Glossary

adjective

‘The narrow path crossed a steep hill.’

‘Narrow’ describes the path and ‘steep’ describes the hill.

adverb

‘She answered quietly.’

‘Quietly’ tells us how she answered.

alliteration

‘The wind whipped the washing off the line.’

‘Wind’, ‘whipped’ and ‘washing’ all begin with the same ‘w’ sound.

allusion

‘The corridors went on for ever. We called it our own little Hogwarts.’

‘Hogwarts’ refers to the school in the Harry Potter books, which the writer expects the reader to recognise.

analogy

‘Learning a language is like building a house: each new word is another brick.’

The familiar process of building a house is used to explain the less visible process of learning.

anaphora

‘We will listen. We will learn. We will change.’

‘We will’ repeats at the beginning of three successive sentences.

anecdote

‘Last winter, my neighbour slipped on this unlit path and broke her wrist.’

The speaker tells a short true story about a neighbour’s fall to support the point.

antagonist

A ruthless property developer stands in Elena’s way at every turn.

The developer works against Elena’s aim and creates obstacles for her.

anthropomorphism

The fox puts on a coat, writes a letter and complains about the weather.

The fox dresses, writes and complains as a person would.

anticlimax

After weeks of preparation, the ‘monster’ turns out to be a neighbour’s cat.

After a long build-up, the ‘monster’ turns out to be a harmless cat.

antithesis

‘We must learn to live together, not die apart.’

The opposing ideas ‘live’ and ‘die’ are placed in a balanced grammatical pattern.

antonym

‘Ancient’ and ‘modern’.

They have opposite meanings.

archaism

‘Thou art welcome here.’

‘Thou’ and ‘art’ belong to an older form of English rather than present-day everyday speech.

article

• news reports and features in newspapers such as *The Guardian*
• magazine articles in *National Geographic*
• articles on news websites

• written for publication
• a headline
• paragraphs
• can be a news report, a feature, an opinion piece or a review

assonance

‘The low road rolled home.’

The long ‘o’ sound repeats in ‘low’, ‘road’, ‘rolled’ and ‘home’, drawing the words together.

asyndeton

‘We packed blankets, food, torches, water.’

The list removes conjunctions and separates its items with commas.

atmosphere

‘Fog hung over the empty harbour, and somewhere a chain clanked.’

The fog, the empty harbour and the clanking chain give the place an eerie feel.

audience

A safety leaflet uses simple instructions because it is written for the public.

The leaflet’s language is chosen for the general public rather than for specialists.

auditory imagery

‘A siren wailed through the empty street.’

‘Wailed’ describes a sound.

autobiography

• Nelson Mandela’s *Long Walk to Freedom*
• *The Autobiography of Malcolm X*

• written by the person themselves
• first person
• covers much of their life, usually in order
• real people and events

backstory

‘Ever since she was once locked out in a storm, Rosa never left home without a spare key.’

A past event is revealed to explain Rosa’s present behaviour.

bias

‘Local shop owners say the new bypass will ruin their businesses. The council was not asked for comment.’

Only the shop owners’ view is reported, so the account favours one side.

building tension

‘The handle turned. Then it stopped. Then it turned again.’

Each short sentence adds one small detail and delays what happens next.

caricature

‘Mr Grimes had an enormous moustache, a tiny voice and a pocket watch he checked every thirty seconds.’

A few features are exaggerated until they are all the reader knows about him, which makes him comic.

character

Priya is a cautious 12-year-old who collects broken clocks.

Priya is an invented person in the story with recognisable traits and interests.

characterisation

The writer reveals Priya’s caution through her actions, speech and private thoughts.

The writer shows what Priya is like through her actions, speech and thoughts.

chronological structure

The story moves from Monday morning to Monday night in time order.

Events move through the day in the order in which they occur.

cliché

‘At the end of the day, everything happens for a reason.’

Both expressions are so familiar that they no longer sound fresh or original.

cliffhanger

The chapter ends as the locked door begins to open.

The door begins to open, but the chapter stops before revealing what is behind it.

climax

At the trial, the hidden letter is read aloud.

Reading the hidden letter at the trial brings the central conflict to its most decisive point.

colloquial language

‘The lads were having a right laugh.’

‘Lads’ and ‘a right laugh’ are everyday spoken expressions rather than formal written language.

comedy

• William Shakespeare’s *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* and *Twelfth Night*
• Oscar Wilde’s *The Importance of Being Earnest*

• humour
• misunderstandings and mistaken identity
• obstacles that are overcome
• a happy ending, often with marriages

conflict

The protagonist wants to reveal the truth, but her family demands silence.

