Everyday Use Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing
Rhetorical devices (as well known as stylistic devices, persuasive devices, or but rhetoric) are techniques or language used to convey a signal or convince an audience. And they're used by anybody: politicians, businesspeople, fifty-fifty your favorite novelists.
You may already know some of these devices, such as similes and metaphors. Others, maybe not (bdelygmia, we're looking at you). Merely whether or non you realized it, you've probably run across all of these devices before, and maybe even used them yourself!
If you haven't, don't let their elaborate Greek names fool y'all — rhetorical devices are really pretty easy to implement. Simply before we dive into the different types of devices and how to apply them, let's identify the iv ways that rhetorical devices work.
Types of rhetorical devices
Although there exists plenty of overlap between rhetorical and literary devices, there's also one significant deviation between the two. While literary devices express ideas artistically, rhetoric appeals to one'south sensibilities in four specific means:
- Logos, an appeal to logic;
- Pathos, an appeal to emotion;
- Ethos, an appeal to ethics; or,
- Kairos, an appeal to fourth dimension.
These categories haven't changed since the Ancient Greeks beginning identified them thousands of years ago. This makes sense, because how nosotros make decisions haven't changed, either: nosotros still make up one's mind with our brain, our heart, our morals, or based on the feeling that we're running out of time.
Without further ado, here is our listing of 30 rhetorical devices (plus a few bonus terms) to convince listeners to hold with you — or readers to go along reading your volume. Become prepare to master the art of rhetoric for yourself!
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List of rhetorical devices
Accismus
Accismus is the rhetorical refusal of something ane actually wants, to endeavour and convince themselves or others of a different opinion. Like in i of Aesop'due south Fables:
Driven by hunger, a fox tried to accomplish some grapes hanging loftier on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. Equally he went abroad, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't demand any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would practice well to apply this story to themselves.
Adnomination
A dnomination is the use of words with the aforementioned root in the same judgement. Similar many other rhetorical devices, this is a linguistic play a joke on to make statements sound more persuasive. It'southward sure to somehow work on someone, somewhere, someday.
Adynaton
Adynata are purposefully hyperbolic metaphors to suggest that something is impossible — like the classic adage, when pigs fly. And hyperbole, of class, is a rhetorical device in and of itself: an excessively exaggerated argument for effect.
Ingemination
Ingemination is the repetition of consonants across successive, stressed syllables… get it? This most often means repeating consonants at the beginning of multiple words, as opposed to consonance, which is the repetition of consonants anywhere in sequent words. (Acquire more about the difference betwixt alliteration and consonance — and other types of repetition — in this guide!)
Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven makes use of both alliteration and consonance: "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain." "Silken" and "sad" are alliterative, but the consonance continues into "uncertain" and "rustling." And as a bonus, it contains assonance — the repetition of vowel sounds — across "purple curtain."
Anacoluthon
An anacoluthon is a misdirection that challenges listeners and/or readers to think deeply and question their assumptions. For example, the opening sentence of Kafka'south Metamorphosis is a famous anacoluthon because it ends somewhere entirely different than where it started:
"When Gregor Samsa woke upwardly one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself inverse in his bed into a monstrous vermin."
Annotation that anacoluthons are different from not-sequiturs, which are unintentional and incoherent — well, but can anything really be dissimilar from annihilation else?
Anadiplosis
Anadiplosis is the repetition of the discussion from the cease of one sentence to the starting time of the next. Information technology has been used by everyone from Shakespeare to Yeats to Yoda:
"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
Anaphora
On the other hand, anaphora is the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of subsequent sentences. Similar in Ginsberg's Howl — no, not that famous opening line, but instead those that follow it:
"Who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and loftier saturday upwardly smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-low-cal tragedy amid the scholars of war…"
Another, like rhetorical device is epistrophe: the repetition of words at the end of sentences. And, if you combine the 2, y'all've got a symploce.
Antanagoge
A ntanagoge involves responding to an allegation with a counter-allegation. Antanagoge doesn't necessarily solve the initial trouble, but it does provide an appealing alternative. The quintessential example is, "When life gives you lemons, brand lemonade." 🍋
Someone might also utilize antanagoge to justify something to themselves: "Well, it's raining today, but that'south fine — I wanted to stay inside anyway."
