IB Lang Lit HL flashcards
IB Lang Lit HL · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Guiding question
- The prompt attached to a Paper 1 unseen text that directs analysis; the thesis must answer it directly, and every paragraph should link back to its key terms.
- Implied reader
- The audience a text assumes and constructs through its address, values, and knowledge assumptions; distinct from any actual or historical readership.
- Analepsis
- A narrative movement backward in time, such as a flashback or memory sequence, which reorders chronology and can reframe present events.
- Prolepsis
- A narrative jump forward to future events, creating anticipation, dramatic irony, or a sense of inevitability for the reader.
- Narrative duration
- The relationship between story time and discourse time; scene, summary, stretch, ellipsis, and pause each produce different pacing effects.
- Iterative frequency
- Narration that recounts once what happened many times ('each morning she...'), compressing routine into a single narrative statement.
- Free indirect discourse
- Third-person narration that absorbs a character's voice, idiom, or judgments without quotation marks, blurring narrator and character perspectives.
- Register
- The level of formality and the social positioning of language, shaped by audience, purpose, and situation; shifts in register signal shifts in power or tone.
- Diction
- Word choice considered for connotation, register, and precision; analysing diction means explaining why this word rather than a near-synonym.
- Irony
- A gap between what is stated and what is meant, or between expectation and outcome, which positions the reader to infer the unstated meaning.
- Intertextuality
- The way texts gain meaning through reference to other texts, including allusion, quotation, parody, genre convention, and adaptation.
- Parody
- An imitation of a text or style that exaggerates its features for comic or critical effect, often revealing the conventions it targets.
- Pastiche
- An imitation of another style or genre without satirical intent, often used to evoke a period, form, or authorial manner.
- Allusion
- An indirect reference to another text, event, or cultural artefact that assumes shared knowledge and adds a layer of meaning.
- Genre contract
- The expectations a genre establishes for readers; writers can satisfy, complicate, or break these expectations for deliberate effect.
- Thematic connection
- A link between texts based on a shared idea or concern, which becomes analytical only when the treatment or perspective is compared.
- Comparative thesis
- A single-sentence claim for Paper 2 that answers the question and states how the two works converge and diverge in treating it.
- Line of inquiry
- The focused, arguable question guiding the HL essay; it should target a specific textual aspect rather than a broad theme.
- Paper 2 balance
- The requirement that both works receive substantive analytical treatment; measured by depth of analysis, not equal word counts.
- Counter-argument
- An alternative reading acknowledged and then resolved; it demonstrates evaluative depth rather than undermining the thesis.
- Text type conventions
- The typical features of a form such as a speech, column, or advertisement; identifying them helps explain purpose, audience, and deviation.
- Visual grammar
- The analysis of layout, image, colour, font, and spacing as deliberate choices that construct meaning alongside written language.
- Embedded quotation
- A short quotation woven into the candidate's own sentence so that its wording can be analysed grammatically and semantically.
- Feature-spotting
- Naming a technique without explaining its effect on meaning or reader; it weakens analysis and should be replaced by function claims.
- Authorial choice
- A textual decision (word, structure, image) inferred from evidence in the text; it must be linked to an effect, not asserted as intent.
- Context of reception
- The historical and cultural circumstances in which a text is read, which can produce meanings different from those of its production.
- Symbolic space
- A setting that carries psychological or thematic meaning, such as a locked room representing confinement or a threshold representing transition.
- Deixis
- Words whose meaning depends on context, such as now, here, and you; tracking them reveals shifts in time, place, and address.
- Adaptation
- A text reworked into another medium or form; analysis asks what is preserved, altered, or omitted and what that reveals.
- HL essay word count
- The Higher Level essay runs 1,200 to 1,500 words; exceeding or falling short of the range can affect assessment.
- Assessment criteria
- The four HL essay criteria: knowledge and understanding, analysis and evaluation, focus and organisation, and language.
- Single-text focus
- The HL essay analyses one text studied in the course; comparison across two works belongs to Paper 2, not the HL essay.