Literary and Rhetorical Terms



Literary and Rhetorical Terms

Figures of Speech/Rhetorical Terms

•Apostrophe: Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, apostrophe is the act of addressing some

abstraction or personification that is not physically present

“Oh, Death, be not proud” - "Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, / More hideous when thou show'st thee in

a child / Than the sea-monster."

•Cliché: A saying, expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of

losing its original meaning or effect rendering it a ineffective

“Go out and give 100 percent” - “An apple never falls far from the tree”

•Conceit: An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole,

and contradiction.

One of the most famous conceits is John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," a poem in which Donne compares two souls in love to the points on a geometer's compass.

•Epithet: A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the

normal name.

"fleet-footed Achilles," "Cow-eyed Hera," "Grey-eyed Athena," or "the wine-dark sea.”

•Euphemism: Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one. The

idea is to put something bad, disturbing, or embarrassing in an inoffensive or neutral light.

“Grandpa has gone to a better place” - "Gosh darn!"

•Hyperbole: The use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect

"His thundering shout could split rocks." Or, "Yo' mama's so fat. . . ."

•Imagery: Language that appeals to the five senses.

“The sweet smell of the distant roses” - “

•Irony: Cicero referred to irony as "saying one thing and meaning another."

-Verbal Irony: (also called sarcasm) is a trope in which a speaker makes a statement in which its

actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words ostensibly express.

“Would you mind putting down that important game and work on your trivial homework”

-Situational Irony: (also called cosmic irony) is a trope in which accidental events occur that

seem oddly appropriate.

“a pickpocket getting his pocket picked”

- Dramatic Irony: (the most important type for literature) involves a situation in a narrative in

which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know.

Think Macbeth and most Shakespeare’s tragedies.

•Metaphor: A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another

one, figuratively speaking.

“The ladder of success” - “All the world’s a stage,/And all the men and women

merely players/They have their exits and their entrance”

•Oxymoron: Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. These are

usually on the lighter side/ joking.

“Jumbo shrimp” - “sophisticated ignorance” - “brute finesse”

•Paradox: An apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth.

“Art is a form of lying in order to tell the truth” (Picasso) - “He is guilty of being innocent”

•Pun: A generic term for those figures which make a play on words

-Antanaclasis: Repetition of words in two different senses.

“Although were apart, you’ll always be a part of me”

-Paronomasia: Use of words alike in sound but different in meaning

“A deceitful seatful” - “Independence is what one feels when all he wants from his father is to be left a loan”

-Syllepsis: A specialized form of zeugma in which the meaning of a verb cleverly changes halfway

through a sentence.

“The ink, like our pig, keeps running out of the pen” - Lights are as likely to attract a Viet Cong bullet as a

mosquito”

•Synaesthesia: It involves taking one type of sensory input (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) and compiling

it with another separate sense in an impossible way. In the resulting figure of speech, we end up talking about how a color sounds, or how a smell looks.

•Synecdoche/ Metonyomy : A figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole. A substitution of some

attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant. The two are so close to being the same trope that George Campbell wondered why we separate them.

“Steel” for “Sword” - “Give us this day or daily BREAD” - “hands” for “helpers” – “crown” for “royalty”

“bottle” for “wine”

•Litotes: A form of meiosis (a lessening) is a deliberate use of understatement, not to deceive but to enhance

the impressiveness of what we say.

“it isn’t very serious. I have a tiny little tumor in my brain” - "I was somewhat worried when the

psychopath ran toward me with a chainsaw."

•Allusion: A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often

without explicit identification.

•Ambiguity: In common conversation, ambiguity is a negative term applied to a vague or equivocal

expression when precision would be more useful. When we refer to literary ambiguity, we refer to any wording, action, or symbol that can be read in divergent ways. As William Empson put it, ambiguity is "any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language"

•Anachronism: Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period.

