English BASIS 8 : Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical Devices make communication work

Rhetorical Devices

Parallelism

• structures that are grammatically parallel

  • “To live, to give, to strive”

Hypophora

• speaker asks a question, then immediately answers it

  • “I will win! Why? Because I have courage

Rhetorical Question (Erotema)

• asking a question without expecting an answer

  • “Don’t you have 2 eyes and 2 ears?”

Repetition

• effective in creating a sense of structure & power

• repeating small phrases can ingrain an idea in the audience

  • “Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity, yes, we can heal this nation, yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.”

Antithesis

• contrasting ideas are juxtaposed (placed next to each-other) in a balance or parallel phrase

  • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

Figurative Language

• works best when set off by concrete images

  • simile, metaphor, etc…

Tricolon

• list of three, or a sentence with 3 parts/clauses

  • “Tell me & I forget, teach me & I remember, involve me & I learn.”

Polysyndeton

• several conjunctions in close succession to stress each items importance

  • “$5 and $10 and $15”

• Asyndeton

  • absence of conjunctions where there would usually be one

    • “We lived, laughed, loved, left”

Juxtaposition

• act of positioning close together

  • “They braved the bitter cold & treacherous heat”

Allusion

• reference that creates a bond of shared knowledge in an audience

  • pringles ad (superbowl)

Varied Sentence Length

• can strengthen writing style

Archetype

• cliche characters, an epitome (ultimate example), characters or symbols

  • odysseus

Chiasmus

• a reversal of word order in 2 otherwise parallel phrases

  • “He went to the country, to the town went she”

  • A B B A

Propaganda

• manipulation of info to influence public opinon

  • spreading ideas, facts, claims, or rumors to help or hurt a cause