Techniques glossary

Allegory

A story that works on two levels at once: the surface events, and a hidden meaning they stand for.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller's Salem witch trials work as an allegory for 1950s McCarthyism, the surface story standing in for his own America.

Alliteration

The same consonant sound repeated at the start of nearby words.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) Slessor threads repeated opening sounds through his sea poems to give the verse a pounding, physical rhythm.

Allusion

A quick, indirect reference to another text, person, event or belief that the reader is expected to recognise.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Abigail's claim that Proctor 'put knowledge in my heart' alludes to the Bible, reframing the affair as a fall from innocence.

Ambiguity

Wording that can be read in more than one way, so the meaning stays open.

The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) The play leaves Shylock's fate deliberately unresolved, so we cannot settle whether justice or cruelty has won.

Analogy

Explaining something by comparing it to a more familiar thing.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) Malala likens education to a light that the Taliban's fear cannot put out.

Anecdote

A short personal story used to make a point or build a character.

The Boy Behind the Curtain (Tim Winton) Winton's memory of the boy who stood at the window with a rifle is an anecdote that opens a wider reflection on risk.

Anomaly

Something that breaks the normal pattern or stands out as unexpected.

Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry) A boy who chooses ballet in a hard mining town is the anomaly that drives the film's conflict.

Anthropomorphism

Giving human shape or behaviour to an animal, object or idea.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) Doerr lets the radio almost 'speak' across the war, giving a machine a near-human voice.

Apostrophe

Speaking directly to someone absent or dead, or to an idea, as if it could answer.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) In 'Five Bells' Slessor addresses his drowned friend Joe directly, speaking to someone who cannot answer.

Archetype

A character, image or idea so familiar it recurs across many stories, such as the hero or the outcast.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor fits the archetype of the flawed everyman who rises to tragic stature.

Aside

A brief remark a character makes to the audience that the other characters are not meant to hear.

The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) Shylock's asides let the audience hear the private resentment the others on stage miss.

Assonance

The same vowel sound repeated in nearby words.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) Slessor lets long vowel sounds stretch across his sea imagery, slowing the verse like a swell.

Authorial Intrusion

When the author steps into the text directly to comment, as Miller does in his prose notes.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller steps out of the drama in his Act 1 prose notes to explain Salem directly to the reader.

Bricolage

A text pieced together from bits of other, already existing texts or sources.

Go Back to Where You Came From (Ivan O'Mahoney) The series is assembled from interviews, archival footage and reality-TV formats stitched together.

Cliché

A phrase used so often that it has lost its freshness.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Fitzgerald invokes the cliché of the self-made American Dream, then hollows it out.

Consonance

The same consonant sound repeated across a phrase, not only at the start of words.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) Repeated hard consonants run through Slessor's war verse to make it feel clipped and brutal.

Contrast

Placing two things with opposite qualities together so the difference stands out.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor's dying plea sets his soul against his name: 'I have given you my soul; leave me my name!'

Declarative

A plain statement sentence that asserts something as fact.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor's flat declarative, 'I have known her', lands like a confession because it refuses to soften.

Deixis

Words like 'here', 'now' or 'this' that only make sense once you know the context.

Rosemary Dobson: Collected (Rosemary Dobson) Dobson's 'here' and 'now' pull the reader into the exact moment a painting is being looked at.

Dialect

A way of speaking English tied to a particular place or group of people.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller writes Salem in a period dialect, as in Elizabeth's 'He have his goodness now', to root the play in its world.

Dialogue

The spoken exchange between characters, which shows who they are.

Rainbow's End (Jane Harrison) The exchanges between Nan Dear, Gladys and Dolly reveal three generations' different responses to injustice.

Diction

An author's overall choice of words and style of expression.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) Orwell's invented 'Newspeak' shrinks the language so that rebellious thoughts become almost unsayable.

Didactic

Writing designed to teach a lesson or push a clear moral.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) The memoir openly teaches that education is a right worth risking everything to defend.

Disjunct

An adverb that comments on a whole sentence, such as 'honestly' or 'clearly'.

The Boy Behind the Curtain (Tim Winton) Winton drops in comment-adverbs like 'strangely' that colour a whole memory at once.

Disjunction

A joining word that jolts the rhythm to force a contrast, such as 'but' or 'yet'.

Past the Shallows (Favel Parrett) Parrett's sudden 'but' can jolt a calm sea into sudden danger mid-sentence.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience knows something a character does not, which builds tension. A type of irony.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) The audience knows the girls are lying, so every accusation they make drips with dramatic irony.

Dramatic Structure

How a play is shaped across its acts and scenes to build and release tension, such as Miller's four acts tightening toward the gallows.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller moves from private homes to the public court to the prison, a structure that escalates the pressure.

Dramatic Tension

The suspense or unease a playwright builds so the audience stays gripped, waiting to see what happens next.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller tightens the tension act by act as the accusations close in on Proctor.