“Cesar rolled up his sleeves and turned back the dial on his watch”

•Malapropism: Misusing words to create a comic effect or characterize the speaker as being too confused,

ignorant, or flustered to use correct diction

"I sho' nuff don't want to be eaten by no river allegories, no sir!" - "I was most putrified with astonishment"

•Invective: Speech or writing that attacks, insults, or denounces a person, topic, or institution, usually

involving negative emotional language.

• Satire: A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. Regardless of whether or not the work aims to reform human behavior, satire is best seen as a style of writing rather than a purpose for writing. It can be recognized by the many devices used effectively by the satirist: irony, wit, parody, caricature, hyperbole, understatement, and sarcasm.

Diction – Word Choice

Connotation

The taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary

Active Voice

The subject is  doing the verb's action.

“Marty ate the hamburger”

Colloquial Language

A word, phrase, or language used everyday in plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing.

“Hey yo, I was beast dis mornin in dat presy pres”

Jargon

Potentially confusing words and phrases used in an occupation, trade, or field of study.

Denotation

The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary, disregarding any historical or emotional connotation.

Passive Voice

The subject is no longer active, but is, instead, being acted upon by the verb

“The hamburger was eaten by Marty”

Formal Language

Language that is more appropriate of academia and institutional writing

“Hey there, I did an outstanding job this morning in that presentation”

Slang

Informal diction or the use of vocabulary considered inconsistent with the preferred formal wording common among the educated or elite in a culture.

Syntax – Word Order

• Order

• Basic: S-V; S-V-PN; S-V-DO; S-V-IO-DO; S-V-DO-OC

“We ran” “Mark loves pizza” Shelia gave the baby a bottle”

• Interrupted: When modifiers are places in between the main parts of the sentence.

“Matt, the teacher, lived in Chicago.” “Inventors unlocked more than a century ago the

secrets of turning the sun's rays into mechanical power.

• Inverted: One in which the subject appears after the verb. This construction causes the

subject to receive more emphasis.

“Never will I do that again!” “Rarely have I eaten better food.”

• Periodic: A sentence with additional details placed at either the beginning of the basic

sentence elements or in the middle of them.

“Alone in his study, lost in his somber thoughts about his beloved country, Abraham Lincoln wept.”

• Loose: A basic sentence with details added immediately at the end of the basic sentence

elements.

“Abraham Lincoln wept, fearing that the Union would not survive if the southern states seceded”

• Parallelism: When the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and

length. For instance,

"King Alfred tried to make the law clear, precise, and equitable."

The previous sentence has parallel structure in use of adjectives. However, the following sentence does not use parallelism:

"King Alfred tried to make clear laws that had precision and were equitable."

• Balanced:

• Antithesis: Using opposite phrases in close conjunction. Often used in the

juxstapositioning of contrasting ideas.

"Serenity now; insanity later." - "One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind."

• Chiasmus: (from Greek, "cross" or "x") A reversal of grammatical structures in

successive phrases or clauses.

“By day the frolic, and the dance by night.” “It is hard to make money, but to

spend it is easy”

• Sentence Types - Purpose:

• Declarative: We've forgotten the sugar.

• Imperative: Please lend me your book

• Exclamatory: Boy, am I tired!

• Interrogative: What is your name?

• Sentence Types - Structure:

• Simple: One independent clause ( “I hope I perform well on the exam”

• Compound: A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinating

conjunction ( “We will go to the game, but we will not stay long”

• Complex: A complex sentence has an independent clause joined by one or more dependent

clauses. ( “After the show, we should stop by Rich’s house”

• Complex Compound: The compound-complex sentence combines elements of compound and

complex sentences. It is the most sophisticated type of sentence you can use.

( “During the long winter months, my family and I like to travel to the

south, but we often tend to stay there long after the winter has passed.”

• Omission: When parts of a sentence are left out of the basic structure.

• Ellipsis: In its oldest sense as a rhetorical device, ellipsis refers to the artful omission of a word

implied by a previous clause.

“The Americans killed forty-seven, the Germans twelve.”

• Asyndenton: The artistic elimination of conjunctions in a sentence to create a particular effect.

