Grammar + Rhetorical Strategies

Rhetorical Strategies

The techniques speakers use to influence an audience.

Rhetorical Situation

The context surrounding a text, including the speaker, subject, audience, relationships, author's purpose, and occasion.

Speaker

The person or group who creates a text.

Occasion

The time and place a text is created or delivered.

Audience

The listener, viewer, or reader of a text.

Purpose

The goal the speaker wants to achieve.

Subject

The topic of the text.

Rhetorical Effects

The effects and effectiveness of rhetorical strategies on an audience.

Message

The speaker’s main idea or argument.

Ethos

An appeal to credibility and trustworthiness.

Logos

An appeal to reason and logic, using clear rational ideas.

Pathos

An appeal to emotion to motivate the audience.

Tone

The speaker’s attitude toward the subject.

Rhetorical Choices

Choices a writer or speaker makes to forge a message.

Organization

The structural choices made in the arrangement of a text.

Diction

A speaker’s choice of words.

Details

Examples, descriptions, or narratives used in a text.

Syntax

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

Imagery

A description that appeals to the senses.

Figurative Language

Language that represents something significant beyond literal meaning.

Metaphor

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

Allusion

A brief reference to a person, event, place, or work of art.

Simile

A figure of speech that compares two things using like or as.

Personification

A figure of speech that applies human qualities to nonhuman things.

Noun

A word used to name a person, place, thing, or idea.

Pronoun

A word used in place of a noun to avoid repetition.

Adjective

A word used to describe a noun or pronoun.

Verb

An action, state, or occurrence word.

Adverb

A word used to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb.

Preposition

A word used to show relationships between nouns or pronouns.

Article

A word used to indicate whether a noun is definite or indefinite.

Conjunction

A word used to connect words, phrases, or clauses.

Coordinating conjunctions

Words that connect clauses of equal importance (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).

Subordinating Conjunctions

Connecting words that make a clause dependent (after, although, because, etc.).

Verbals

Words made of verb forms that do not function as verbs.

Gerund

A verbal ending in '-ing' that functions as a noun.

Infinitive

A verbal that usually begins with 'to' and can function as a noun, adjective, or adverb.

Participle

A verbal that can function as an adjective.

Phrase

A group of words that lacks a subject, a verb, or both.

Clause

A group of words that includes a subject and a verb.

Independent Clause

A clause that includes a subject and a verb, and does not include a subordinating conjunction.

Dependent Clause

A clause that includes a subordinating conjunction and cannot stand alone.

Relative Clause

A dependent clause that begins with a relative pronoun.

Subject

The noun or pronoun that performs the action of the verb.

Predicate

The part of the sentence that tells what the subject does or is.

Object

A noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb.

Simple Sentence

A sentence with one independent clause.

Compound Sentence

A sentence with two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction.

Complex Sentence

A sentence with one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

Compound-Complex Sentence

A sentence with two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.