Rhetorical strategies and techniques

Alliteration

• Repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence.

• The snake slithered silently• Billy broke a bottle over Bob’s head.

Allusion

• A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or event--real or fictional.

• Turkey gravy is his Achilles heel

Analogy

• A cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject.

• Pupils are more like oysters than sausages. The job of teaching is not to stuff them and then seal them up, but to help them open and reveal the riches within. There are pearls in each of us, if only we knew how to cultivate them with ardor and persistence.

Anaphora

• The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

• “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

Antimetabole

• the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order (A-B-C, C-B,A)

• "With my mind on my money, and my money on my mind.“

• "I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.“

Antithesis

• Opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.

• We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools

Apostrophe

• A sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group or person or personified abstraction absent or present.

• Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Assonance

• Repetition of the same vowel sound in words close to each other.

• Every time I write a rhyme, these people think it's a crime.

Asyndeton

• Omitting conjunctions between items, phrases or clauses.

• “and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Cumulative Sentence

• Standard sentence pattern with multiple details added after it in phrases or clauses

• "Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light in the clearing and creating out of the darkness the sudden blue sleeves of my sweater, the green leaves of jewelweed by my side, the ragged red trunk of a pine."

Hortative Sentence

• Sentence that exhorts or encourages, advises, calls to action

• Keep going; you’ve got this!

Hyperbole

• The use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.

• I'd catch a grenade for ya. Throw my hand on the blade for ya. I'd jump in front of a train for ya.

Imperative Sentence

• Sentence used to command, enjoin, implore, or entreat

• Stop saying that!

Inversion

• Any of several grammatical constructions where two expressions switch their canonical order of appearance.

• Not until the seventeenth century did the fork appear in England.

Irony

• A rhetorical device, literary technique, or event characterized by an incongruity, or contrast, between what the expectations of a situation are and what is really the case.

• Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.

Juxtaposition

• Placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts

• The quiet whispers of lovers and the loud sounds of the crowds

Litotes

• Understatement employed for rhetorical effect principally via double negatives.

• Are you also aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?

Metaphor

• an analogy between two things or ideas

• Mayden shaves his head, not because he is bald, but because his hair is a disobedient child.

Metonymy

• Substitution of one word for another which it suggests.

• In a corner, a cluster of lab coats made lunch plans.

• On the level of slang, a redneck is a stereotypical member of the white rural working class in the Southern U.S.

Periodic Sentence

• Sentence that begins with multiple details and holds off a standard sentence pattern until the end.

• To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius."

Oxymoron

• Apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another.

• Mr. Weeks owns an authentic replica jersey.

Paradox

• An assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it.

• It is a great mistake to suppose that love unites and unifies men. Love diversifies them, because love is directed towards individuality. The thing that really unites men and makes them like each other is hatred.

Personification

• Attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.

• Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing gloves."

Polysyndeton

• The use of conjunctions between each coordinate phrase, clause, or word.

• Let the white folks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly--mostly--let them have their whiteness.

Rhetorical Question

• A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected. The answer may be obvious or immediately provided by the questioner.

• "If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?"(Billy Corgan)

• "Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do 'practice'?"

Syllogism

• A kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two or more others (the premises) of a specific form.

• Virtues are praiseworthy; kindness is a virtue; therefore, kindness is praiseworthy.

Zeugma

• Two different words linked to a verb or an adjective which is strictly appropriate to only one of them.

• He held his breath and the door for her.