Rhetorical Devices

Anecdote

A brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature.

Synesthesia

Describing one sense in terms of another

“The crowds cheers tasted like victory”

Aphorism

A concise statement designed to make a point or illustrate a commonly held belief.

Tautology

Needlessly repeating the same idea in different words.

“She was completely and totally dominant in every way”

Periodic Sentence

delays the Independent clause until the end of the sentence, often after a series of depedent clauses or phrases. 

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements.

Allusion

A figure of speech which makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object.

Syllogism

A form of deduction; an extremely subtle, sophisticated, or deceptive argument.

Satire

A literary style used to make fun of or ridicule an idea or human vice or weakness.

Bildungsroman

A novel or story whose theme is the moral or psychological growth of the main character.

Foil

A person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast.

Epistolary

A piece of literature contained in or carried on by letters.

Epitaph

A piece of writing in praise of a deceased person.

Parody

A satirical imitation of a work of art for the purpose of ridiculing its style or subject.

Delayed sentence

A sentence that withholds its main idea until the end.

Sarcasm

A sharp caustic remark; a form of verbal irony.

Expletive

A single word or short phrase intended to emphasize surrounding words.

Irony

A situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected and what actually happens.

Eulogy

A speech or writing in praise of a person or thing; an oration in honor of a deceased person.

Paradox

A statement that seems contradictory, but is actually true.

Epiphany

A sudden or intuitive insight or perception into the reality or essential meaning of something.

Onomatopoeia

A word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes.

Diction

An author's choice of words to convey a tone or effect.

Utopia

An imaginary place of ideal perfection.

Hyperbole

An overstatement characterized by exaggerated language.

Deus ex machina

The use of an artificial device or contrived solution to solve a difficult situation.

Antagonist

A character or force in a literary work that opposes the main character.

Analogy

Comparison of two things that are alike in some respects.

Inductive

Conclusion or reasoning whereby information about a part of a class is applied to the class as a whole.

Nostalgia

Desire to return in thought or fact to a former time.

Chiasmus

A figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of parallel clauses is reversed in the second.

Thesis

Focus statement of an essay; premise statement upon which the discussion is based.

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words.

Litote

Form of understatement where the negative of the contrary is used to achieve emphasis.

Doppelganger

Ghostly counterpart of a living person or an alter ego.

Zeugma

Grammatically correct linkage of one subject with two or more verbs.

Ethos

The moral element that determines a character's actions.

Propaganda

Information or rumor deliberately spread to help or harm a person, group, or institution.

Didactic

Intended for teaching or to teach a moral lesson.

Formal Language

Language that is lofty, dignified, or impersonal.

Allegory

Narrative form where characters and actions have meanings outside themselves.

Abstract

Not related to concrete properties; pertaining to ideas or concepts.

In medias res

Opening a story in the middle of the action.

Colloquial

Ordinary language; the vernacular.

Isocolon

Parallel structure where parallel elements are similar in grammatical structure and length.

Loose sentence

starts with the independent clause and then adds dependent clauses or phrases that develop or modify the main idea

Juxtaposition

Placing of two items side by side to create a certain effect.

Elegy

Poem or prose lamenting the death of a particular person.

Epanalepsis

Beginning and ending a phrase or sentence with the same word.

E.g "Cricket was her passion, her life, her everything—cricket."

Catharsis

Purification or cleansing of the spirit through emotions of pity and terror.

Epigraph

Quote set at the beginning of a literary work to set the tone or suggest a theme.

Motif

Recurrent device or situation often serving as a signal for the appearance of a character or event.

Parallelism

Recurrent syntactical similarity in a sentence or sentences.

Anaphora

Regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases.

Anadiplosis

Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the next clause.

Appeals to authority, emotion, logic

Rhetorical arguments in which the speaker claims expertise or relies on deductive reasoning.

Imagery

Sensory details in a work; the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling.

Euphemism

Substitution of a milder or less direct expression for one that is harsh.

Genre

Term used to describe literary forms such as tragedy, comedy, novel, or essay.

Voice

The acknowledged or unacknowledged source of words of the story.

Tone

The attitude a literary work takes towards its subject and theme.

Theme

The central or dominant idea or concern of a work.

Protagonist

The chief character in a work of literature.

Denotation

The dictionary definition of a word.

Mood

The feeling or ambience resulting from the tone of a piece.

Realism

Literary practice of describing life and nature without idealization.

Prose

The ordinary form of written language without metrical structure.

Audience

The person(s) reached by a piece of writing.

Asyndeton

The practice of omitting conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses.

Deductive

The reasoning process by which a conclusion is drawn from premises.

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds.

Consonance

The repetition of consonants with a change in the intervening vowels.

Invective

The use of angry and insulting language in satirical writing.

Sententia

Including a wise saying or proverb to support a point. Example: "As they say, 'practice makes perfect'—and her countless hours of training proved this."

Persona

The voice or figure of the author who tells the story.

Syntax

The way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Prolepsis

Addressing objections before they're raised. Example: "Some might say she was too young, but her skills proved otherwise."

Foreshadow

To hint at or present things to come in a story or play.

Tricolon

A series of three parallel elements. Example: "We played cricket, soccer and all kinds of sports."

Personification

Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person.

Anachronism

Use of historically inaccurate details in a text.

Ambiguity

Use of language in which multiple meanings are possible.

Connotation

What is implied by a word.

Synecdoche

Using a part to represent the whole.

"I've got all of her genes inside of me."

anacoluthon

A sentence that begins in one way but ends in another, often creating a grammatical inconsistency.

antanaclasis

A rhetorical device that involves the repetition of a word or phrase in different contexts or meanings within a single sentence or passage.

• "Put out the light," referring first to a physical light and then to the life of Desdemona. 

hypallage

A figure of speech in which the normal syntactic relations are inverted, often with an adjective relating to a noun that it does not logically modify.

pleonasm

The use of more words than necessary to convey meaning

Anachrony

Disruption of chronological sequence to heighten effect.

Parataxis

Placing clauses or phrases side by side without coordinating conjunctions.

“You don't even pack a bag, you just grab a bat and ball and off you go”

Periphrasis

Using more words than necessary to express an idea, often for emphasis.

• Instead of: "smarter"

• Periphrasis: "more intelligent”

Polyptoton

Using words that derive from the same root in close proximity.

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder

Apophasis

Bringing up a subject by claiming not to mention it

Antiphrasis

Using words to mean the opposite of their literal meaning

Aporia

Expressing doubt or uncertainty.

How can i love thee?

Cataphora

Using a word that refers to something mentioned later.

E.g If you want some, here's some parmesan cheese." ("some" refers to the cheese which is introduced later)

Diacope

Repetition of a word with other words in between.

Syllepsis

Using a word in two different ways at once. Example: "She took her bat and her opponents by surprise."

Symploce

Combining anaphora and epistrophe—repeating words at both beginning and end.

"When she practices, she excels. When she competes, she excels."