Rhetorical Terms and Logical Fallacies

Flashcards covering literary devices, rhetorical strategies, and logical fallacies.

ad hominem fallacy

(Latin for "to the man") a fallacy of logic in which a person's character or motive is attacked instead of that person's argument.

ad populum fallacy

(Latin for "to the crowd") a fallacy of logic in which the widespread occurrence of something is assumed to make it true or right; e.g. "The Escort is the most widely sold car in the world; therefore, it must be the best."

allegory

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

alliteration

the repetition of initial consonant sounds in a series; example: "over the cobbles he clattered and clashed"

allusion

a brief reference to a person, place, event or passage in a work of literature or the Bible assumed to be sufficiently well known to be recognized by the reader, e.g. "He met his Waterloo."

analogy

a comparison between two things in which the more complex is explained in terms of the more simple; e.g. comparing a year-long profile of the stock index to a roller-coaster ride.

anecdote

a short entertaining account of some happening, frequently personal or biographical

antagonist

a character or force in conflict with a main character or protagonist.

anticlimax

a sudden drop from the dignified or important in thought or expression to the commonplace or trivial, often the humorous effect.

antithesis

involves a direct contrast of structurally parallel word groupings, generally for the purpose of contrast: e.g. Sink or swim.

appeal to authority

citation of information from people recognized for their special knowledge of a subject for the purpose of strengthening a speaker or writer's arguments.

apostrophe

form of personification in which the absent or dead are spoken to as if present and the inanimate, as if animate. These are all addressed directly: e.g. "Milton! Thou shoulds't be living at this hour."

argumentation

exploration of a problem by investigating all sides of it; persuasion through reason.

assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds in a series of words: e.g., the words "cry and "side" have the same vowel sound and so are said to be in assonance.

begging the question

a fallacy of logical argument that assumes as true the very thing that one is trying to prove; e.g. 1. The Bible is the infallible word of God. 2. The Bible says that God exists. Therefore, 3. God exists.