Rhetorical Terms- Syntax

Question 1

Audience

Answer 1

The person or persons who listen to a spoken text or read a written one and are capable of responding to it.
Ex: The audience of Michael Chabon’s lecture at the Mondavi Center was composed of many Oak Ridge students.

Question 2

Chiasmus

Answer 2

Inverted relationship between two elements in two parallel phrases.
Ex: “To stop too fearful and too faint to go.”

Question 3

Claim

Answer 3

The ultimate conclusion, generalization, or point that a syllogism or enthymeme expresses. The point, backed up by support, of an argument.
Ex: In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck’s claim was that the poor are wrongly mistreated.

Question 4

Climax

Answer 4

The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing number or importance.
Ex: “He risked truth, he risked honor, he risked fame, he risked all that men hold dear,—yea, he risked life itself…”

Question 5

Isocolon

Answer 5

Parallel elements that are similar in structure and in length.
Ex: “… to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the scrupulous …”

Question 6

Mnemonic Device

Answer 6

A systematic aid to memory.

Ex: “Roy G. Biv” for the most common colors.

Question 7

Onomotopoeia

Answer 7

A literary device in which the sound of a word is related to its meaning.
Ex: Words like “bang,” and “click”.

Question 8

Scene

Answer 8

In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent material, the words the speaker or writer uses to describe where and when something happened or happens in a particular situation.
Ex: “My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations” (Fitzgerald 2).