The protagonist’s aim directly clashes with her family’s demand.

conjunction

‘I stayed because it was raining.’

‘Because’ links the action to its reason.

connotation

The word ‘home’ has connotations of safety, belonging and comfort.

Safety, belonging and comfort are ideas that ‘home’ suggests beyond its basic meaning: a place where someone lives.

consonance

‘Dark work lay ahead.’

‘Dark’ and ‘work’ end with the same ‘rk’ sound, but their vowel sounds are different.

consonant sound

The ‘k’ sound at the start of ‘cat’ and ‘kite’.

The same consonant sound is spelled with different letters.

context

A poem about empty chairs at a family table was written during the First World War.

Knowing when it was written helps the reader understand that the chairs belong to soldiers who did not come home.

contrast

A piece that opens in a crowded, noisy market and ends in an empty room.

The busy opening and the empty ending are opposites, even though they are far apart in the text.

convention

A detective story usually includes clues and a solution.

Clues and a solution are features the reader usually expects in detective fiction.

counter-argument

‘Some argue that the plan costs too much; however, the repairs will prevent larger bills later.’

The objection about cost is acknowledged before the writer answers it with a longer-term benefit.

cyclical structure

A piece that opens with an empty chair at the table and closes on the same empty chair.

The final image repeats the empty chair from the opening.

declarative

‘The road was closed.’

The sentence gives information as a statement rather than asking, commanding or exclaiming.

delayed revelation

A story describes a man waiting at a station all day; only in the last line is it revealed that he is waiting for his son.

The key fact is held back until the very end.

denotation

The denotation of ‘home’ is the place where someone lives.

The explanation gives the word’s direct meaning rather than its feelings or associations.

denouement

A final chapter shows where each character is living one year later.

The later chapter explains the characters’ lives after the main conflict has ended.

determiner

‘Those three books belong on this shelf.’

‘Those’, ‘three’ and ‘this’ specify which nouns and how many.

direct address

‘You already know how this feels.’

‘You’ speaks straight to the reader.

direct speech

‘We have to leave now,’ she said.

The speaker’s exact words appear inside quotation marks.

emotive language

‘No child should face this cruel and needless suffering.’

‘Cruel’, ‘needless’ and ‘suffering’ are strongly emotional word choices.

epilogue

A closing section explains what happened after the central conflict ended.

The closing section tells the reader what happened after the main story.

ethos

‘As a nurse with twenty years’ experience, I have seen what early treatment can do.’

The speaker mentions twenty years as a nurse to show they can be trusted.

euphemism

‘Passed away’ is used instead of ‘died’.

‘Passed away’ is a gentler way of saying ‘died’.

expert opinion

‘Dr Khan, a sleep researcher, recommends a regular bedtime.’

Dr Khan’s specialist role gives the recommendation added authority.

explicit

‘He dreaded opening the letter.’

The feeling is named directly, so the reader does not have to work it out.

exposition

The opening introduces the isolated village, its mayor and the missing bell.

The village, mayor and missing bell establish the people, place and starting problem.

extended metaphor

‘The fire was a dragon. It crawled up the curtains, breathed smoke across the ceiling and swallowed the stairs whole.’

The fire is called a dragon, and the comparison continues through ‘crawled’, ‘breathed smoke’ and ‘swallowed’.

eye rhyme

‘Move’ and ‘love’.

‘Move’ and ‘love’ look as though they should rhyme, but their vowel sounds differ.

facts and statistics

‘Road deaths fell by 18% after the new limit was introduced.’

The precise figure ‘18%’ provides measurable evidence for the claim.

fairy tale

• ‘Cinderella’
• ‘Hansel and Gretel’
• ‘Little Red Riding Hood’
• ‘Rumpelstiltskin’

• magic or enchantment
• clearly good and evil characters
• a task, trial or journey
• often opens ‘Once upon a time’ and ends happily

falling action

After the rescue, the climbers are taken to hospital and slowly tell their families what happened.

The most dramatic moment, the rescue, is over; these calmer events lead towards the ending.

false resolution

‘The engine caught at last. Two miles later, the road ran out.’

The engine starting seems to solve the problem, but a new problem appears straight away.

figurative language

‘The city is a sleeping giant.’

A city cannot literally be a giant; the comparison gives it imagined size, power and life.

first person

‘I carried our bags.’

