Rhetorical Devices List

This flashcard set covers various rhetorical devices, their definitions, and examples to aid students in understanding literary techniques for their upcoming exam.

Anecdote

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

Perspective

A character's view of the situation or events in the story.

Aphorism

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

Contradiction

A direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which a person, thing, or abstract quality is addressed as if present.

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 characterized by significant difference between what is expected and what actually happens.

Eulogy

A speech or writing in praise of a person or thing.

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

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

Antagonist

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

Analogy

Comparison of two things that are alike in some respects.

Inductive

A type of reasoning whereby observation is applied to the class as a whole.

Nostalgia

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

Chiasmus

Figure of speech by which the order of terms in the first clause 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 words or phrases.

Litote

Form of understatement in which 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 in which characters and actions have meanings outside themselves.

Abstract

Not related to the concrete properties of an object, 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 in which the parallel elements are similar in structure and length.

Aesthetic

Pertaining to the value of art for its own sake.

Juxtaposition

Placing of two items side by side to create an effect.

Elegy

Poem or prose lamenting the death of a particular person.

Antihero

Protagonist who does not embody the traditional qualities of a hero.

Catharsis

Purification or cleansing of the spirit through the emotions.

Epigraph

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

Motif

Recurrent device or situation that serves as a signal for the appearance of a character.

Parallelism

Recurrent syntactical similarity where parts of a sentence are expressed alike.

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 meant to persuade the listener.

Imagery

Sensory details in a work; use of figurative language.

Euphemism

Substitution of a milder expression for one that is harsh.

Genre

Term used to describe literary forms.

Voice

The source of words of the story; the speaker.

Tone

The attitude a work takes towards its subject.

Theme

The central or dominant idea of a work.

Protagonist

The chief character in a work of literature.

Denotation

The dictionary definition of a word.

Mood

The feeling resulting from the tone of a piece.

Realism

The literary practice of describing life and nature without idealization.

Prose

The ordinary form of written language.

Audience

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

Asyndeton

The practice of omitting conjunctions to give a list an extemporaneous effect.

Deductive

The reasoning process where a conclusion is drawn from premises.

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in words.

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words.

Consonance

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

Invective

The use of angry and insulting language.

Point of view

The view the reader gets of the action and characters.

Persona

The voice or figure of the author in a story.

Syntax

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

Canon

The works of an author that have been accepted as authentic.

Foreshadow

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

Begging the question

To sidestep or evade the real problem.

Personification

Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as 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.

Transition words

Words and devices that bring unity and coherence to a piece of writing.