QCE English - Unit 4 - Critical responses to literary texts
Technique and Vocabulary Bank | QCE English
Build a flexible QCE English bank of literary, visual, rhetorical and analytical vocabulary for essays, speeches and creative rationales.
Updated 2026-05-18 - 12 min read
QCAA official coverage - English General 2025 v1.3
Exact syllabus points covered
- Examine the use of aesthetic features and stylistic devices (e.g. characterisation, plot structure, setting, narrative voice, mood, approaches to narration, imagery, symbolism, motif, figurative language, dialogue, juxtaposition, contrast) and their effects in texts.
- Develop cogent, insightful analysis and argument, through synthesis of subject matter and integration of textual evidence.
- Use cohesive devices to develop and emphasise ideas and connect parts of texts in the development of a reasoned and logical argument.
- Use text structures, grammar, language features and written features related to literary analysis to express and sustain a point of view.
- Experiment with spoken, persuasive and stylistic devices and gestural features (including multimodal/digital/graphic, if relevant) persuasive and stylistic devices in order to develop their own style.
- Analyse and compare strategies for argument, persuasive/stylistic features and language to construct varying perspectives and how these strengthen or weaken the authority of argument depending on how they are used.
Technique vocabulary is useful only when it helps you explain meaning. A long list of devices can make you feel prepared, but in an exam or assignment the marker is looking for interpretation: how does this feature construct a representation, position an audience, develop a value or shape a response?
Use this bank as a revision tool, not a script. Learn the terms, practise identifying them, then attach each one to an effect.
Core literary and language techniques
| Technique | What it means | What to ask in analysis | | --- | --- | --- | | Imagery | language that appeals to the senses | What atmosphere, emotion or value does the image create? | | Metaphor | one thing is represented as another | What comparison is being made, and what does it reveal? | | Simile | comparison using "like" or "as" | Why is this comparison more precise than direct description? | | Symbolism | an object, place, action or image carries abstract meaning | Does the symbol change across the text? | | Motif | a repeated image, idea, sound or object | How does repetition build meaning over time? | | Juxtaposition | two things are placed near each other for contrast or comparison | What difference or tension becomes visible? | | Allusion | reference to another text, event, figure or tradition | What extra meaning does the reference import? | | Irony | gap between expectation and reality, or between words and meaning | What does the gap expose about characters, values or society? | | Tone | the attitude or mood created by language | Is the tone admiring, bitter, reflective, detached, comic, anxious or critical? | | Dialogue | spoken interaction between characters | What is said, avoided, interrupted or implied? |
Extended technique glossary
Use this table to revise the broader technique range that can appear across English tasks. You do not need to use every term in an assessment. The point is to have enough vocabulary to describe the exact choice a text makes.
| Technique | Meaning | How it is useful | | --- | --- | --- | | Adjective | Describes a noun | Can create judgement, atmosphere or emphasis through description | | Adverb | Modifies a verb, adjective or another adverb | Can reveal pace, certainty, attitude or manner | | Allegory | A story that symbolically represents a larger moral, political or social idea | Lets you discuss meaning beyond the literal plot | | Alliteration | Repetition of initial consonant sounds | Can create rhythm, emphasis, harshness, softness or memorability | | Anadiplosis | Repetition of the last word or phrase of one clause at the start of the next | Creates momentum and escalation in speeches or prose | | Analogy | Comparison used to explain an idea | Makes abstract arguments more concrete | | Anaphora | Repetition at the start of successive clauses or sentences | Builds rhythm, urgency and collective emphasis | | Anastrophe | Unusual word order | Can foreground an image, make language sound formal, or create poetic emphasis | | Anecdote | Short personal or illustrative story | Humanises an issue and builds audience connection | | Anthropomorphism | Giving human characteristics to animals or objects | Can make non-human figures emotionally accessible or symbolic | | Anti-climax | Sudden movement from intensity to something less significant | Can create comedy, disappointment or critique | | Antithesis | Direct contrast between opposing ideas | Sharpens conflict between values | | Appropriation | Reworking a text in a new context | Shows how values change across time, culture or medium | | Archival footage | Historical footage or images used in a documentary or media text | Builds evidence, memory, authority or nostalgia | | Assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds | Creates musicality, mood or emphasis | | Asyndeton | Omission of conjunctions in a list | Speeds rhythm and creates compression or urgency | | Bias | Favouring one side or perspective | Helps analyse partiality, framing and authority | | Caesura | Pause within a line of poetry | Creates hesitation, rupture, emphasis or reflection | | Circumlocution | Talking