‘I’ and ‘our’ show that the speaker includes themselves in the account.

first-person narrative

‘I opened the letter and recognised the handwriting.’

‘I’ places the narrator inside the events they describe.

flash-forward

The narrative jumps ahead to show the character as an adult.

The narrative leaves its present moment to show a later stage of the character’s life.

flashback

The smell of smoke takes the narrator back to the night of the fire.

A present smell triggers a scene from the narrator’s past.

flattery

‘A reader as thoughtful as you will already see the problem.’

The writer praises the reader to make them more likely to agree.

focus

One family’s flooded kitchen, and then a paragraph about the whole village.

The writing moves from one family’s kitchen to the whole village.

foil

A reckless friend makes the protagonist’s caution more noticeable.

The friend’s recklessness makes the protagonist’s opposite quality easier to notice.

foreshadowing

A cracked safety rope is mentioned before the climb begins.

The damaged rope is an early hint of danger during the climb.

form

A fourteen-line poem with a set pattern is a sonnet.

The number of lines and established pattern identify the text as a sonnet.

formal language

‘We regret to inform you that your application was unsuccessful.’

‘We regret to inform you’ is carefully phrased and impersonal, fitting an official message.

fricative alliteration

‘The fire flared and filled the room.’

The ‘f’ sound is breathy and continuous, like the rush of the flames.

genre

A story with clues, suspects and an investigation belongs to crime fiction.

Clues, suspects and investigation are recognisable conventions of crime fiction.

gustatory imagery

‘The lemon tasted sharp and bitter.’

‘Sharp’ and ‘bitter’ describe the lemon through taste.

half-rhyme

‘I crossed the bridge and held my grudge.’

‘Bridge’ and ‘grudge’ end with the same ‘j’ sound but have different vowel sounds.

homophone

‘Sea’ and ‘see’.

‘Sea’ and ‘see’ sound alike but have different spellings and meanings.

humour

‘I told the dog to sit. He sat on my homework.’

The dog does as he is told, but in the most unhelpful way possible, which is the joke.

hyperbole

‘I have told you a thousand times.’

Nobody has really said it a thousand times, so the number is an exaggeration.

idiom

‘We were left in the dark about the plan.’

Nobody switched a light off: the phrase means we were told nothing.

imagery

‘Snow had buried the cars on the street until only their wing mirrors showed.’

The detail of the wing mirrors helps the reader picture how deep the snow is.

imperative

‘Close the door.’

The base verb ‘Close’ directs someone to act.

implicit

‘He left the letter on the table, unopened, for a week.’

The writer never says he dreads the letter; the reader has to work it out from what he does.

in medias res

‘The wheels had already left the road when I reached for the handle.’

The story begins in the middle of an accident, before any background is given.

inclusive pronouns

‘We all pretend we have read it.’

‘We’ includes both the writer and the reader.

indirect speech

She said that the train had already left.

The narrator reports the meaning of her words but does not reproduce the exact sentence she spoke.

inference

‘She checked the clock again and pushed her dinner away untouched.’

The writer never says she is worried; the reader works it out from her checking the clock and leaving her food.

informal language

‘Thanks for coming – it’s been great to see you.’

The contraction ‘it’s’ and friendly everyday words make it relaxed rather than formal.

intensifier

‘The water was extremely cold.’

‘Extremely’ increases the degree of coldness.

internal rhyme

‘I drove to the cove before dark.’

‘Drove’ and ‘cove’ rhyme within the same line.

interrogative

‘What were we supposed to do now?’

The sentence asks a question and ends with a question mark.

irony

A fire station burns down.

A building meant to fight fires is itself destroyed by one, reversing what we would expect.

italics

‘I said *Tuesday*, not Thursday.’

‘Tuesday’ is printed in italics to show which word is stressed.

juxtaposition

‘She wore a bright red coat in a grey, silent street.’

The bright red coat and the grey, silent street are placed next to each other in the same sentence.

limited narrator

The narration follows Salma’s thoughts but never reveals what her brother is thinking.

The narration shows only Salma’s thoughts.

listing

‘We packed maps, torches, spare socks and far too much food.’

Four items follow one after another.

literal language

‘The city has a population of two million.’

The sentence gives a factual population figure and means exactly what it says.

logos

‘The new lights use half as much electricity, so they will reduce costs.’

The claim is supported by a clear comparison between energy use and cost.

maxim

‘Look before you leap.’

