Language, Style and Rhetoric
This domain tests how language choices make meaning and how rhetoric persuades. Expect questions on diction, syntax, figurative language, tone, and the named rhetorical appeals.
Diction and syntax
- Denotation is dictionary meaning; connotation is the associations a word carries.
- Register is the level of formality; tone is the attitude implied.
- A periodic sentence withholds its main clause to the end; a loose sentence states it first.
- Balance and parallelism repeat grammatical shape; antithesis sets opposites against each other.
Schemes and tropes
A scheme arranges words: anaphora (repeated opening), epistrophe (repeated ending), chiasmus (reversed order), tricolon (three-part list), asyndeton (no conjunctions), polysyndeton (many conjunctions). A trope turns meaning: metaphor, irony, hyperbole, litotes, personification. Naming the wrong category loses the mark even when the figure is correct.
Appeals
Ethos is the speaker's authority and character; pathos is the audience's emotion; logos is reasoning and evidence.
Worked example
'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields.' The repeated opening is anaphora; the three places form a tricolon; the commas without 'and' are asyndeton. This is a scheme, not a trope, because it arranges words rather than substituting meaning. Effect: an incantatory rhythm that builds resolve and fixes the sentence in memory.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling any repetition anaphora.
- Confusing tone with mood.
- Labelling parallelism as chiasmus when the order is not reversed.
- Describing adjectives instead of analysing syntax.