Rhetorical Terms (3/28/14) Flashcards
Personification
Investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities
Eg: “The night comes crawling in on all fours.”
Antanaclasis
Repetition of a word or phrase whose meaning changes in the second instance
Eg: “if you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
Hyperbole
The use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect
Eg: “It rained for four years, eleven months, and two days.”
Litotes
Deliberate use of understatement
Eg: “It isn’t very serious, I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.”
Rhetorical question
Asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but to assert an answer implicitly
Eg: “Sir, at long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Irony
Use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word
Eg: “This plan means that one generation pays for another. Now that’s just dandy.”
Onomatopoeia
Use of words who’s sound echoes the sense
Eg: “Snap, crackle, pop!”
Oxymoron
The joining of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory
Eg: “Cruel kindness”
Paradox
An apparent contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth
Eg: “Art is a form of lying in order to tell the truth.”
Allegory
The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning.
Allusion
The direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as a book, myth, place, or work of art.
