Rhetorical Devices

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Rhetorical Devices
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Tropes

• A rhetorical device in which MEANING is altered
  from the usual or expected.

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Schemes

• A rhetorical device in which WORD ORDER is
  altered from the usual or expected.

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Kinds of Tropes
Simile
Metaphor
Synecdoche
Metonymy
Puns
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Metaphor

• An implied comparison between two unlike things
• Example
• True art is a conduit between body and , soul,
  between feeling unabstracted and abstraction
  unfelt.
• John Gardner, On Moral Fiction

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Simile

• An explicit comparison between two unlike things
  signaled by the use of like or as.
• Example
• Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small
  flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
• Jonathan Swift, A Critical Essay Upon Faculties
  of the Mind

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Synecdoche

• A whole is represented by naming some of its
  parts.
• Translated from Greek, means understanding one
  thing for another.
• Example
• Nice wheels

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Metonymy

• Reference to something or someone by naming one
  of its attributes.
• Example
• The head of the council is called the chair.

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Personification

• Attributing human qualities to an inanimate
  object.
• Example
• The clock cast a watchful eye over the class as
  they wrote their essay.

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Puns (3 types)

• Repetition of a single word in two different
  senses.
• Example
• But if we dont hang together, we will hang
  separately.
• Benjamin Franklin

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Puns cont.

• A play on words that sound alike but are
  different in meaning.
• Example
• He couldnt get his bearings straight in the
  Bering Strait.

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Puns cont.

• Antanaclasis Use of a single word with two
  different meanings within the context of the
  sentence.
• Example
• The ink, like our pig, keeps running out of the
  pen.

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Onomatopoeia

• The use of words whose sound reinforces their
  meanings.
• Examples drip, crackle, ban, snarl, pop

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Euphemism

• Substituting less pungent words for harsh ones,
  with excellent ironic effect.
• Example
• The schoolmaster corrected the slightest fault
  with his birch reminder.

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Hyperbole

• Deliberate exaggeration for emphasis.
• Example
• Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared
  than a thousand bayonets.
• Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

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Litotes

• A deliberate understatement
• Intensifies an idea by understatement
• Example
• It wasnt my best moment.

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Rhetorical QuestionType 1

• Asking the reader
• Greeks viewed this as a way of taking counsel
  with the reader.
• Example
• What would you have done in these
  circumstances?

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Rhetorical QuestionType 2

• Asking the writer
• Suggests the writers thinking process
• Example
• What was it I really wanted?

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Rhetorical QuestionType 3

• Criticizingmakes a criticism in the form of a
  question
• Example
• How can citizens fail to vote?

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Rhetorical QuestionType 4

• Asking and answering
• Sometimes serves as a way to organize a writers
  arguments

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Irony

• Means liar or dissembler
• Allows the writer to take another voice or role
  that states the opposite of what is expressed.
• The new swimming pool was an important addition
  to the campus, even though library funds had to
  be cut back. After all, we wouldnt want our
  students to go without the little luxuries they
  are accustomed to.

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Oxymoron

• Two contradictory terms used together
• Parting is such sweet sorrow.

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Paradox

• A statement that appears to be contradictory,
  but, in fact, has some truth.
• Example
• He worked hard at being lazy.

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Apostrophe

• Turning away from the audience to address
  someone newGod, heaven, angels, the deadanyone
  not present.
• Example
• Death, where is thy sting?

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Schemes
Antithesis
Parallelism
Repetition
Epistrophe
Zeugma
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Parallelism

• Expresses similar or related ideas in similar
  grammatical structures.
• Example
• Hell is gaping for them, the Devil is waiting
  for them

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Climax

• Writer arranges ideas in order of importance
• Example
• I spent the day cleaning the house, reading
  poetry, and putting my life in order.

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Antithesis

• The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas
• Example
• Our knowledge separates as well as unites our
  orders disintegrate as well as bind

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Zeugma

• The yoking of terms
• Example when an object-taking word has two or
  more objects on different levels
• I had fancied you were gone down to cultivate
  matrimony and your estate in the country.

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Zeugma cont.

• When two different words that sound exactly alike
  are yoked together.
• Example
• He bolted his door and his dinner.

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Anaphora

• Repetition of the same word or phrase at the
  beginning of successive phrases or clauses.
• Example
• We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight
  on the landing grounds

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Epistrophe

• Repetition of the same word or group of words a
  the ends of successive clauses.
• Example
• Shylock Ill have my bond! Speak not against my
  bond! I have sworn an oath that I will have my
  bond!

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Epanalepsis

• Repeating at the end of a clause the word that
  occurred at the beginning.
• Example
• Blood hath brought blood, and blows answerd
  blows King John

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Alliteration

• Repetition of the same sound at the beginning of
  successive words.
• Example
• We shall not flag or fail.

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Assonance

• Repetition of sounds within words
• Example
• The heaveeyo of stevedores

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Anastrophe

• Word order is reversed or rearranged.
• In Greek it means turning back
• Example
• Unseen in the jungle, but present, are tapirs,
  jaguars, many species of snake

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Parenthesis

• The insertion of words, phrases, or a sentence
  that is not syntactically related to the rest of
  the sentence.
• Set off by dashed or parentheses
• Example
• He said it would rainI could hardly
  disagreebefore the game was over.

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Apposition

• The placing next to a noun another noun or phrase
  that explains it.
• Example
• Pollution, the citys biggest problem, is an
  issue.

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Asyndenton

• Conjunctions are omitted, producing a fast-paced
  and rapid prose.
• Example
• I came, I saw, I conquered.

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Polysyndenton

• The use of many conjunctions has an opposite
  effectslowing the pace.
• Example
• I kept remembering everythingthe small
  steamboat that we rode on, and how quietly she
  ran on the moonlight sails, and how sweet the
  music was on the water, and what it felt like to
  think about girls then.