Anthimeria
Anthimeria is the intentional misuse of one give-and-take'due south lexical category, such as using a noun for a verb. It's been effectually for centuries, but is oft used in the modernistic day, every bit "Facebooking" and "adulting" have seamlessly go part of the lexicon.
Antiphrasis
Antiphrasis is a sentence or phrase that means the reverse of what information technology appears to say. Similar how the idiom, "Tell me about information technology" by and large means, "Don't tell me about it — I already know." It's a subset of a much more than common rhetorical device: irony.
Antonomasia
Antonomasia is, essentially, a rhetorical proper noun. Like "Old Bluish Optics," "The Boss," or "The Fab 4" — affectionate epithets that accept the identify of proper names like Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, or the Beatles.
Apophasis
Y'all may take noticed by now that a lot of rhetorical devices stem from irony. Apophasis — also known as paralipsis, occupatio, praeteritio, preterition, or parasiopesis — is one of these: bringing up a subject by denying that information technology should be brought up. This is a archetype if oft-maligned political tactic, and ane frequently utilized by the 45th President of the Usa, particularly in his colorful tweets. For example:
"Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me 'old,' when I would NEVER call him 'brusque and fat?'"
Aporia
Aporia is the rhetorical expression of dubiousness — almost always insincerely. This is a common tool that businesses use to connect with a consumer base, typically in ads or presentations. For example, take Steve Jobs' introduction of touchscreen technology:
"At present, how are nosotros gonna communicate this? We don't wanna carry around a mouse, right? What are we gonna practise?"
Aposiopesis
Aposiopesis is substantially the rhetorical version of abaft off at the end of your sentence, leaving your listener (or reader) hanging. Similar the ending of Mercutio'due south famous "Queen Mab" speech in Romeo & Juliet:
"This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them kickoff to acquit,
Making them women of skilful wagon:
This is she... "
Asterismos
Asterismos is only a phrase beginning with an assertion. Like every other sentence in Moby-Dick: "Book! You lie there; the fact is, you lot books must know your places." But if no sentence follows, it's exclamatio: an emphatic expression like "My word!" that warrants no follow-upwards.
Asyndeton
Asyndetonis the removal of conjunctions similar "or," "and," or "simply" from your writing considering the sentence flows improve, or more than poetically, without them. This is a favorite technique of Cormac McCarthy, as seen in this passage from Outer Dark: "A parson was laboring over the crest of the hill and coming toward them with one hand raised in approval, greeting, fending flies."
And similar nearly of the enigmatic author'southward preferred rhetoric, this asyndeton is well-nigh intentionally confusing; whether the parson is approval or greeting or swatting flies is never antiseptic. At other times, McCarthy uses polysyndeton, which is essentially asyndeton's opposite — the addition of extra conjunctions ("and then nosotros walked and then nosotros stopped and and then nosotros sat on the basis").
Bdelygmia
Befitting its ugly spelling, bdelygmia (or abominatio) is a rhetorical insult — the uglier and more than elaborate, the better. Like most rhetorical devices, Shakespeare was a big fan. So was Dr. Seuss:
"You're a foul ane, Mr. Grinch, You're a nasty wasty skunk, Your middle is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch. The three words that best describe y'all are as follows, and I quote, 'Stink, stank, stunk!'"
Cacophony
Cacophony is just the use of words that sound bad together. That may sound pretty random, until you remember that Lewis Carroll invented words for his poem "Jabberwocky" just to make it sound harsh and unmelodious:
"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did scroll and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
And it goes manus in mitt with euphony — the use of words that audio adept together, like this passage from an Emily Dickinson verse form:
"Oars divide the Sea, / As well silver for a seam."
Chiasmus
"Despised, if ugly; if she's fair, betrayed." This extract from Mary Leapor's Essay on Woman is great example of chiasmus: the repetition and/or reversal of words or grammatical construction across two phrases. More specific isantimetabole: the switching of words or phrases in social club to advise truth. (Ask not what rhetorical devices tin can do for you. Enquire what you can practise for rhetorical devices.)
