Rhetorical Tropes Flashcards
Anaphora
Repetition of a word or a sequence of words in neighboring clauses.
(I needed a drink, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country.)
Antithesis
Opposite words or ideas placed close together.
We must learn to LIVE together as brothers or PERISH together as fools.
Aposiopesis
Breaking off a sentence before completion.
If you don’t stop this right now I swear to god I’m going to-
Assonance
Grouping the same or very similar vowels together in a sequence of words.
(She lOves the thUnder.)
Can only occur in stressed syllables.
Asyndeton
Deliberately omitting conjunctions.
He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac.
Captatio Benevolentiae
Appealing to the goodwill of the audience, often by undermining yourself.
(I realize I’m not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.)
Anadiplosis
Repeating the final word in the first phrase/clause at the beginning of the second, the last word of the second phrase/clause at the beginning of the third, etc.
(Why, the whole world were but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse..)
Consonance
Repetition of non-initial consonants.
As the wiND will beND.
Ekphrasis
When a visual object is vividly described in words.
Erotema
Rhetorical question
A question not expecting a reply, but asked for the sake of emotional/logical emphasis.
(And how many deaths will it take till we know, that too many people have died?)
Hyperbaton
Deviating from the expected word order.
Sorry I be but go you must.
Hyperbole
Exaggeration.
I love hyperboles I use them like 400 times a day.
Irony
Antiphrasis
Using a word or statement in the opposite sense to what would normally be understood.
(A little water clears us of this deed.)
Alliteration
Repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of each word in a sentence.
(Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.)
Metaphor
Describing one thing directly in terms of another which shares some characteristics with it.
(Between the lower east side tenements the sky is a snotty handkerchief.)
Onomatopoeia
When the sounds of words mimic or reinforce their meaning.
Bang! went the pistol.
Oxymoron
Terms that seem to contradict each other.
A faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
Parison
When corresponding/parallel grammatical structures are used in a series of phrases or clauses.
(We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe.)
Periphrasis
An expansive way of saying something that might be said more concisely.
(He burnt the topless towers of Ilium.)
Polysyndeton
Using more conjunctions than is necessary.
Let them have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and laws and books.
Praeteritio
Invoking a subject by saying you won’t.
Our nation is great, not by the height of its skyscrapers, or the power of its military, or the size of the economy.
Prosopopoiea
Personification
Attributing human qualities to inanimate objects.
The wind stood up and gave a shout.
Puns (Antanaclasis)
A word is repeated with two different meanings.
If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm.
Puns (Paranomasia)
A play on words which sound identical but have different meanings.
(Your children need your presence more than your presents.)
Simile
Likening one thing to another using ‘like’ or ‘as’.
The plants filled the place with nasty meaty leaves LIKE the newly washed fingers of dead men.
Synecdoche
Part for the whole or whole for the part.
‘Hollywood’ to describe the American mainstream film industry.
Tricolon
A series of three parallel words/phrases/clauses.
Veni, vidi, vici.
Ascending tricolon
Three items in a series that increase in size.
Remember this day, this week, this month.
Descending tricolon
Three items in a series that decrease in size.
I love building rafts out of driftwood, eating breakfast, and sleeping.
