Rhetorical Devices

rhetoric

the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for the audience

rhetorical situation

a set of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential need which can be completely or partially removed if discourse can so compel human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the need

tone

the author or speaker's attitude toward the subject

point of view

the angle of considering things; in literature, it is the narrator's position in relation to the story being told

allegory

the device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an

abstraction in addition to the literal meaning

allusion

a direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known,

such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art

anecdote

a short narrative detailing particulars of an interesting episode or event

paradox

a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but

upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth

ethos

appealing to a reader through the speaker's credibility

pathos

appealing to a reader/audience by eliciting an emotional response from the audience

logos

appealing to a reader/audience through presentation of logic

diction

the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clarity, or

effectiveness

denotation

the strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion,

attitude, or color

connotation

the nonliteral, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning

metaphor

a comparison between two unlike things that does NOT use the words like or as: the ladder of success (i.e, success is a ladder). EX: "Carthage was a beehive of buzzing workers." Or, "This is your brain on drugs."

simile

when something is like something else:

"Her skin was like alabaster."

metonymy

using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general

idea: CROWN for royalty; the PEN is mightier than the SWORD. "If we cannot strike offenders in the heart, let us strike them in the wallet." We use metonymy in everyday speech when we refer to the entire movie-making industry as a mere suburb of L.A., "Hollywood," or when we refer to the collective decisions of the United States government as "Washington," or the "White House."

synecdoche

using a part of a physical object to represent the whole object: "Twenty eyes watched our every move" (i.e., ten people watched our every move). "A hungry stomach has no ears" (La Fontaine).

pun

A pun twists the meaning of words. Homonymic Puns -- "Johnny B. Good" is a pun for "Johnny be good." Sound similarities -- "Casting perils before swains" (instead of "pearls before swine").

zeugma

one verb using different objects. If this changes the verb's initial meaning, the zeugma is sometimes called syllepsis:

"If we don't hang together, we shall hang separately" (Ben Franklin).

"The queen of England sometimes takes advice in that chamber, and sometimes tea." ". . . losing her heart or her necklace at the ball" (Alexander Pope).

"She exhausted both her audience and her repertoire."

personification

giving human qualities to inanimate objects: "The ground thirsts for rain; the wind whispered secrets to us."

apostrophe

(not to be confused with the punctuation mark): addressing someone or some abstraction that is not physically present: "Oh, Death, be not proud" (John Donne). "Ah, Mr. Newton, you would be pleased to see how far we have progressed in physics."

erotema

asking a rhetorical question to the reader: "What should honest citizens do?"

onomatopoeia

echoic words or words that create an auditory effective similar to the sound

they represent: Buzz; Click; Rattle; Clatter; Squish; Grunt.

hyperbole

exaggeration: "His thundering shout could split rocks." Or, "Yo' mama's so

fat..."

meiosis

understatement (opposite of exaggeration): "I was somewhat worried when the

psychopath ran toward me with a chainsaw." (i.e., I was terrified). Litotes (especially popular in Old English) is a type of meiosis in which the writer uses a statement in the negative to create the effect: "You know, Einstein is not a bad mathematician." (i.e., Einstein is a good mathematician.)

catachresis

A completely impossible figure of speech, especially one breaking the limits of realism or grammar. For example, many figures of speech describe something biologically or physically impossible: "Joe will kittens when he hears this!" "I will sing victories for you." Or as Milton so elegantly phrased it, catachresis is all about "blind mouths."

For a more recent example, consider the disturbingly cheerful pop song by Foster the People, "Pumped Up Kicks," which deals with a school shooting. Here, the shooter/narrator states, "I've waited for a long time. Yeah, the sleight of my hand is now a quick-pull trigger. / I reason with my cigarette." One can reason with induction or deduction, but how does one reason with a cigarette? Here, the catachresis might evoke the idea of the "cool" kid using personal style instead of a persuasive argument, or it might evoke the imagery of torture--burning victims with a cigarette-butt to make one's point. This sort of evocative, almost nonsensical language is the heart of good catachresis. Catachresis is closely related to hyperbole and synaesthesia.

synæsthesia

Mixing one type of sensory input with another in an impossible way, such as

speaking of how a color sounds, or how a smell looks: "The scent of the rose rang like a bell

through the garden." "I caressed the darkness with cool fingers."

aposiopesis

Breaking off as if unable to continue: "The fire surrounds them while - I

cannot go on."

oxymoron

(plural oxymora also called Paradox)-- Using contradiction in a manner that oddly

makes sense. Examples of oxymora include jumbo shrimp, sophisticated rednecks, and

military intelligence. The best oxymora seem to reveal a deeper truth through their contradictions. For instance, "without laws, we can have no freedom." Shakespeare's Julius Caesar also makes use of a famous oxymoron: "Cowards die many times before their deaths" (2.2.32).

ambiguity

the multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage

colloquial/colloquialism

the use of slang or informalities in speech or writing that gives the work a conversational, familiar tone; not generally acceptable for formal writing

euphemism

a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant word

or concept

homily

any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice

juxtaposition

when two words, phrases, images, or ideas are placed close together or side

by-side for comparison or contrast

litotes

a special form of understatement in which a point is affirmed by negating its

opposite. EX: "He's no fool."

pedantic

used to describe words, phrases, or a general tone that is overly scholarly,

academic, or bookish

periodic sentence

a sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end and is preceded by a dependent clause.

