Chapter 2 Rhetorical Terms and Devices

Vocabulary flashcards covering key rhetorical terms, stylistic devices, and sentence structures from Chapter 2.

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in reverse order.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis or to produce a comic or ironic effect; an overstatement to make a point.

Archaic diction

Old-fashioned or outdated choice of words.

Mood

The feeling or atmosphere created by a text.

Juxtaposition

Placement of two things closely together to emphasize similarities or differences.

Oxymoron

Paradoxical juxtaposition of words that seem to contradict one another.

Antithesis

Opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a parallel construction.

Simile

A figure of speech use to explain or clarify an idea by comparing it explicitly to something else, using the words like, as, or as though.

Asyndeton

Omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words.

Diction

A speaker's choice of words.

Metaphor

Figure of speech that compares two things without using like or as.

Hortative sentence

Sentence that exhorts, urges, entreats, implores, or calls to action.

Alliteration

Repetition of the same sound beginnings of several words or syllables in sequence.

Inversion

Inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subject-verb-object order).

Tone

A speaker's attitude toward the subject conveyed by the speaker's stylistic and rhetorical choices.

Parallelism

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

Syntax

The arrangement of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.

Rhetorical question

Figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer.

Personification

Attribution of a lifelike quality to an inanimate object or an idea.

Allusion

Brief reference to a person, event, or place (real or fictitious) or to a work of art.

Apostrophe

The addressing of a usually absent person or a usually personified thing rhetorically.

Epistrophe

Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.

Anthropomorphism

The act of lending a human quality, emotion or ambition to a non-human object or being.

Polysyndeton

A stylistic device in which several coordinating conjunctions are used in succession in order to achieve an artistic effect.