It is a short, familiar saying that gives general advice about how to behave.

memoir

• Frank McCourt’s *Angela’s Ashes*
• Tara Westover’s *Educated*
• Roald Dahl’s *Boy*

• first person
• focuses on one period, place or experience
• reflects on what the experiences meant
• told with hindsight

metaphor

‘My little brother is a tornado at breakfast.’

He is not really a tornado; he is described as if he were one.

minor sentence

‘No chance.’

‘No chance’ has no main verb. Minor sentences are usually short, but it is the missing verb, not the length, that makes one.

modal verb

‘You will be home by six. You might even be early.’

‘Will’ and ‘might’ are modal verbs working with ‘be’ to show certainty and possibility.

monosyllabic words

‘Stop. Stay. Do not move.’

‘Stop’, ‘stay’, ‘do’, ‘not’ and ‘move’ each have one syllable.

mood

After reading the foggy harbour scene, the reader feels uneasy and expects something bad to happen.

Mood is the reader’s feeling: here, unease.

motif

Images of locked doors recur whenever the character feels trapped.

The image of a locked door returns each time the character feels trapped.

multiple narrators

Alternate chapters tell the same summer from Maya’s and Leo’s viewpoints.

Alternating chapters hand the act of narration from Maya to Leo.

narrative hook

‘By sunrise, everyone in the town knew I was missing.’

The opening line raises an unanswered question: why is the narrator missing?

narrator

‘I did not understand the warning then.’

The first-person voice tells the event from a later point in time.

news article

• front-page reports in daily newspapers
• breaking news stories on the BBC News website

• a headline
• the key facts (who, what, where and when) in the first sentence
• short paragraphs
• quotations from people involved
• a formal, mostly neutral tone

non-fiction

• Anne Frank’s *The Diary of a Young Girl*
• Nelson Mandela’s *Long Walk to Freedom*
• newspaper reports

• real people, events and facts
• can inform, persuade or describe
• includes forms such as articles, letters, speeches and autobiography

non-linear narrative

The novel moves between the present investigation and memories from ten years earlier.

The text moves backwards and forwards between two periods instead of staying in time order.

noun

‘The river flooded the field.’

‘River’ and ‘field’ name physical things.

olfactory imagery

‘The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and smoke.’

‘Cinnamon’ and ‘smoke’ describe smells.

omniscient narrator

‘Tom smiled, hiding his fear of losing; across the room, Ben was already sure he had lost.’

The narrator reveals the private thoughts of both Tom and Ben.

onomatopoeia

‘The gate clanged shut behind us.’

‘Clanged’ imitates the sound of a metal gate shutting.

oxymoron

‘deafening silence’

‘Deafening’ and ‘silence’ have opposing meanings but are placed together.

pace

‘The door slammed. She ran. Footsteps followed.’

Three short sentences, each with a single quick action, make the writing move fast.

paradox

‘The only constant is change.’

Change and constancy seem opposed, yet the statement makes a meaningful point about life.

parallel structure

‘The rain fell on the roofs and ran down the streets.’

‘Fell on the roofs’ and ‘ran down the streets’ follow the same pattern: an action, a preposition and a place.

parody

A story copies the solemn style of an epic to describe making toast.

The story copies the grand style of an epic for the ordinary task of making toast.

pathetic fallacy

‘As we reached the empty house, a cold wind blew through the trees and thunder rolled across the dark sky.’

The cold wind and rolling thunder reflect the uneasy mood as the characters reach the empty house.

pathos

‘The puppy waited alone beside its empty bowl.’

The lonely puppy and empty bowl appeal to the audience’s feelings.

persona

Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Mrs Midas’, written in the voice of King Midas’s wife.

The ‘I’ of the poem is an invented character, not Duffy herself.

personification

‘The city yawned into life.’

Yawning is a human action, but here it is given to the city.

perspective

A reporter describes the flood from the riverbank; a resident describes it from an upstairs window.

The same event is presented differently depending on where the writer stands.

phonetic spelling

‘Nah, I dunno,’ he said.

‘Nah’ and ‘dunno’ are spelled the way they are said, not in standard spelling.

phrase

‘under the old bridge’

The words work together as one unit but do not form a complete clause.

plosive alliteration

‘The bus brakes banged and the doors burst open.’

‘Bus’, ‘brakes’, ‘banged’ and ‘burst’ all begin with the plosive ‘b’ sound.

plot

A student finds a lost phone, tries to return it and uncovers a secret.

