Rhetorical Devices

1. Rhetorical Devices A technique used by a writer or a speaker to heighten the effect of the writing or a speech on the audience.

2. Rhetorical Triangle • Speaker (writer) • Audience (intended audience): include any inferences you can make about gender, race, level of education, class, values, etc. • Message/purpose

3. Rhetorical Triangle speaker purpose audience

4. Rhetorical Devices • Rhetorical Questions: a question for which no answer is provided because the answer is obvious • Do I LOOK stupid?!?!

5. Rhetorical Devices • Allusion: reference to historical, biblical, literary, etc. • If you take his parking place, you can expect World War II all over again. • Metaphor: a comparison of two unlike items, without using like or as

6. Rhetorical Devices • Imagery: writing that appeals to the senses • Parallelism: repetition of phrases with similar structure

7. Parallelism Example • A famous example of parallelism begins Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity….”

8. repetition • the duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, or sentence pattern. • When repetition is well done, it links and emphasizes ideas while allowing the reader the comfort of recognizing something familiar.

9. Ethos • Appeal to ethics • based on the character of the speaker • Relies on the reputation of the author/speaker • Appeals to values • “Think this way because it is morally right.”

10. Logos • Appeal to logic • Based on logic or reason • Appeal to facts • “It makes sense to do this…”

11. Pathos • Appeal to emotions • Emotionally loaded language • Pulls on your heart-strings

12. What to look for • Diction (word choice) • Imagery (appeals to senses) • Figurative Language (similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc.)