Rhetorical Devices

Allusion: A reference, typically brief, to a person, place, thing, event, or other literary work with which the reader is presumably familiar.

Anecdote: A very short story that is significant to the topic at hand; usually adding personal knowledge or experience to the topic.

Asterismos (Pleonasm): The use of a seemingly unnecessary word or phrase to introduce what you’re about to say.

  • Pleonasm is used to apply to what is otherwise called intentional “semantic redundancy.”

Diction: Linguistic/word choice, particularly as an element of style. Different types of words have significant effects on meaning.

  • Formal, informal, lecture, dialogic, conversational, etc.

  • Connotation, denotation, jargon, vernacular

Didacticism: Describes a type of literature that is written to inform or instruct the reader, especially in teaching a specific moral or political lesson (providing a model of correct behavior or thinking)

  • Adage (proverb/cliche)

  • Allegory

  • Aphorism

Ellipsis: The omission of words or a series of words.

  • Commonly used series of three dots, which can be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence or clause. These three dots can stand in for whole sections of text that are omitted that do not change the overall meaning. The dots can also indicate a mysterious or unfinished thought, a leading sentence, or a pause or silence.

  • Linguistically appropriate omission of words that are mutually understood and thus unnecessary.

Figurative Language: Any figure of speech which depends on a non-literal meaning of some or all of the words used.

  • Analogy, hyperbole, idiom, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, simile, personification

  • Euphemism: The substitution of a more pleasant phrase in place of a familiar phrase (dysphemism is the opposite)

Imagery: Refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader.

  • Appeal to a reader’s senses of sight, taste, touch, smell, and sound as well as internal emotion and feelings.

  • Movement or a sense of a body in motion (kinesthetic imagery)

  • Emotions or sensations of a person, such as fear or hunger (organic imagery or subjective imagery)

  • Synesthesia

Juxtaposition: Implies comparison or contrast. Writers create juxtaposition by placing two entities side by side to create dramatic or ironic comparison/contrast. Juxtaposition is a form of implied comparison in that there is no overt comparison or inference on the part of the writer. This allows the reader to discern how the paired entities are similar or different.

  • Oxymoron

  • Paradox: The juxtaposition of a set of seemingly contradictory concepts that reveal a hidden and/or unexpected truth.

    • A seemingly contradictory situation which is actually true.

Parallelism: Eutrepismus, antanaclasis, epistrophe

Rhetorical Question/Hypophora: Question not asked for information, but for effect.

  • Gives the feel of dialogue/conversational language, because the reader feels as though he or she is being addressed directly by the writer.

  • Method of gaining ground and appearing to respect the listener, while also ensuring that they derive the meaning that you intend.

  • Hypophora refers to a writer or speaker proposing a question and following it up with a clear answer.

  • Hypophora serves to ask a question the audience may have (even if they’re not entirely aware of it yet) and provide them with an answer.

Satire: A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of life to a humorous effect. The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or artful ridicule as a means of exposing and/or criticizing.

  • Good satire usually has three layers: serious on the surface; humorous when you discover that it is satire instead of reality; and serious when you discern the underlying point of the author.

  • Satire also gets people to pay attention to social issues when they might otherwise ignore them.

Syntax: Grammatical arrangement of words.

  • How does sentence length and structure relate to tone and meaning?

  • Syntax and diction are both equally integral parts of the formation of meaning into sentences. However, diction refers to the meanings of the words used while syntax refers to the arrangement of words.

  • Asyndeton: When you deliberately miss out the conjunctions between successive clauses.

  • Polysyndeton: When you add more conjunctions to a phrase or clause that are strictly necessary, often with the effect of intentionally dragging it out.

  • Anacoluthon (Stream-of-Consciousness): Anacoluthon is a fancy word for a disruption in the expected grammar or syntax of a sentence.

  • Metanoia

Sentence: Function of a complete thought that indicates authorial intent.

  • Cumulative sentence-(also called a loose sentence). When the writer begins with an independent clause, then adds subordinate elements.

  • Periodic sentence-When the main idea is not completed until the end of the sentence. The writer begins with subordinate elements and postpone the main clause.

  • Declarative, imperative, and interrogative sentences

Irony: Using language that normally signifies the opposite of what the writer intends to achieve a humorous effect or to add emphasis.

  • Verbal irony, dramatic irony, situational irony

  • Apophasis: A form of irony relating to denying something while still saying it.

Fallacy: An attractive, but unreliable piece of reasoning. Writers do not want to make obvious fallacies in their reasoning, but they are often used unintentionally, or when the writer thinks that they can get away with faulty logic.