“I came, I saw, I conquered.” - “He is around whenever you see his work, hear his work, feel his work.”

• Addition/Repetition: When grammatical elements are repeated or added for effect.

• Anadiplosis: Repeating the last word of a clause at the beginning of the next clause.

"Talent is an adornment; an -- "The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be

adornment is also a concealment." happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead."

• Anaphora: The intentional repetition of beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect.

“"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on the end. - “Let us march to the land of freedom. Let us

We shall fight in France. We shall fight march to the realization of the American

on the seas and oceans …." Dream. Let us march on segregated housing…”

• Epistrophe: The repetition of the same word or group of words at the end of successive clauses.

“I’ll have my bond! Speak not against my bond! - “These truths are sacred: sex is sacred, women are

I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond!” sacred, children are sacred, the Dream is sacred.”

• Polysyndeton: Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect in a sentence.

“This year I am taking biology and history and math and art and English.”

Rhetorical Strategies

Argument/Persuasion Terms

• Deductive Reasoning: The process of logic in which a thinker takes a rule for a large, general

category and assumes that specific individual examples fitting within that general category obey the same rule.

For instance, a general rule might be that "Objects made of iron rust." When the logician then encounters a shovel made of iron, he can assume deductively that the shovel made of iron will also rust just as other iron objects do.

Deduction determines the truth about specific examples using a large general rule

•Syllogism: A schematic device created by Aristotle to analyze and test deductive reasoning.

Major Premise: All men are mortal

Minor Premise: Socrates is a man

Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal

•Enthymeme: In its modern sense, is an informally stated syllogism (a three-part deductive

argument) with an unstated assumption that must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion.

In an enthymeme, part of the argument is missing because it is assumed.

“John will fail his test because he did not study”

Major premise: Those who don’t study fail (This is a universal assumption)

Minor Premise: John hasn’t studied (This is a fact)

Conclusion: John will fail (This is what is claimed)

In a world that is as fast paced as ours, people use the enthymeme as a form of deductive logic, assuming that their audience believes something that has been unstated of left out.

It is often the “Minor Premise” that is left unstated.

Do you agree with the minor premise? It’s debatable!

A great model to use in the creation and analysis of arguments if Steven Toulmin’s.

Claim: Is conclusions whose merit must be established

Data: The facts appealed to as a foundation for the claim

Warrant: The statement authorizing the movement from the data to the claim

These terms are synonymous with the enthymeme

Major Premise (-------( Warrant

Minor Premise (-------( Data

Conclusion (-------( Claim

Here is the Enthymeme: “We cannot trust this man, for he has perjured himself in the past.”

Claim or Conclusion = We cannot trust this man

Data or Minor Premise = He has perjured himself

Warrant or Major Premise = Those who perjure themselves cannot be trusted

(UNSTATED)

•Analogy: A form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a

certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.

“A street light is like a star. Both provide light at night, both are in predictable locations, both are overhead, and both serve no function in the daytime.”

• Inductive Reasoning: The logical assumption or process of assuming that what is true for a single

specimen or example is also true for other specimens or examples of the same type.

For instance, if a geologist found a type of stone called adamantium, and he discovered that it was very hard and durable, he could assume through induction that other stones of adamantium are also very hard and durable.

Induction fashions a large, general rule from a specific example.

• Logical Fallacies: Non sequiturs (Conclusions or generalizations that “do not follow” from the

premise) is, at bottom, an instance of incoherence – the chain of reasoning doesn’t

link up. Found both in Deductive and inductive argument.

•Deductive Fallacies:

• Either/Or: (also called "the Black-and-White Fallacy" and "False Dilemma"): This fallacy occurs when a writer builds an argument upon the assumption that there are only two choices or possible outcomes when actually there are several.

“Either we must ban X or the "Either you drink Cool Cola, or you will

American way of life will collapse.” have no friends and no social life."

•Inductive Fallacies:

• Hasty Generalization: (Dicto Simpliciter, also called “Jumping to Conclusions,”

"Converse Accident"): Mistaken use of inductive reasoning when there are too few samples to prove a point.

