Rhetorical Terms Flashcards
Allusion
a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication
A tale of two weddings is an allusion to a tale of two cities
Alliteration
the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter
apt alliteration’s artful aid
Anadiplosis
repetition of the last word of one line or clause to begin the next
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”
Anaphora
repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses
“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”
Anastrophe
inversion of conventional word order
“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. . . . This one a long time have I watched. . . . Never his mind on where he was.”
Antithesis
juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses
“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.”
Aphorism
A brief statement of a principle
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Asyndeton
a writing style that omits conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses
“He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac.”
Audience
The listeners at a speech or performance, or the intended readership for a piece of writing.
“You can increase your awareness of your audience by asking yourself a few questions before you begin to write.
Who are to be your readers?
What is their age level? background? education?
Where do they live?
What are their beliefs and attitudes?
What interests them?
What, if anything, sets them apart from other people?
How familiar are they with your subject?
Chiasmus
a verbal pattern (a type of antithesis) in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed. Essentially the same as antimetabole
“In the end, the true test is not the speeches a president delivers; it’s whether the president delivers on the speeches.”
Colloquial
The characteristic style of writing that seeks the effect of informal spoken language as distinct from formal or literary English
“We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed–only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all–that night, nor the next, nor the next.”
Connotation
The emotional implications and associations that a word may carry
Aroma- positive
Stench- negative
Dialect
A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a way of speaking that differs from the standard variety of the language
South: “Y’all”
North: “You guys”
South: “Fixin’ to”
North: “About to”
South: “Howdy”
North: “Hello”
South: “Twixt”
North: “Between”
Ellipsis
the omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
Epistrophe
the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses
“Don’t you ever talk about my friends! You don’t know any of my friends. You don’t look at any of my friends. And you certainly wouldn’t condescend to speak to any of my friends.”
Ethos
a persuasive appeal (one of the three artistic proofs) based on the character or projected character of the speaker or writer
“If, in my low moments, in word, deed or attitude, through some error of temper, taste, or tone, I have caused anyone discomfort, created pain, or revived someone’s fears, that was not my truest self. If there were occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart. My head–so limited in its finitude; my heart, which is boundless in its love for the human family. I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds.”
Eulogy
A formal expression of praise for someone who has recently died
“My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”
Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term (such as “passed away”) for one considered offensively explicit (“died”).
Passed away- died
Extended metaphor
A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,
“And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
Fallacy
An error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.
“My roommate said her philosophy class was hard, and the one I’m in is hard, too. All philosophy classes must be hard!”
Hyperbole
A figure of speech (a form of irony) in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement
“I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far.”
Imagery
Vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste)
“In our kitchen, he would bolt his orange juice (squeezed on one of those ribbed glass sombreros and then poured off through a strainer) and grab a bite of toast (the toaster a simple tin box, a kind of little hut with slit and slanted sides, that rested over a gas burner and browned one side of the bread, in stripes, at a time), and then he would dash, so hurriedly that his necktie flew back over his shoulder, down through our yard, past the grapevines hung with buzzing Japanese-beetle traps, to the yellow brick building, with its tall smokestack and wide playing fields, where he taught.”
Jargon
The specialized language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders
“Pigs in a blanket sixty-nine cents,
Eggs–roll ‘em over and a package of Kents,
Adam and Eve on a log, you can sink ‘em damn straight,
Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can’t be late.”
Juxtaposition
the placing of verbal elements side by side, leaving it up to the reader to establish connections and impose a meaning
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
