Every major technique by family — with examples, effect vocabulary and Band 6 analysis formulas.
| Technique | Definition | Example / Source | Band 6 analysis sentence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simile | Comparison using 'like'/'as' | "My love is like a red, red rose" — Robert Burns (1794) | "The simile naturalises passion, making love feel organic, seasonal, and doomed to wilt." |
| Metaphor | Direct identification of unlike things | "Hope is the thing with feathers" — Emily Dickinson | "The metaphor gives hope a body — something that perches, sings, survives storms — making abstraction feel resilient." |
| Metaphor sustained across a text | "All the world's a stage" — Shakespeare | "By extending the theatrical conceit through seven ages, the speech makes life's roles feel scripted — agency itself is questioned." | |
| Personification | Human traits given to non-human things | "Death lays his icy hand on kings" — James Shirley | "Personifying death as a cold aristocrat democratises mortality while chilling it." |
| Symbolism | Object standing for larger idea | Gatsby's green light — F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) | "The green light condenses longing into a single luminous point the reader can watch yearn." |
| Motif | Recurring image/idea across a text | Blood in Macbeth | "Each return of blood thickens guilt until the motif becomes the play's conscience." |
| Oxymoron | Contradiction compressed into phrase | "Parting is such sweet sorrow" — Romeo and Juliet | "The oxymoron holds love's two truths in one breath — pleasure and pain inseparable." |
| Paradox | Seemingly impossible truth | "I must be cruel only to be kind" — Hamlet | "The paradox forces readers past surface logic toward moral complexity." |
| Hyperbole | Deliberate exaggeration | "I've told you a million times" | "Hyperbole registers emotional intensity rather than factual claim — read the feeling, not the number." |
| Allusion | Reference to another text/event | T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) alludes throughout to Dante and myth. | "The allusion imports an entire tradition's authority into a few words." |
| Pathetic fallacy | Nature mirroring mood | Storms at regicide in Macbeth | "The disturbed cosmos externalises moral disorder." |
| Juxtaposition | Placing contrasts side by side | Wealth/poverty montage openings | "Juxtaposition argues without commentary — the gap between images is the meaning." |
| Irony (verbal/dramatic/situational) | Gap between appearance and reality | Dramatic irony in Oedipus | "Dramatic irony makes audiences complicit in a truth the speaker cannot see." |
| Sibilance | Repetition of s-sounds (also sound family) | "cease…sense…silence" | "The hissing sibilance slithers under sense, unsettling as it soothes." |
| Device | Definition | Effect vocabulary |
|---|---|---|
| Alliteration | Repeated initial consonants ("wild wind whispers") | murmuring, insistent, hypnotic |
| Assonance | Repeated vowel sounds ("the light of fire is a sign") | resonant, keening, mournful |
| Consonance | Repeated internal/end consonants ("pitter patter") | ticking, percussive, mechanical |
| Onomatopoeia | Word imitating sound ("buzz", "crackle") | vivid, immediate, sensory |
| Rhyme (end/internal) | Sound echo | binding, fateful, nursery-simple or ironic when forced |
| Rhythm/meter | Patterned stress (iambic pentameter etc.) | heartbeat, march, chant, breakdown when broken |
| Appeal/Device | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ethos | Appeal via credibility | "As a doctor of twenty years…" |
| Pathos | Appeal via emotion | Charity ads' close-ups of children |
| Logos | Appeal via logic/data | "9 out of 10 dentists…" |
| Inclusive pronouns | 'we', 'us', 'our' | King's "I Have a Dream" (196) |
| Rhetorical question | Question expecting assent | "How much more must we wait?" |
| Anecdote | Mini-story humanising argument | Speeches opening with "Last Tuesday I met a woman…" |
| Statistics & expert testimony | Evidence framing | Editorial data paragraphs |
| Emotive language | Charged connotation ("innocent victims", "reckless elites") | Tabloid headlines |
| Rule of three | Tricolon | "Blood, sweat and tears" — Churchill variant (1940) |
| Modality | Degree of certainty ("may/must") | Halliday's system; see Grammar pack |
Precise effect verbs beat vague praise: foregrounds, marginalises, implicates, destabilises, naturalises, amplifies, collapses, suspends, mirrors, indicts, seduces, inoculates. Pair each technique with one of these verbs plus a reader-positioning clause ("positions the audience to…", "invites us to…", "forces recognition that…").
Style is the dress of thoughts.— attributed to Lord Chesterfield, letter (1749) — techniques are the cut of the cloth, not embroidery on top.
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