Rhetorical Strats
Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms.
What is figurative language?
Placing two things side by side, usually to show contrast.
What is juxtaposition
An item used to appeal to the sense (sight, taste, touch, etc.).
What is sensory detail or imagery
The writer’s attitude toward his reader and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic
What is tone?
A rhetorical appeal to an audience based on the speaker/writer's credibility.
What is ethos?
The metaphorical representation of an animal or inanimate object as having human attributes—
What is personification?
This rhetorical device involves the deliberate exaggeration of a situation. ex: He ate everything in the house.
What is hyperbole.
Rhetorical appeals based on logic or reasoning.
What is logos?
The contrast is between the literal meaning of what is said and what is meant.
What is verbal irony?
The emotional appeal to an audience in an argument.
What is pathos?
This rhetorical device involves a direct or indirect reference to somthing which is commonly known. ex:'Christy didn't like to spend money. She was no Scrooge, but she seldom purchased anything except the bare necessities'..
What is an Allusion.
Abuse (tongue-lashing, diatribe, condemnation)
What is invective
The direct address of a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back.
What is apostrophe?
A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity
What is a paradox
A metaphor that is drawn-out beyond the usual word or phrase to extend throughout a stanza or an entire work, usually by using multiple comparisons between the unlike objects or ideas.
What is an extended metaphor?
The repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Counterpart to anaphora.
What is epistrophe.
The expression of an unpleasant or embarrassing notion by a more inoffensive substitute.
“pass away" instead of "die"
What is a euphemism?
The use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton.
“[He] pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.” --John Milton
What is polysyndeton?
The omission of a conjunction from a list. In a list of items, asyndeton gives the effect of unpremeditated multiplicity.
*We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address
What is asyndeton?