Intertextuality:   In a text, implied references to or implied influences from another text.  This concept allows a reader to make links between genres, and to see how themes, plot, etc. may develop or change in relation or in light of that other text.

Indeterminacy:   The unknowable, undecidable, uncertain, or ambiguous in a text.  Indeterminacy is related to gaps in a text, but are less obviously identifiable and are a quality of a reading or interpretation, not just the text.

Irony:   At its most basic, a difference or gap between the presentation/representation of something and its reality.  In other words, when what something appears to be and what it is are not the same.  Irony can be engaged or detached: Engaged irony uses the gaps between reality and representation to make a point or expose something; detached irony exploits gaps for immediate effect, like humor, satire or surface criticism.  Irony can also occur at different levels of a text; for instance, verbal irony would occur at the level of the word or sentence, where double meanings come into play; dramatic irony would occur at the level of the plot, where events and action are  constructed in a way to take the reader in one direction while the reality is something else (a technique often found with 1st person unreliable narrators and 3rd person privileged narrators).

Metaphor:   Figurative language that creates an analogy between two unlike things.  Metaphor does not make a comparison, but creates its analogy by representing one thing as something else (a sea of troubles, war is hell, necessity is the mother of invention, all the world's a stage, calling a basketball a rock or a guitar an axe or a try at something a shot).  Metaphor is something we use all the time, but is actually much more complex than it may seem.  From the Greek metapherein for "transfer," the idea is that the qualities of one thing are being carried over and juxtaposed with the qualities of another while they remain ostensibly separate and different.  Like irony, there is a gap between the subjects in question.  A metaphor is thus a function that occurs between the audience and language when the audience juxtaposes the qualities of two different things to yield a new meaning –the audience literally carries over the meaning.  At an extreme level, all language is metaphoric, and therefore all writing is a metaphor.  The huge woody thing with some dried leaves outside my window is tree in English but baum in German, tre in Norwegian, mti in Swahili, traba in Latin, träd in Swedish, árvorel in Portuguese, kigi in Japanese, crann in both Irish and Scottish –you get the idea; obviously none of the words are the thing itself, they just point to the thing and we carry over the meaning.  When written, these words are definitely not the big woody thing, but just nifty ink blots on a page or electronic blips on a screen.  We as an audience create the meaning by associating the qualities of the word with the qualities of something else.  When we read, we essentially perform the same function, transferring something implied by cultural associations (the meanings of words) over into a coherent narrative.  See Irony.

Metonymy:   Figurative language where one term is used in place of something else that it is related to or often associated with; like saying the White House for the president, or Hollywood for the American film industry.  

Modernism:    Loosely, a term referring to experimental and avant- garde trends in literature and other arts in the early 20th century, which resulted from conscious rejections of traditional 19th century artistic conventions like realism and traditional verse forms.  Some of the experimental forms include symbolism, expressionism, and surrealism, and some narrative innovations include stream-of-consciousness and multiple points of view.  A problematic term, since we are always already in the modern moment.  See Post-Modernism.