Ellipsis

Three dots that mark a pause or show that words have been left out.

Past the Shallows (Favel Parrett) Parrett lets sentences trail off, leaving the brothers' grief hanging in the silence.

Emotive Language

Words chosen to stir the reader's feelings.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) Charged words of terror and courage push the reader to feel the danger Malala faced.

Enjambment

A line of poetry that runs on into the next without a pause.

Rosemary Dobson: Collected (Rosemary Dobson) Dobson runs a thought over the line break so it spills on, mimicking time slipping past.

Euphemism

A softer, milder phrase used in place of a blunt or harsh one.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor's biblical 'I have known her' admits adultery in court without ever naming it plainly.

Exclamation

A sentence ending in an exclamation mark to show strong feeling.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor's 'Because it is my name!' erupts as an exclamation at the play's climax.

False Dichotomy

Framing a situation as only two options when more exist, in order to force a choice.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Danforth's 'either with this court or against it' forces a false choice with no middle ground.

Figurative Language

Language that means more than its literal words, such as metaphor, simile or personification.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Fitzgerald's green light is figurative shorthand for Gatsby's unreachable dream.

Flashback

A scene that jumps back to an earlier moment in the story.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) Earlier scenes surface as flashbacks against the 1944 siege that frames the novel.

Foreshadowing

A hint early in a text about something that will happen later.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) Doerr flags the Sea of Flames' curse early, hinting at the danger it will bring.

Form

The type of text (play, poem, novel) and the features that come with it.

Rainbow's End (Jane Harrison) The play form lets staging and the humpy on stage carry meaning that words alone could not.

Gaps and Silences

What a text leaves out, and whose voice is missing.

Past the Shallows (Favel Parrett) What the father never says, and what the brothers cannot, carries the novel's grief.

Humour

Comedy, from irony to exaggeration, that lightens or sharpens the tone.

Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry) The film's blunt northern jokes lighten scenes of real hardship.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration for effect.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor's vow to 'cut off my hand' before touching Abigail exaggerates to show his resolve.

Icons

A person or image that stands for a bigger set of ideas or feelings.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) Big Brother's watching face becomes an icon for total surveillance.

Imagery

Descriptive language that paints a picture for the senses.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) Slessor's vivid sea and light imagery makes time itself feel physical in 'Out of Time'.

Imperative Mood

A command, formed by putting the verb up front, as in 'Look at this'.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) Malala's direct commands to the reader push us to act as if the fight were our own.

In Medias Res

Starting a story in the middle of the action.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) Doerr opens mid-siege in 1944, dropping us into the action before any backstory.

Incantation

Chant-like verse using repetition and rhythm to feel almost magical.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) The girls' repeated cries of 'I saw... with the Devil!' build an incantatory chant of accusation.

Intertextuality

When a text deliberately refers to or draws on another text.

Hag-Seed (Margaret Atwood) Atwood's Hag-Seed rewrites Shakespeare's The Tempest, in constant dialogue with the original.

Irony

A gap between what is said and what is really meant, or between what we expect and what happens.

Go Back to Where You Came From (Ivan O'Mahoney) It is deeply ironic that the loudest critics of refugees are the ones most changed by living their journey.

Juxtaposition

Setting two images or scenes side by side for a striking effect.

Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry) Daldry crosscuts Billy's ballet with the miners' picket lines, juxtaposing grace and violence.

Linear Narrative

A story told in the order the events happen.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) The memoir moves largely in order, tracing Malala's life step by step toward the shooting.

Metaphor

Saying one thing is another to draw a comparison.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor calls his ruined reputation a tolling bell: 'I have made a bell of my honor!'

Metonymy

Naming something by a closely linked idea, such as 'the crown' for the monarchy.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller lets 'the court' stand in for the whole machinery of accusation and power.

Modality

How certain or forceful the language is: high modality ('must', 'always') versus low ('might', 'perhaps').

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Danforth's high-modality absolutes, 'there be no road between', shut down all doubt.

Monologue

A long, uninterrupted speech by one character, spoken aloud to others on stage.

The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) Portia's 'quality of mercy' speech is a set-piece monologue arguing for compassion over law.

Motif

An image or idea that recurs through a text and carries meaning.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) The telescreen recurs as a motif of constant, inescapable watching.

Non-linear Narrative

A story told out of chronological order.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) Doerr braids two timelines that converge, refusing a single straight chronological line.

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates the sound it describes, such as bang or hiss.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) In 'Beach Burial', words like 'sob' and 'clubbing' echo the sound of distant gunfire.

Paradox

A statement that seems to contradict itself yet holds a truth.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Miller's paradox, that decent people commit the worst evils, drives the tragedy.

Parody

A mocking imitation of another text or style.

Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry) Daldry's comic take on the prim ballet world gently parodies its stiffness against Billy's raw energy.

Pathetic Fallacy

Giving human moods to nature, so the weather or setting mirrors a feeling.

