Rhetorical Terms for Reading and Writing Flashcards
Allegory
a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Allusion
A reference to a person, place, thing, event, or other literary work.
Anecdote
a short, simple narrative of an incident, often used for humorous effect.
Anaphora
an anaphora is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis. In contrast, an epistrophe is repeating words at the clauses’ ends.
Asyndeton
a literary scheme in which one or several conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples include veni, vidi, vici and its English translation “I came, I saw, I conquered”.
Polysyndeton
the repeated use of coordinating conjunctions to connect different items in a sentence. The repetition of conjunctions—and, but, or, nor—in close succession is a deliberate style choice to place emphasis on each listed word or phrase.
Syndeton
a form of syntactic coordination of the elements of a sentence (conjuncts) with the help of a coordinating conjunction.
Epistrophy
the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences
Snark
A sarcastic comment or remark
Antithesis
a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else.
Syllogism
a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
Colloquialism
a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