The events are linked, each one leading to the next.

polysyllabic words

‘The extraordinary celebration continued.’

‘Extraordinary’ and ‘celebration’ each have several syllables.

polysyndeton

‘We packed blankets and food and torches and water.’

The repeated ‘and’ keeps adding items to the list.

possessive form

‘the teacher’s bag’

The apostrophe and ‘s’ show that the bag belongs to the teacher.

present tense

‘I stand at the door while my hands shake.’

‘Stand’ and ‘shake’ use present-tense forms, presenting the actions as current.

prologue

A short opening scene shows the crime ten years before the main story.

The separate opening presents an earlier event that prepares the main story.

pronoun

‘Noah found the keys and put them away.’

‘Them’ replaces ‘the keys’, avoiding unnecessary repetition.

protagonist

Elena drives the story as she fights to save her grandfather’s bakery.

Elena’s goal drives the main action and keeps her at the centre of the plot.

pun

The bicycle could not stand up because it was two-tired.

‘Two-tired’ sounds like ‘too tired’ while also referring to the bicycle’s two tyres.

purpose

A campaign speech aims to persuade listeners to vote.

The speech is shaped to change how its listeners vote.

red herring

A muddy shoe points towards one suspect, but it came from an unrelated walk.

The shoe appears to support one solution but ultimately has no connection to the crime.

register

‘Please accept my apologies’ suits a formal register; ‘Sorry!’ suits an informal one.

The first apology suits a formal situation; the shorter ‘Sorry!’ suits ordinary conversation.

repetition

‘We waited and we waited. Still nobody came.’

‘We waited’ is used twice.

reporting verb

‘she insisted’ and ‘he admitted’

‘Insisted’ and ‘admitted’ introduce what someone said and show how they said it.

resolution

After weeks of silence, the two friends talk things through and their friendship is restored.

The disagreement at the centre of the story is settled, bringing the conflict to an end.

reversal

‘The boy who was told he would never read wrote the school play.’

The boy who was told he would never read ends up writing the play: the opposite of what was predicted.

rhetoric

‘If we act together, we can make this street safer.’

‘We’ and the promise of a safer street are used to persuade the audience.

rhetorical question

‘Who wouldn’t want a second chance?’

The question makes a point rather than asking for information: everyone would want a second chance, so no answer is expected.

rhyme

‘The moon shone bright / above us that night.’

‘Bright’ and ‘night’ share the same final sound.

rhythm

‘HALF a league, HALF a league, / HALF a league ONward’

The stress falls in a regular pattern on ‘half’ and ‘on’, creating a strong, repeated beat.

rising action

First the lights flicker, then the phone line goes dead, then footsteps sound upstairs.

Each event raises the tension a little more, building towards the most dramatic moment.

rule of three

‘It was cold, wet and endless.’

‘Cold’, ‘wet’ and ‘endless’ are three adjectives grouped together.

sarcasm

After someone drops every plate, a character says, ‘Brilliant job.’

‘Brilliant job’ is mocking rather than sincere after such an obvious failure.

second person

‘You turn left at the gate.’

‘You’ addresses the listener or reader directly.

semantic field

‘Both sides defended their plans at the meeting. Each speaker attacked the other’s figures, and by the end the council had retreated.’

‘Defended’, ‘attacked’ and ‘retreated’ all belong to the semantic field of war.

semicolon

‘The road was flooded; we took another route.’

The semicolon links two complete but closely connected clauses.

sensationalism

‘Killer storm set to bring nationwide chaos!’

‘Killer’ and ‘chaos’ make the forecast sound more extreme and alarming.

sensory imagery

‘The bakery was warm and golden, and the sweet smell of fresh bread drifted out into the cold street.’

It appeals to touch (‘warm’, ‘cold’), sight (‘golden’) and smell (‘the sweet smell of fresh bread’).

setting

The story takes place in a coastal town during the winter of 1940.

The example identifies both where and when the story takes place.

shift

The writer describes a peaceful morning, then begins the next paragraph: ‘Then the sirens started.’

The writing changes from a peaceful morning to the sound of sirens at the start of a new paragraph.

sibilance

‘The sea slid softly across the sand.’

‘Sea’, ‘slid’, ‘softly’ and ‘sand’ repeat the hissing ‘s’ sound.

simile

‘The crowd moved like a slow river towards the gates.’

It uses ‘like’ to compare the crowd to a slow river.

situational irony

A professional thief has his own wallet stolen.

