Rhetorical Terms Flashcards
Aphorism
A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion
Assonance
The identity or similarity in sound between internal found in neighboring words
Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases
Annotation
A brief explanation, memory, evaluation text for work literature.
Anachronism
A person, seen, event, it failed correspond with the appropriate time for era.
Arguementation
Explanation of a problem by investigating all sides of it, persuasion through reason.
Adage
A saying or proper containing based on experience. “There is more than one way to skin a cat.”
Ad hominem fallacy
Means “to the man”
A fallacy of logic in which a person’s character or motive is attacked instead of that person’s argument
Antecedent
A noun or noun phrase referred to buy a pronoun
Allegory
A story in which the people, places, and things represent general concept or moral qualities
Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or versus
Allusion
A brief reference to a person, place, event, or passage in a work of literature or the Bible assumed to be sufficiently well known to be recognized by the reader.
Example “I am Lazarus, come from the dead.” T.S. Eliot
Analogy
A comparison between two things in which the more complex is explained in terms of the more simple
Anecdote
A short entertaining account of some event frequently personal or biographical
Anticlimax
A sudden drop from the dignified or important in thought or expression to the commonplace or trivial, often for humorous effect
Begging the question
Fallacy of logical argument that as soon as true the very thing that one is trying to prove.
Example: The Bible is the infallible word of God.
The Bible says that God exists.
Therefore God exists
Colloquial expression
Words and phrases used in every day speech but avoided in formal writing
Uncle Scott bombed out in high school, and worked his butt off in college.
Damning with faint praise
Intentional use of a positive statement that has a negative implication
“Your new hairdo is so . . .interesting.”
Deduction
He form of reasoning that begins with a generalize Asian, then applies the generalization to a specific case.
opposite to induction.
Digression
A temporary departure from the main subject in speaking or writing
Euphemism
The use of a word or phrase that is less direct but that is also less distasteful or less offensive than another.
“She has passed on.” Rather than “She has died.”
Expository writing
Writing that explains or analyzes
Hyperbole
And extravagant exaggeration of fact, used either for serious or comic effect.
Imagery
Likely descriptions which impress the images of things upon the mind, figures of speech.
Inverted syntax
Reversing the normal word order of a sentence,
“Yoda my name is. Jedi Knight am I.”
Irony
My favorite word!
A method of humorous or sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the opposite of their usual meaning.
Describing a cold windy day as “lovely.”
Litotes
In rhetoric of the cure in which an affirmative is expressed by a negation of the contrary.
“A citizen of no mean city” is therefore “a citizen of an important or famous city.”
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another by being spoken of as though it were that thing.
“A sea of trouble”
Non-Sequitur
A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it. And I would really like a piece of cheesecake right now.
Oxymoron
A weekend of speech in which contradictory terms or ideas are combined.
Jumbo shrimp
Military intelligence
Western civilization
Parable
A short story from which a lesson may be found. Lots of them in the Bible.
Asyndeton
Omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses
Chiasmus
A pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
Circular argument
An argument that commits the logical fallacy of assuming what it is attempting to prove
Concession
And argumentative strategy by which a speaker or writer acknowledges the validity of an opponent point
Connotation
The emotional implications and associations that a word McCarey
Denotation
The direct or dictionary meaning of the word, in contrast to its figurative or associated meaning.
Dialect
A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or the vocabulary.
Diction
The choice and use of words in speech or writing
Didactic
Intended or inclined to teach or instruct, often excessively.
Your mother is didactic.
Encomium
A tribute or eulogy improves or for glorifying people, objects, ideas, or events.
Epiphora
The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses.
Ethos
A persuasive appeal based on the projected character of the speaker or narrator.
Exposition
A statement or type of composition intended to give information about an issue, subject, method, or idea
Extended metaphor
A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.
Fallacy
And error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid
Isocolon
A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.
Invective
Denunciatory or abusive language, discourse that casts blame on somebody or something
Jargon
The specialized language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders
Metonymy
He’s a care of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, such as “crown” for “royalty”.
Mood
The quality of the curb that conveys the writers attitude toward a subject.
- The emotion a forward by a text.
Narrative
A rhetorical strategy that we, counts a series of events, usually in chronological order
Onomatopoeia
The formation or use of words that imitate the sound associated with the object or actions they refer to
Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself
Parallelism
The similarity of structure in a pair series of related words, phrases, or clauses.
Parody
Merry or artistic work that imitates the characteristics style of an author or he work for comic effect ridicule
What Monty Python was all about.
Pathos
The means of persuasion that appeals to the audiences emotions
Alliteration
Repetition of one or more initial consonants in a group of words or lines in a poem.
“Lazy leaves lacked luster.”
Ambiguity
Hey vagueness of meaning; a conscious lack of clarity meant to evoke multiple meanings or interpretations.
Apollonian
In contrast to Dionysian, it refers to the most neutral, godlike qualities of human nature and behavior.
Arch
Characterized by clever or sly humor, often saucy, playful and somewhat irreverent.
Archetype
And abstract or ideal conception of a type; a perfectly typical example.
Bard
A poet in olden times, a performer who told who wrote stories to musical accompaniment.
Bathos
Insincere or overdone sentimentality
Belles-lettres
A French term for the world of books, criticism, and literature in general.
Bombast
Inflated, pretentious language.
Burlesque
He work of literature meant to ridicule a subject
Cacophony
Grating, inharmonious sounds
Canon
The works considered most important in a national literature, works widely read and studied.