EX: "Ecstatic with my AP score, I let out a loud, joyful shout!"

Cumulative sentences or loose sentences, on the other hand, begin with the independent clause and then finish with a flurry of modifying constructions.

syllogism

a deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises (first called "major" and the second called "minor) that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion.

EX: Major premise: All men are mortal.

Minor premise: Socrates is a man. Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

syntax

the way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences

parallelism

when the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and length. For instance, "King Alfred tried to make the law clear, precise, and

equitable." The previous sentence has parallel structure in use of adjectives. However, the following sentence does not use parallelism: "King Alfred tried to make clear laws that had precision and were equitable."

antithesis

(plural antitheses) -- contrary ideas expressed in a balanced sentence. It

can be a contrast of opposites: "Evil men fear authority; good men cherish it." Or it can be a contrast of degree: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind."

chiasmus

(from Greek, "cross" or "x"): A literary scheme involving a specific inversion of word order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a "crisscross" pattern. For example,, consider the chiasmus that follows: "By day the frolic, and the dance by night." If we draw the words as a chart, the words form an "x" (hence the word's Greek etymology):

The sequence is typically a b b a. Examples: "I lead the life I love; I love the life I lead." "Naked I rose from the earth; to the grave I fall clothed." Chiasmus often overlaps with antimetabole.

alliosis

presenting alternatives: "You can eat well or you can sleep well." While

such a structure often results in the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy or the either/or fallacy, it can create a cleverly balanced and artistic sentence.

ellipsis

omitting a word implied by the previous clause: "The European soldiers killed six of the remaining villagers, the American soldiers, eight."

asyndeton

using no conjunctions to create an effect of speed or simplicity: Veni.

Vidi. Vici. "I came. I saw. I conquered." (As opposed to "I came, and then I saw, and then I conquered.") Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt.

polysyndeton

using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect: "This

term, I am taking biology and English and history and math and music and physics and sociology." All those ands make the student sound like she is completely overwhelmed!

enallage

intentionally misusing grammar to characterize a speaker or to create a memorable phrase. Boxing manager Joe Jacobs, for instance, became immortal with the phrase, "We was robbed!" Or, the editors of Punch magazine might tell their British readers, "You pays your money, and you takes your chances."

neologism

creating a new or imaginary word. For example, Lewis Caroll writes:

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / did gyre and gimble in the wabe; / All mimsy were the borogoves, / and the mome raths outgrabe." His lines here contain numerous imaginary words--though these might be excessive in a rhetorical writing rather than a literary one like his poem. Many neologisms result from metaplasmus, as discussed and subdivided below.

metaplasmus

a type of neologism in which misspelling a word creates a rhetorical

effect. To emphasize dialect, one might spell dog as "dawg." To emphasize that something is unimportant, we might add -let or -ling at the end of the word, referring to a deity as a "godlet", or a prince as a "princeling." To emphasize the feminine nature of something normally considered masculine, try adding -ette to the end of the word, creating a smurfette or a corvette. To modernize something old, the writer might turn the Greek god Hermes into the Hermenator. Likewise, Austin Powers renders all things shagedelic. The categories following this entry are subdivisions of metaplasmus:

alliteration

repetition of a sound in multiple words: buckets of big blue berries. If

we want to be super-technical, alliteration comes in two forms. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds: many more merry men. If the first letters are the consonants that alliterate, the technique is often called head rhyme. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds: refresh your zest for living. Often assonance can lead to outright rhymes.

anaphora

repetition of beginning clauses. For instance, Churchill declared, "We

shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost shall be."

epistrophe (also called antistrophe)

repetition of a concluding word or endings:

"He's learning fast; are you earning fast?" When the epistrophe focuses on sounds rather than entire words, we normally call it rhyme.

epanalepsis

repeating a word from the beginning of a clause at the end of the

clause: "Year chases year." Or "Man's inhumanity to man." As Voltaire reminds us, "Common sense is not so common." As Shakespeare chillingly phrases it, "Blood will have blood." Under Biblical lextalionis one might demand "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life."

satire

a work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule

parody

a work that closely imitates the style or content of another with specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule

sarcasm

bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something

invective

an emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive

language