A thief is expected to steal from others, not become the victim of theft.

slang

‘That film was sick.’

‘Sick’ is used informally to mean excellent rather than ill.

speaker

The speaker says, ‘At eighty, I still dream of the sea.’

The ‘I’ is an eighty-year-old voice within the poem, not automatically the poet.

stereotype

‘Teenagers today are glued to their phones.’

It describes all teenagers as if they behave the same way.

structure

A story begins at the ending, returns to the past and closes in the present.

The order of ending, past and present shapes how information is revealed.

subplot

Alongside the main mystery, two friends try to repair their damaged friendship.

The friendship story develops beside the main mystery without replacing it.

suspense

The reader hears footsteps approaching while the character hides under the bed.

The approaching footsteps and hidden character leave the outcome uncertain and threatening.

syllable

‘Garden’ has two syllables: gar-den.

The word breaks into two beats when it is said.

symbol

A broken watch appears whenever the character thinks about lost time.

The watch is a physical object, but its repeated link with lost time gives it a wider meaning.

syndetic listing

‘We packed blankets, food, torches and water.’

‘And’ joins the last two items in the list.

synonym

‘Happy’ and ‘glad’.

They have very similar meanings.

tactile imagery

‘The rough rope burned my palms.’

‘Rough’ and ‘burned’ describe how the rope feels.

technical jargon

‘I clipped the carabiner to the belay loop.’

‘Carabiner’ and ‘belay loop’ are specialist words from rock climbing.

TED Talk

• Ken Robinson’s ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’
• Brené Brown’s ‘The Power of Vulnerability’

• a short talk, usually under twenty minutes
• one main idea
• a live audience
• personal stories and humour
• recorded and shared online

tense

‘She walks’ uses present tense; ‘she walked’ uses past tense.

The change from ‘walks’ to ‘walked’ moves the action from present to past.

terms of address

‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy. ‘Thanks, mate,’ said his brother.

‘Sir’ shows respect and distance; ‘mate’ shows a friendly, equal relationship.

theme

A novel repeatedly explores the cost of ambition.

The cost of ambition is not a single event; it is an idea developed repeatedly across the novel.

third person

‘She carried their bags.’

‘She’ and ‘their’ refer to people other than the speaker and listener.

third-person narrative

‘She opened the letter and recognised the handwriting.’

‘She’ keeps the narrator outside the character being described.

time marker

‘By the third day, the food had run out.’

‘By the third day’ shows when the food ran out.

tone

‘Naturally, the bus was late again.’

‘Naturally’ signals weary sarcasm rather than surprise.

topic sentence

‘School uniform saves families money. One set of clothes lasts all year, and nobody needs the latest brands.’

The first sentence states the main point; the rest of the paragraph supports it.

tragedy

• William Shakespeare’s *Macbeth*, *Romeo and Juliet* and *King Lear*
• Arthur Miller’s *Death of a Salesman*

• a central character who falls from a high position
• a flaw or mistake
• suffering and death
• pity and fear in the audience

travel writing

• Bill Bryson’s *Notes from a Small Island*
• Paul Theroux’s *The Great Railway Bazaar*

• first person
• a real place or journey
• description of people and landscapes
• the writer’s own reactions
• facts mixed with personal experience

turning point

‘Then the letter arrived, and nothing afterwards was the same.’

The arrival of the letter is the moment everything changes.

understatement

After a house is flooded, someone says, ‘We have a slight problem.’

Calling a flooded house a ‘slight problem’ makes the damage sound much smaller than it is.

unreliable narrator

The narrator insists he never lies, but his account repeatedly contradicts the evidence.

The gap between the narrator’s claim and the available evidence makes his version doubtful.

verb

‘The dog barked and ran.’

‘Barked’ and ‘ran’ express actions.

verbal irony

Looking at the pouring rain, he says, ‘Lovely weather.’

‘Lovely weather’ means the opposite when it is said during pouring rain.

visual imagery

‘Red leaves covered the silver car.’

The colours ‘red’ and ‘silver’ and the image of covered surfaces appeal to sight.

voice

A narrator repeatedly jokes, interrupts herself and speaks directly to the reader.

The repeated jokes, interruptions and direct comments create a recognisable speaking personality.

vowel sound

The ‘ee’ sound in ‘see’ and ‘sea’.

The same vowel sound is spelled differently in the two words.

zoomorphism

‘He burrowed into his sleeping bag.’

‘Burrowed’ describes how an animal such as a rabbit digs, but here it describes a person.