around a point rather than naming it directly | Can reveal evasion, discomfort or social pressure | | Cliche | Overused expression | May weaken writing, or be used deliberately to show conventional thinking | | Colloquial language | Informal everyday language | Builds familiarity, realism, persona or social context | | Euphemism | Softer expression for something unpleasant or confronting | Reveals avoidance, politeness, denial or social taboo | | Foil | Character who contrasts with another character | Highlights traits, values or choices in both characters | | Hyperbole | Deliberate exaggeration | Intensifies emotion, comedy, criticism or persuasion | | Idiom | Expression whose meaning is not literal | Creates voice, culture and informality | | Jargon | Specialised language for a field or group | Builds expertise or excludes outsiders | | Metre | Pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry | Helps analyse control, musicality or disruption | | Onomatopoeia | Word that imitates a sound | Makes description immediate and sensory | | Oxymoron | Two contradictory words placed together | Compresses tension or paradox | | Paradox | Seemingly contradictory statement with underlying truth | Useful for complex or conflicted ideas | | Parody | Imitation for comic or critical effect | Challenges the original through exaggeration | | Personification | Giving human qualities to non-human things | Makes abstract forces vivid or emotionally charged | | Polysyndeton | Repeated conjunctions | Slows rhythm, creates accumulation or childlike intensity | | Pun | Wordplay based on double meaning or sound | Creates humour, irony or verbal cleverness | | Satire | Humour or exaggeration used to criticise | Exposes flaws in people, institutions or values | | Sibilance | Repetition of s, sh, z or similar sounds | Can create softness, menace, whispering or musicality | | Soliloquy | Speech by a character alone on stage | Gives direct access to private thought or self-deception |
Grammar terms such as noun, verb, adjective and adverb are not usually enough on their own, but they help when a single word choice matters. For example, replacing a passive verb with an active one can change who appears responsible.
Form-specific technique groups
Different text types need different vocabulary.
| Text type | Techniques worth knowing | | --- | --- | | Prose fiction | narration, focalisation, stream of consciousness, characterisation, setting, imagery, motif, foreshadowing, narrative withholding | | Drama | stage directions, soliloquy, aside, blocking, dramatic irony, entrances and exits, acts and scenes, dialogue rhythm | | Poetry | enjambment, caesura, stanza, rhythm, metre, rhyme, sibilance, assonance, line break, volta | | Film and television | shot size, camera angle, lighting, editing, montage, soundtrack, diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, mise-en-scene | | Documentary and media | archival footage, interview, voiceover, expert testimony, anecdote, framing, omission, selection, sequencing | | Visual and graphic texts | salience, vector, reading path, gaze, colour, panel, gutter, typography, layout | | Speeches | ethos, logos, pathos, anaphora, rhetorical question, hypophora, tricolon, concession, modality, direct address |
Visual, film and media terms
| Technique | Meaning | Analytical use | | --- | --- | --- | | Ambient or diegetic sound | Sound that exists inside the world of the scene | Can make a setting feel realistic, tense, crowded or intimate | | Non-diegetic sound | Sound added outside the world of the scene, such as score or voiceover | Guides emotion, suspense or interpretation | | Bird's-eye view | Shot from directly above | Can make people look small, controlled or part of a pattern | | Close-up | Detailed shot of a face, object or detail | Directs attention to emotion, reaction or symbolic detail | | Eye-level shot | Camera positioned at normal human height | Creates neutrality, realism or equality | | High-angle shot | Camera looks down on the subject | Can reduce power, suggest vulnerability or show surveillance | | Low-angle shot | Camera looks up at the subject | Can increase power, threat, admiration or dominance | | Long shot | Shows a subject in relation to surroundings | Connects character to place, isolation or scale | | Tracking shot | Camera moves with or around the subject | Creates movement, pursuit, continuity or immersion | | Flash editing | Very brief shots cut together rapidly | Creates pace, panic, fragmentation or sensory overload | | Montage | Series of shots compressed into a sequence | Condenses time, development or repeated action | | Lighting | Use of light, shadow and contrast | Builds mood, morality, intimacy, exposure or danger | | Mise-en-scene | Everything arranged within the frame or stage space | Lets you analyse setting, costume, props, colour and composition together | | Salience | The most visually prominent element | Shows what the viewer is invited to notice first | | Reading path | How the eye moves through an image or page | Reveals how layout controls interpretation | | Vector line | Line or direction that guides the viewer's gaze | Creates movement, connection, hierarchy or tension | | Indirect interview | Interview style where the questioner is absent or unheard | Can make testimony feel direct, edited, authoritative or constructed |
When analysing multimodal texts, combine techniques. A high-angle shot plus cold lighting plus silence will usually produce a stronger interpretation than any one feature alone.