"Susan failed Biology 101. Herman failed Biology 101. Egbert failed Biology 101. I therefore conclude that most students who take Biology 101 will fail it."

• False Cause: This fallacy establishes a cause/effect relationship that does not exist.

Non Causa Pro Causa (Literally, "Not the cause for a cause"): A general, catch-all category for mistaking a false cause of an event for the real cause.

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (Literally: "After this, therefore because of this"): This type of false cause occurs when the writer mistakenly assumes that, because the first event preceded the second event, it must mean the first event caused the later one.

“Our sales shot up 25 percent after we started using that music jingle in our ad campaign.”

“He killed a man after listing to that record, so it was the song that made him do it.”

•Faulty Analogy: Relying only on comparisons to prove a point rather than arguing

deductively and inductively. Analogies never “prove” they only persuade people of the grounds of probability.

“Education is like cake; a small amount tastes sweet, but eat too much and your

teeth will rot out. Likewise, more than two years of education is bad for a student.”

•Miscellaneous Fallacies: These are clearly neither inductive nor deductive but a blend of

different types of material, formal, and emotional fallacies

•Begging the Question: (also called Petitio Principii)If writers assume as evidence for

their argument the very conclusion they are attempting to prove, they engage in the fallacy of begging the question.

"Useless courses like English 101 should be dropped from the college's curriculum." The members of the student group then immediately move on in the argument, illustrating that spending money on a useless course is something nobody wants. Yes, we all agree that spending money on useless courses is a bad thing. However, those students never did prove that English 101 was itself a useless course--they merely "begged the question" and moved on to the next "safe" part of the argument, skipping over the part that's the real controversy, the heart of the matter, the most important component.

•Ad Hominem: (Personal Attack) Attacking or praising the people who make an argument,

rather than discussing the argument itself.

“My opponent’s points are valid, but remember this is a man who cheated on his wife and left his family without a father”

•Ad Populum: (Literally "Argument to the People"): Using an appeal to popular assent,

often by arousing the feelings and enthusiasm of the multitude rather than building an argument. There are many but here are a few.

•Bandwagon Approach: “Everybody is doing it.”

•Patriotic Approach: "Draping oneself in the flag."

•Snob Approach: doesn’t assert “everybody is doing it,” but rather that “all the best people

are doing it.”

•Appeal to Improper Authority (Argumentum Ad Verecundium, literally "argument from

that which is improper"): An appeal to an improper authority, such as a famous person or a source that may not be reliable.

"To determine whether fraternities are beneficial to this campus, we interviewed all the frat presidents."

•Red Herring: (Ignorantio Elenchi “ignorance of the refutation”)A deliberate attempt to

change the subject or divert the argument from the real question at issue to some side-point. Showing ignorance to avoid issue

“You accuse me of cheating on this test, but doesn’t everyone cheat a little bit?”

Rhetorical Analysis Web

Do-er Who is the creator of the text?

More than a “writer”

Exigo: Force to do something

What is the motivation for the act of creation?

Audier: Hearer, Reader, Viewer

Who is the text intended for?

What is the desired effect the author is

attempting to achieve

Logic that the author uses in appealing to

the audience. Deductively or Inductively

Pathos is Credibility that the

appeal based on emotion and speaker has gained or is established

creating an emotional reaction

in the audience

A casual reference in literature The arrangement of sentences Word Choice Writing that departs from literal

to a person, place, event, or another meaning in order to achieve a special

passage of literature, often effect or meaning

without explicit identification •Tropes

. •Schemes

-----------------------

• Persuade

• Inform

• Teach

• Vent

•ETC.

• Trustworthiness

• Goodness

• Knowledge

• Relatability

•ETC.

• Periods vs. Loose

• Types of sentences

• Active vs. Passive

• Punctuation

•ETC.

• Formal vs. Informal

• Slang/Jargon

• Colloquial

• Loaded Language

•ETC.

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