Download Rhetorical Term Assignment File

Rhetorical Terms Project
Due Friday, September 5, 2014
Define the following terms (32 in total) on 3x5 inch note cards. Place the word and an example
on one side and the definition on the other side. Punch a hole in one corner of the card and place
all cards on metal ring in alphabetical order. You may wish to use different colored cards for
each section, or create divider cards.
CARD SIDE ONE
TERM
EXAMPLE
CARD SIDE TWO
DEFINITION
APPENDIX
Rhetorical Terms
Schemes
Parallelism
Isocolon
Antithesis
Zeugma
Anastrophe
Parenthesis
Ellipsis
Asyndeton
Polysyndeton
Alliteration
Anaphora
Definitions
A figure in which words preserve their literal
meaning, but are placed in a significant
arrangement of some kind.
Agreement in direction, tendency, or character;
the state or condition of being parallel.
A figure of speech in which parallelism is
reinforced by members that are of the same
length. A well-known example of this is Julius
Caesar's "Veni, vidi, vici"
The placing of a sentence or one of its parts
against another to which it is opposed to form a
balanced contrast of ideas, as in “Give me
liberty or give me death.”
The use of a word to modify or govern two or
more words when it is appropriate to only one
of them or is appropriate to each but in a
different way, as in to wage war and peace.
Inversion of the usual order of words.
A qualifying, explanatory, or appositive word,
phrase, clause, or sentence that interrupts a
syntactic construction without otherwise
affecting it,
The omission of one or more items from a
construction
The omission of conjunctions, as in “He has
provided the poor with jobs, with opportunity,
with self-respect.”
The use of a number of conjunctions in close
succession.
The commencement of two or more stressed
syllables of a word group either with the same
consonant sound or sound group
Repetition of a word or words at the beginning
of two or more successive verses, clauses, or
sentences.
Epistrophe
Anadiplosis
Antimetabole
Chiasmus
Erotema
Hypophora
Epiplexis
Tropes
Metaphor
Simile
Synecdoche
Metonymy
The repetition of a word or words at the end of
two or more successive verses, clauses, or
sentences.
Repetition in the first part of a clause or
sentence of a prominent word from the latter
part of the preceding clause or sentence, usually
with a change or extension of meaning.
A figure in which the same words or ideas are
repeated in transposed order.
A reversal in the order of words in two
otherwise parallel phrases, as in “He went to the
country, to the town went she.”
The rhetorical question. To affirm or deny a
point strongly by asking it as a question.
Figure of reasoning in which one or more
questions is/are asked and then answered, often
at length, by one and the same speaker; raising
and responding to one's own question(s).
Asking questions in order to chide, to express
grief, or to inveigh. A kind of rhetorical
question.
Use of a word to mean something other than its
ordinary meaning
A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is
applied to something to which it is not literally
applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.
A figure of speech in which two unlike things
are explicitly compared.
A figure of speech in which a part is used for
the whole or the whole for a part, the special for
the general or the general for the special, as in
ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich
man.
A figure of speech that consists of the use of the
name of one object or concept for that of
another to which it is related, or of which it is a
part.
Ex: ‘count heads’ for ‘count people’
Antonomasia (Periphrasis)
The identification of a person by an epithet or
appellative that is not the person's name, as his
lordship.
Personification
The attribution of a personal nature or character
to inanimate objects or abstract notions, esp. as
a rhetorical figure.
Is the use of a word as if it were a member of a
different word class (part of speech); typically,
the use of a noun as if it were a verb.
Understatement, esp. that in which an
affirmative is expressed by the negative of its
contrary, as in “not bad at all.”
The use of words to convey a meaning that is
the opposite of its literal meaning
A figure of speech by which a locution
produces an incongruous, seemingly selfcontradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness”
A statement or proposition that seems selfcontradictory or absurd but in reality expresses
a possible truth.
Anthimeria
Litotes
Irony
Oxymoron
Paradox
Phrases
Appositive Phrases
Participial Phrases
Absolute Phrases
A phrase is a group of related words that does
not include a subject and verb
An appositive is a noun or pronoun -- often
with modifiers -- set beside another noun or
pronoun to explain or identify it.
Present participles, verbs ending in -ing, and
past participles, verbs that end in -ed (for
regular verbs) or other forms, are combined
with complements and modifiers and become
part of important phrasal structures. Participial
phrases always act as adjectives.
Absolute phrases do not directly connect to or
modify any specific word in the rest of the
sentence; instead, they modify the entire
sentence, adding information.