Persuasive and rhetorical techniques
Persuasive devices shape the relationship between speaker, issue and audience.
| Technique | Use | | --- | --- | | Ethos | builds credibility, moral authority or trust | | Logos | builds reasoning through evidence, cause, consequence and logic | | Pathos | appeals to emotion, sympathy, anger, fear, hope or responsibility | | Anaphora | repeats an opening phrase to create rhythm and emphasis | | Anadiplosis | repeats the end of one clause at the start of the next to create momentum | | Hypophora | asks a question and answers it to guide the audience's thinking | | Rhetorical question | asks for effect rather than information | | Concession | admits part of an opposing view to appear fair and credible | | Rebuttal | explains why the opposing view is limited, flawed or incomplete | | Inclusive pronouns | uses "we", "our" or "us" to create shared responsibility | | Modality | controls certainty through words such as "must", "should", "may" and "might" |
High-calibre persuasion usually comes from patterning. A speech that returns to one image, question or phrase can feel more controlled than a speech that throws in every device once.
Analytical verbs
Replace vague verbs such as "shows" with verbs that name the text's action.
| Purpose | Useful verbs | | --- | --- | | Construction | constructs, frames, represents, positions, foregrounds, establishes, depicts, portrays, presents, renders | | Development | develops, intensifies, complicates, extends, deepens, shifts, enriches, expands, sustains | | Challenge | questions, destabilises, critiques, subverts, resists, exposes, challenges, undermines, repudiates | | Comparison | mirrors, contrasts, parallels, diverges from, reworks, reframes, echoes, transforms, juxtaposes | | Audience effect | invites, encourages, unsettles, compels, distances, aligns, galvanises, evokes, prompts, urges |
Do not choose the most impressive word. Choose the most accurate one. "Destabilises" is useful when a text makes something uncertain; it is not a fancier version of "shows".
Comparison vocabulary
Use comparison words to make relationships explicit.
| Relationship | Vocabulary | | --- | --- | | Similarity | similarly, likewise, equally, in the same way, correspondingly, so too | | Difference | however, by contrast, conversely, unlike, whereas, while, alternatively | | Qualification | although, despite this, nevertheless, yet, even so, to an extent | | Development | moreover, more significantly, furthermore, in addition, as the text progresses | | Cause and effect | therefore, consequently, as a result, because, thus, for this reason |
Comparison vocabulary should not replace analysis. "However" is useful only if the sentence after it explains a meaningful contrast.
Expanded vocabulary by function
| Function | Useful words and phrases | | --- | --- | | Effect on responder | illuminates, clarifies, evokes, sustains interest, invites reflection, provokes discomfort, generates anticipation, positions the reader, compels the viewer | | Central ideas | central concern, significant issue, dominant value, recurring anxiety, cultural assumption, social tension, moral pressure | | Similarity | likewise, analogously, similarly, in the same sense, correspondingly, akin to, so too | | Difference | in contrast, conversely, unlike, whereas, nonetheless, by comparison, opposed to, counter to, despite this | | Cause and consequence | accordingly, consequently, hence, thus, for that reason, culminates in, contributes to, derives from | | Audience positioning | invites sympathy for, challenges belief in, urges recognition of, makes us aware of, prompts us to question, motivates reconsideration of |
Keep a personal list of words you can actually use naturally. Overloading a paragraph with inflated vocabulary can make the argument harder to follow.
Effect vocabulary
When explaining audience positioning, be specific.
| Vague effect | More precise options | | --- | --- | | makes the audience interested | sustains curiosity, builds anticipation, withholds certainty | | makes the audience sad | evokes grief, sympathy, regret, tenderness, moral discomfort | | makes the audience think | invites reflection, challenges assumptions, reframes the issue | | makes the character seem powerful | constructs authority, dominance, control, social privilege or confidence | | makes the place important | turns setting into refuge, threat, memory, confinement or social symbol |