Rhetorical Terms

Analogy: a comparison of one pair of variables to a parallel set of variables.
Metaphor: making an implied comparison, not using “like,” as,” or other such words.
Simile: using words such as “like” or “as” to make a direct comparison between two very different things.
Juxtaposition: placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison.
- Authors often use juxtaposition of ideas or examples in order to make a point.

Vernacular: language or dialect of a particular country; language or dialect of a regional clan or group; plain everyday speech
Figurative language: writing that is not meant to be taken literally.
Diction: word choice, particularly as an element of style.
- Different types of words have significant effects on meaning.
Denotation: the literal, explicit meaning of a word, without its connotations.
Colloquial: ordinary or familiar type of conversation.
Connotation: the associations suggested by a word.
- Implied meaning rather than literal meaning.
Jargon: the diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity.
Euphemism: more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts.
- Sometimes they are used for political correctness.

Allegory: a story, fictional or non fictional, in which characters, things, and events represent qualities or concepts.
- The interaction of these characters, things, and events is meant to reveal an abstraction or a truth.
Allusion: an indirect reference to something (usually a literary text, although it can be other things commonly known, such as plays, songs, historical events) with which the reader is supposed to be familiar

Comic relief: when a humorous scene is inserted into a serious story, in order to lighten the mood somewhat.
Hyperbole: an exaggeration.
Idiom: a common, often used expression that doesn’t make sense if you take it literally.
Onomatopoeia: the use of a word which imitates or suggests the sound that the thing makes
Alliteration: the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words.
Assonance: the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.
Consonance: the repetition of the same consonant sound at the end of words or within words.
Satire: a work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of life to a humorous effect.

Anecdote: a brief recounting of a relevant episode.
- Anecdotes are often inserted into fictional or non fictional texts as a way of developing a point or injecting humor.
Metonymy: replacing an actual word or idea, with a related word or concept.
Synecdoche: a kind of metonymy when a whole is represented by naming one of its parts, or vice versa.
Foreshadowing: when an author gives hints about what will occur later in a story
Irony: when the opposite of what you expect to happen does.
Verbal irony: when you say something and mean the opposite/something different.
Dramatic irony: when the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn't and would be surprised to find out.
Motif: a recurring idea in a piece of literature intended to illustrate the theme
Paradox: a seemingly contradictory situation which is actually true.
Poetic device: a device used in poetry to manipulate the sound of words, sentences or lines.
Rhetorical question: question not asked for information but for effect.
Understatement: the ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is.