trope

In contemporary media criticism, this term describes a recurring narrative pattern or character archetype. While it can be a neutral building block of storytelling, it often carries a slightly negative connotation when it borders on a cliché, suggesting a lack of originality in a plot or character. In a linguistic or literary sense, it refers to the intentional shift of a word from its literal meaning to a figurative one. This encompasses a wide range of rhetorical devices that allow writers to create vivid imagery or complex analogies by bending the standard rules of language.