Past the Shallows (Favel Parrett) The wild Tasmanian sea rises and calms in step with the boys' fear and grief.

Periphrasis

Using many words where a few would do, often to be evasive or grand.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) The Party's grand titles, like 'Ministry of Love', say far more, and far less, than 'prison'.

Person

Whether a text is told in first, second or third person.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) Orwell's close third person keeps us locked inside Winston's mind.

Personification

Giving human qualities to something non-human.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Proctor personifies revenge itself: 'vengeance is walking Salem'.

Perspective

The particular viewpoint from which people or events are seen.

Go Back to Where You Came From (Ivan O'Mahoney) The series forces participants to see the refugee journey from the inside, shifting their perspective.

Plosive Consonants

Hard, punchy sounds like p, b, t and d that add force.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) Slessor's hard b and t sounds in his war verse hit like the gunfire he describes.

Pun

A play on words that uses two meanings of the same sound.

The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) Shakespeare's wordplay on 'gentle' and 'Gentile' sharpens the play's prejudice.

Reference

A clear mention of another text, person or idea.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) Malala refers to real figures like Benazir Bhutto to root her story in history.

Register

How formal or casual the language is.

The Boy Behind the Curtain (Tim Winton) Winton's casual, colloquial Australian register makes his reflections feel intimate.

Rejet

In poetry, where the line break and the natural spoken pause fall in different places.

Rosemary Dobson: Collected (Rosemary Dobson) Dobson lets a line end away from the natural pause, so the eye and the ear pull apart.

Repetition

Repeating words or structures for emphasis.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Hale's repeated 'life... life' in Act 4 reverses his earlier certainty about the court.

Representation

The way a composer shapes how people, ideas or events appear to us.

Rainbow's End (Jane Harrison) Harrison represents her three Aboriginal women as resilient rather than as victims.

Rhyme

Matching sounds at the ends of lines.

Rosemary Dobson: Collected (Rosemary Dobson) Dobson's controlled rhyme holds a fleeting moment still, like a frame around a painting.

Satire

Writing that mocks its target to expose folly or vice.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) Orwell satirises totalitarian propaganda through slogans like 'War is peace'.

Setting

Where and when a text takes place.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) The grey, decaying world of Airstrip One sets the mood of a life drained of hope.

Sibilance

Repeated soft 's' sounds that create a hush or a hiss.

Kenneth Slessor: Selected Poems (Kenneth Slessor) Slessor's hissing 's' sounds carry the wash of the sea through his verse.

Simile

A comparison using 'like' or 'as'.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) Doerr's similes compare radio waves to light, linking two things we cannot see.

Soliloquy

A speech a character gives while alone on stage, letting the audience hear their private thoughts.

Hamlet (William Shakespeare) Hamlet's 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy lets us hear him think through life and death.

Stage Direction

The playwright's instructions printed in the script: a character's actions and tone, entrances and exits, the set, lighting and sound. They carry meaning beyond the spoken lines, so treat them as deliberate choices by the writer rather than mere notes for the actors.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) The stage direction 'Proctor tears the paper... weeping in fury, but erect' carries the climax without a word of dialogue.

Symbolism

When an object or image stands for a larger idea.

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) The Sea of Flames diamond symbolises both a curse and a fragile hope.

Syntax

How words and phrases are ordered within a sentence.

Past the Shallows (Favel Parrett) Parrett's short, broken syntax slows the reader to the boys' fearful pace.

Tense

Whether a text is set in the past, present or future.

I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb) Malala's shift between past reflection and vivid present tense marks the moments that changed her.

Textual Integrity

How well a text holds together as a unified, layered whole.

Hamlet (William Shakespeare) Hamlet's unity of theme, structure and language is why it endures as a Module B critical study.

Theme

The central idea or message of a text.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Integrity against survival is the theme that Proctor's final choice crystallises.

Tone

The attitude or feeling the writing conveys, set by word choice.

The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) The play's uneasy tone keeps its 'comedy' from ever feeling comfortable.

Truncated Sentences

Short, cut-off sentences that build tension or imitate real speech.

Past the Shallows (Favel Parrett) Parrett's clipped, unfinished sentences mirror the boys' frightened, held breath.

Understatement

Deliberately playing something down, which can make it hit harder.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Giles Corey's two-word 'More weight' understates a death into an act of defiance.

Word Choice

The specific words a writer picks for their emotional or descriptive weight.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) Orwell's blunt, controlled word choice mirrors a world stripped of freedom.

Zoomorphism

Giving animal qualities to a person or thing.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) In the Two Minutes Hate, Orwell gives the crowd a snarling, animal ferocity.

See these techniques in context in the study guides, or get your own essay marked with the marking tool.

Definitions are written in plain language for students, aligned to the standard HSC English techniques toolkit and extended with the drama techniques a play like The Crucible relies on. Examples are drawn from current NESA English Advanced prescribed texts (the 2019 prescriptions, examined through the 2026 HSC); short quotations are used only where verified.