Rhetorical Terms 2 Flashcards
The repetition of a group of words at the beginning of successive clauses
Anaphora
A reference in a written or spoken text to another text or to some particular body of knowledge
Allusion
The repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.
Ex: you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy
Antimetabole
The juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas often in parallel structure.
Ex: place your virtues on a pedestal; put your vices under a rock
Antithesis
An elaborate statement justifying some controversial, even contentious, position.
Apology
Type of soliloquy where nature is addressed as though human.
Apostrophe
In a text, the reference to words,action, or beliefs of a person in authority as a means of supporting a claim, generalization, or conclusion
Appeal to authority
A carefully constructed, well-supported representation of how a writer sees an issue, problem, or subject.
Argument
The repetition of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more adjacent words.
Assonance
The situation that results when a writer or speaker constructs an argument on an assumption that the audience does not accept.
Begging of the question
The relationship expressing, “if X is the cause, then Y is the effect,” or,”if Y is the effect, then X caused it”.
Causal relationship (cause-and-effect relationship)
The ultimate conclusion, generalization, or point that a syllogism or enthuse me expresses. The point, backed up by support, of an argument.
Claim
A sentence with one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses
Complex sentence
A sentence with two or more independent clauses.
Compound sentence
The struggle of characters with themselves, with others, or with the world around them.
Conflict
The implied meaning of a word, in contrast to its directly expressed “dictionary meaning”.
Connotation
The convergence of time, place, audience, and motivating factors in which a piece of writing or a speech is situated.
Context
Facts, statistics, and examples the a speaker or writer offers in support of a claim, generalization, or conclusion.
Data
The dictionary definition of a word, in contrast to its connotation, or implied meaning.
Denotation
The omission of words, the meaning of which is provided by the overall context of a passage.
Ellipsis
The repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses.
Ex: “they saw no evil, they spoke no evil, they heard no evil.”
Epistrophe
Epithet
A word or phrase adding a characteristic to a person’s name
Ex: Richard the lion-hearted
An indirect expression of unpleasant information in such a war as to lessen its impact.
Ex: downsizing rather than fired
Euphemism
In ancient Roman oratory, the introduction of a speech, meant to draw the audience into the speech.
Exordium
Language dominated by the use of schemes and tropes.
Figurative language
A point that a speaker or writer generates on the basis of considering a number of particular examples.
Generalization
In ancient Roman oratory, the method that the speakers used to memorize their speeches, connecting the introduction to the porch of a house, the narration and partition to the front foyer, the confirmation and refutation to rooms connected to the foyer, and the conclusion to the back door.
House analogy
Language that evokes particular sensations or emotionally rich experiences in a reader.
Imagery
A metaphor embedded in a sentence rather than expressed directly in a sentence.
Ex: his voice was a cascade through the hallways
Implied metaphor
A conclusion the a reader or listener reaches by means of his or her own thinking rather than by direct statement in text.
Inference
The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text
Also called aim or purpose
Intention
Writing or speaking that implies the contrary of what is actually written or spoken.
Irony
The specialized vocabulary of a particular group.
Jargon
Vocabulary characterized by the choice of elaborate, often complicated words derived from Latin roots.
Latinate diction
Understatement
Ex: her performance ran the gamut if emotion from A to B.
Litotes
The appeal of a text based on the logical structure of its argument or central ideas.
Logos
An entity referred to by one if it’s attributes or associations
Ex: the admissions office claims applications have risen.
Metonymy
A systematic aid to memory
Mnemonic device
Juxtaposed words with seemingly contradictory meanings.
Ex: jumbo shrimp
Oxymoron
A statement that seems untrue on the surface but is true nevertheless.
Paradox
An insertion of material that interrupts the typical flow of a sentence.
Parenthesis
The appeal of a text to the emotions or interests of the audience.
Pathos
Kenneth Burke’s system fora analyzing motives and actions in communication.
The five points are: act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose.
Pentad
The substitution of an attributive word or phrase for a proper name, or the use of a proper name to suggest a personality characteristic.
Ex: that young pop singer thinks she’s a real Madonna doesn’t she?
Periphrasis
In ancient Roman oratory, the part of speech in which the speaker would draw together the entire argument and include material designed to compel the audience to think or act in a way consonant with the central argument.
Peroration
The character that a writer if speaker conveys to the audience.
( plural ends in ae)
Persona
Giving human characteristics to inanimate objects
Personification
Referring to the moving back and forth from invention to revision in the process if writing.
Recursive
In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker would anticipate objections to the points of being raised and counter them.
Refutation
The art of analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective; the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a situation.
Rhetoric
A type of comparison that uses the word like or as.
Simile
A writer’s or speaker’s apparent attitude toward the audience.
Stance
The choices that writers or speakers make in language for effect.
Style
A part of something used to refer to the whole
Ex: 50 head of cow (50 complete animals)
Synecdoche
A trope in which one word, usually a noun or the main verb, governs two other words not related in meaning
Ex: he maintained a business and his innocence.
Zeugma
