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A paraprosdokian ( / pærəprɒsˈdoʊkiən /) is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.
Parataxis (from Greek: παράταξις, "act of placing side by side"; from παρα, para "beside" + τάξις, táxis "arrangement") is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conjunctions or with the use of coordinating, but not with subordinating conjunctions.
A thesaurus (pl.: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where you can find different words with same meanings to other words), sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as ...
Synonym list in cuneiform on a clay tablet, Neo-Assyrian period. A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous. The ...
In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing.
Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle (in the U.S.) or dazzle painting, is a family of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards.
Terry Eagleton outlines (more or less in no particular order) some definitions of ideology: The process of production of meanings, signs and values in social life; A body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class; Ideas that help legitimate a dominant political power; False ideas that help legitimate a dominant political power
In linguistics, intonation is the variation in pitch used to indicate the speaker's attitudes and emotions, to highlight or focus an expression, to signal the illocutionary act performed by a sentence, or to regulate the flow of discourse.
An example is the meaning of words provided in dictionary definitions by giving synonymous expressions or paraphrases, like defining the meaning of the term ram as adult male sheep. There are many forms of non-linguistic meaning that are not examined by semantics.
Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical derivation to create new words. It is often used when a speaker adopts a tone more "expressive" or figurative than ordinary speech and is also often, but not exclusively, iconic in meaning.