Climax
Narrative arcs aren't just for novels. Sentences can accept a climax, too — the initial words and clauses build to a top, saving the about important point for last. Nosotros've been using climaxes rhetorically since at least Corinthians: "At that place are three things that will endure: faith, hope, and dearest. Merely the greatest of these is love."
Dysphemism
Dysphemism is a description that is explicitly offensive to its subject and/or its audience. It stands in contrast to a euphemism, which strives to avert outright offense, but nonetheless has unfortunate connotations. Most racial epithets started as the latter, only are recognized today as the old.
Meiosis
If you've ever understated something before, that'south meiosis — like the assertion that Britain is simply "across the swimming" from the Americas. The opposite — rhetorical exaggeration — is chosen auxesis.
Onomatopoeia
Wham! Pow! Crunch! These are all examples of onomatopoeia, a discussion for a audio that phonetically resembles the sound itself. Which means the finale of the 1966 Batman is the near onomatopoeic film scene of all fourth dimension.
Personification
Personification describes things and concepts using human characteristics. It's easier for humans to empathize a concept when information technology's directly related to them, which is why this is such an effective rhetorical device!
Personification appears in almost all forms of literature — even simple sentences like "the alarm screamed" or "the air current howled" would qualify equally personification. Anthropomorphism, which actuallyturnsnon-humans into human-like forms, is less common, but frequently seen in children's stories and cartoons similarPeter Rabbit and Winnie-the-Pooh.
Pleonasm
Pleonasms are redundant phrases that emphasize the nature of the subject. Certain words are so overused that they've lost meaning — darkness, nice, etc. Withal, "black darkness" or "pleasantly nice" reinvigorate that meaning, fifty-fifty if the phrases are technically redundant.
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Rhetorical comparisons
Some of the most prevalent rhetorical devices are figures of speech that compare one thing to another. 2 of these, you surely know: the simile and the metaphor.Only there is a third, hypocatastasis, that is just as common… and useful.
The distinctions betwixt the three are pretty simple. A simile compares two things using similar or as: "Y'all are like a monster." A metaphor compares them by asserting that they're the same: "You're a monster." And with hypocatastasis, the comparison itself is implied: "Monster!"
If you can't get enough rhetorical comparisons, check out these xc+ examples of metaphors in literature and pop civilization!
Rhetorical question
You've probably heard of a rhetorical question, also: a question asked to make a point rather than to be answered. Technically, this figure of speech is called interrogatio, but plenty of other rhetorical devices take the form of questions.
If you pose a rhetorical question merely to answer it yourself, that'south hypophora ("Am I hungry? Yes, I think I am"). And if your rhetorical question infers or asks for a large audience'south opinion ("Friends, Romans, countrymen [...] Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?") that's anacoenosis — though it generally doesn't warrant an answer, either.
Synecdoche
Synecdoche is a rhetorical device wherein a part of one thing represents its whole. This differs slightly from metonymy, in which a unmarried thing represents a larger institution. So if you referred to an old king as "greybeard," that would be synecdoche. If you referred to him every bit "the crown," it would be metonymy.
Tmesis
Have you lot ever, in a fit of outrage, referred to something un-effing-believable? If you have, congratulations on discovering tmesis: the separation of one give-and-take into two parts, with a third discussion placed in between for emphasis.
Zeugma
Zeugma, also chosen syllepsis, places two nouns with different meanings in a similar position in a sentence. This is a grammatical play a trick on that can be used rhetorically as well. Marking Twain was a master at this: "They covered themselves with dust and glory."
Another example might be: "He caught the train and a bad cold." Though you'd "catch" these things in very different ways, the phrase even so works considering the aforementioned verb applies to both. Authors often use zeugma in clever wordplay, and sometimes information technology even enters everyday conversation. (My grandmother, for example, uses zeugma to describe staticky article of clothing: "This shirt attracts everything simply a man.")
Congrats on getting to the cease of our rhetorical devices list! Of course, this might feel a scrap similar a listing of fancy names for things you already practice. If so, that'south great — yous're already well on your style to mastering the art of rhetoric. And now that you know the specifics, y'all can accept the side by side step: implementing these techniques in your writing and swaying readers onto your side.
Exit any thoughts or questions about rhetorical devices in the comments below!
Source: https://blog.reedsy.com/rhetorical-devices/
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