Rhetorical Devices Lang

What is a trope?

when a word is altered for the usual or expected

ex: simile, metaphor, personification, irony, hyperbole

What is a pun?

a type of trope that plays on the meaning of words

What are the 3 types of irony?

dramatic- readers know what characters don't

situational-situation different from expected

verbal- meaning different than what was said

What is a understatement?

deliberately minimizing the importance of something (opposite of hyperbole)

usually used for satirical purposes

What is a litote?

an understatement which expresses a positive sentence negatively

ex: I'm not a bad cook (means i cook well)

What is a synecdoche?

uses a part to represent a whole, or a whole of something to represent a part

ex: check out Sandy's new wheels

(says wheels but referring to whole car)

What is a metonymy?

uses one word or phrase as a substitute for concepts closely associate with it

ex: The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings

(suits is associated with/refers to rich ppl)

What is an oxymoron?

contradiction

ex: parting is such sweet sorrow

(sweet + sorrow)

What is a paradox?

a statement that appears contradictory but in fact has some truth

"fair is foul and foul is fair"

What is a hypophora?

a rhetorical question answered by the speaker

What is apostrophe?

when the speaker turns away from the original audience to address someone new

ex: the dead, God, heaven, angels

"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

What is damning with faint praise?

intentionally using positive words but implying a negative statement

ex: when asked what he thought of his blind date, he said "she has nice hair"

ex: Your new hairdo is so..interesting

What is a colloquial expression?

everyday language, avoided in formal writing

What does begging the question mean?

A fallacy in logic that assumes true the very idea one tries to prove

ex: The Apple iPhone is the best smartphone on the planet because no one makes a better smartphone than Apple does.

(circular reasoning)

What is post hoc fallacy? (Latin for: after this)

a fallacy of logic that occurs when the speaker assumes an incident that precedes another caused the second incident

ex: Governor X began his first term in January, 3 months later the state suffered severe economic depression

(the chronological order of events itself does not establish a cause and effect relationship)

Describe the different types of Rhetorical Questions

asking the reader: what would you have done?

asking the writer: was it really what I wanted?

criticizing in the form of a question: How can you be so insolent?

asking and answering: why has the incidence of rape increased in society?---> follows with studies showing relationship between rape incidents and violent TV

What is a scheme?

when word order is altered from the usual or expected

What are schemes of balance?

sentences where a syntactic structure supports its meaning

What is parallelism?

expresses similar or related ideas in similar grammatical structures

ex: We mutually pledge to each our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honor

What is chiasmus?

grammatical structure of the first clause or phrase is reversed in the second, sometimes repeating the same words

ex: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

What is epanalepsis?

repetition at the end of a clause of a word that appeared at the beginning

ex: blood hath brought blood, and blows answer'd blows

What is antithesis?

juxtaposition of contrasting ideas

What is anticlimax?

a sudden drop from dignified or important thought to commonplace/trivial expression, often for humor

What is a epistrophe?

the repetition of the same word or group of words at the end of successive clauses (opposite of anaphora)

What is zeugma?

when two different words which sound exactly alike are paired together, when there is a literal and figurative idea

ex: She caught a cold and the baseball

What is digression?

a temporary departure from the main subject in speaking or writing

What is a non sequitur?

A statement that does not logically follow what preceded it

What is a anastrophe?

word order is reversed or rearranged "Powerful you have become. The dark side I sense in you"

What is a antimetabole?

repeating words in reverse

What is inverted syntax?

reversing the normal word order of a sentence

What is anesis?

the addition of a clause, sentence, or phrase to diminish what had been previously stated

What is apposition?

placement of a noun or phrase to explain another noun

What is a exemplum?

figure of amplification used to illustrate a point, typically a moral point, can be a anecdote if the example is to serve as an ethical model

What is a parenthesis?

the insertion of words, phrases, or a sentence, not syntactically related to the rest of the sentence.

-set off by dashes or parentheses

ex: He said it was going to rain-I could hardly disagree-before the game was over

What is a asyndeton?

omitting conjunctions to produce a fast paced prose

ex: I came, I saw, I conquered

What is a polysyndeton?

Using many conjunctions to slow the pace

ex: I'm tired, and I'm cold, and I'm hungry

What are ellipses?

1. omitting words but understood in context

ex: If possible, come early

2. Signaling with three dots that words have been left out

ex: To be or not...and by opposing, end them

What is anaphora?

regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses

What is anadiplosis?

repetition of the last word of one sentence, with the first word in the next

What is conduplicatio?

repetition of a keyword over successive phrases of clauses

What is symploce?

repetition that combines anaphora and epistrophe in successive clause -"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to makind.

What is alliteration?

Repetition of initial consonant sounds

What is assonance?

repetition of vowel sounds within words

"Hear the mellow wedding bells"

What is consonance?

repetition of consonant sounds, or of final consonant sounds of accented syllables of important words

"Mike liked his new bike"

What is a periodic sentence?

full meaning cannot be understood until end of sentence

ex: Just as he bent over to tie his shoelace, a car hit him

What is a loose sentence?

when modifiers follow the basic subject verb pattern

What is a ad hominem fallacy?

a fallacy of logic in which a person's character or motives is attacked instead of the argument

latin for: to the man

What is a ad populum fallacy?

a fallacy of logic in which the widespread occurrence of notion is assumed to make it true or right

latin for: to the crowd

What is a false dilemma?

a fallacy of logical argument which limits alternatives and choices

What is deductive reasoning?

reasoning that begins with a generalization then applies the generalization to a specific case or cases

What is syllogism?

reasoning in which two statements or premises are made and a logical conclusion is drawn, a form of deductive reasoning

What is induction, or inductive reasoning?

reasoning which works from a body of fact to form a generalization, frequently used as the principal form of reasoning in science and history

What is allegory?

story in which people, places, and things, represent general concepts or moral qualities

ex: Animal Farm- communist regime of Stalin

What is a parable?

brief story which reveals a simple truth, religious principle, or moral lesson

What is a analogy?

a comparison of two things: the more complex explained in simpler terms

What is a pedantry?

a display of narrow minded and trivial scholarship or arbitrary adhere to rules and form

What is spatial ordering?

arrangement of information using spatial cues like top to bottom, left to right

What is order of importance?

it arranges details from least to most important/significant or from most to least important

What is classification ordering?

the arrangement of objects according to class

sound

repetition of certain sounds in a paragraph or sentence to reinforce meaning in literature.

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"