Language terminology

Word classes

Naming the lets you zoom in on a writer's exact choice.

Word class	Example	Effect
Noun	‘sores’	Names a thing; here it makes fire seem like a disease
Verb	‘clanking, stumbling’	Shows action; these make the engine sound clumsy and noisy
Adjective	‘dreary and forsaken’	Describes a noun; these make the fields feel abandoned
Adverb	‘noiselessly’	Describes how something is done; here it creates an eerie silence
Pronoun	‘she’	Stands in for a noun; an unnamed ‘she’ creates mystery

The examples come from the opening of D.H. Lawrence's story Odour of Chrysanthemums, used in the Paper 1 notes.

Technique	Example	Effect
Simile	‘flames like red sores’	Compares using ‘like’ or ‘as’; the pit-bank seems sick and painful
Metaphor	‘the city was a furnace’	Says one thing is another; suggests unbearable heat
Personification	‘the dusk that had already crept’	Gives something human actions; darkness seems to sneak up
Onomatopoeia	‘clanking’	A word that sounds like its meaning; we hear the engine
Alliteration	‘slow, steady steps’	Repeated first sounds; creates rhythm or emphasis
Sensory language	‘the rough grass’	Appeals to the senses, so the reader can imagine being there

Naming a technique earns nothing on its own. Always explain its .

are the ideas a word suggests beyond its meaning. ‘Loomed’ means rose up, but suggests something huge and threatening.
A is a group of related words. ‘Withered’, ‘dreary’, ‘forsaken’ and ‘stagnant’ create a semantic field of decay.
is the mood or attitude of a piece of writing: gloomy, tense, playful or angry.

These let you write about patterns across a passage, not just single words, which is what higher-level answers do.

Remember

A quotation, then the method, then the effect: ‘The verb “loomed” suggests…’