Yoda speak”)
(Example: Do or do not, there is no try)
Parenthesis – insertion that interrupts the flow of the sentence (can be parentheses or hyphens or brackets)
(Example: Marie (8 years old) is a little girl who goes to school with my brother.)
Apposition – placing coordinate elements side by side, the second serves to explain or modify the first
(Examples: Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, was tall.)

Schemes of Omission
Ellipses – deliberate omission of words that are implied (can be used through …. or a comma)
(Example: So…what happened?)
Asyndeton – deliberate omission of conjunctions between clauses.
(Example: For dessert, there was cake, tea, biscuits, jam, cheese, cookies, cobbler – all kinds of delicacies.)
Polysyndeton – deliberate use of many conjunctions.
(Example: For dessert, there was cake and tea and biscuits and jam and cheese and cookies, and cobbler.)

Schemes of Repetition
Alliteration – repetition of consonant sounds in adjacent words.
(Example: Sally sells shells by the sea shore.)
Assonance – repetition of similar vowel sounds.
(Example: Refresh your zest for living.)
Anaphora – repetition of the same groups of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
(Example: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times; it was our season of discontent.)
Epistrophe – repetition of the same groups of words at the end of successive clauses.
(Example: Last week, he was just fine. Yesterday, he was just fine. And today, he was just fine.)
Epanalepsis – repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause.
(Example: Blood hath brought blood.)
Anadiplosis – repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause.
(Example: The crime was common, common be the pain.)
Antimetabole – repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.
(Example: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.)
Chiasmus – reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses; does not involve repetition of words.
(Example: My heart burned with anguish, and chilled was my body when I heard of his death.)
Symploce – a combination of anaphora and epistrophe.
(Example: When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk
against it.")
Polyptoton – repetition of words derived from the same root.
(Example: It was his strength and skill that made him strong and skillful.)
Tropes:Rhe

Metaphor - a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place
of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.
Simile – comparison using like or as
Synecdoche – figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole.
(Example: The President wants boots on the ground.)
Metonyomy – substitution of an attribute or suggestive word for what is meant; an association.
(Example: She’s planning to serve the dish later this evening.)
Antanaclasis – repetition of a word in two different senses.
(Example: In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party always find you!
Paronomasia – use of words alike in sound but different in meaning.
(Example: Your children need your presence more than your presents.
Apostrophe – when a speaker addresses someone or something that is not present.
(Example: Car, get me to work today.)
Allusion – an implied or indirect reference to an outside source.
(Example: Your backyard is a Garden of Eden.)
Anthimeria – using “one part for another;” replacing one part of speech with another (i.e., a noun as a verb)
(Example: It’s okay; I’ll just Google it.)
Syllepsis (Zeugma) – the use of one word to modify or govern to or more words.
(Example: She broke his car and his heart.)
Periphrasis – a type of circumlocution (or “talking around” something); to describe something in an ambiguous or
indirect manner.
(Example: You know who they are, they’re one of those “Latte-carrying girls” at school.
Personification – to give an inanimate object human characteristics.
Hyperbole – an extreme exaggeration.
Litotes – deliberate use of an understatement.
(Example: After someone hires you, you might say, “Thank you, ma’am, you won’t regret it.” The negation is an
understatement, of course – what you really mean is that your boss will be happy with your performance.
Irony – the opposite of what is intended (can be verbal, situational, or dramatic)
Onomatopoeia – use of words that echo sounds.
(Example: Crack! Snap! Pop!)
Oxymoron – two terms side-by-side that are contradictory.
(Example: Jumbo shrimp)
Paradox – something that is contradictory but true.
(Example: I am nobody.)