Rhetorical Terms Presentation #5

1. Rhetorical Terms Presentation #5 • 5th hour-Megan Skinner, Natalie Nogoy, Zach Teela • 6th hour-Jessica Plemmons, Emily Michalak, and Julie Villerot

2. Antithesis • Where two opposite ideas are placed together in order to create an effect. Similar to juxtaposition. • Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, God and the Devil

3. Examples • Bacon uses lies as the antithesis of truth in his “Of Truth”. • In Amazing Grace, the churches often act as an antithesis of peace to the violence around them. The wealth of Calderon also acts as an antithesis to the local poverty. • “Your easy on the eyes, hard on the heart.”- Terri Clark

4. Aphorism • An original saying, often attributed to a single person, which is stated in a memorable form. • “Live long and prosper.” -Star Trek

5. Examples • “You have made me an old, old man.” – Vonnegut, from “Why my Dog is not a Humanist” • The epithet of Amazing Grace includes a famous saying attributable to God. “Behold… I make all things new.” • “A watched pot never boils.”

6. Assonance • Similarity in sound between inner vowels of adjacent words. A form of alliteration. • Zack attacked the fat cat.

7. Examples • “Accused of being a humanist.” –Vonnegut, “Why my Dog is not a Humanist” • “Across the Avenue” is an example from Amazing Grace • “I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restless.” –With Love

8. Concrete Language • Opposite of abstract language. Refers to things that you can perceive through the five senses. • Such a texture, smell, color, noise, etc. • The boy smelled a faint musk as he peered into the dark cavern. • As the sun set, the sky bled the entire color spectrum of gorgeous reds and pinks.

9. Examples • “Rancidity of the butter in the City of San Francisco’s dining car…” –Joan Didion, “Why I Write” • “On the local, there are many heavily dressed men and several women with babies, but few with shopping bags and none with those bright-colored Christmas bags from Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s.” Amazing Grace

10. Connotation • Suggesting the meaning of something, apart from its primary meaning. • Slavery has a poor connotation, even if the slave's conditions are good.

11. Examples • “Of Truth,” Bacon calls love of lies corrupt. The connotation of corrupt is more harsh than the definition. • “Ghetto,” as in Amazing Grace, has a negative connotation. • The name reservation has a negative connotation among Native Americans--an intern camp of sorts."(John Russell)

12. Consonance • Repetition of consonants (letters other than vowels) with a large emphasis when saying the last letters in a word. A form of alliteration. • Drunken Dubliners Die Daily.

13. Examples • “Love lies”- Bacon, “Of Truth” • Crack Cocaine and Burning Bodies are two examples from Amazing Grace • ’T was sooner when the cricket wentThan when the winter came,Yet that pathetic pendulumKeeps esoteric time.(Emily Dickinson, "’T was later when the summer went")

14. Declarative Sentence • A sentence that is in the form of statement and usually ends in a period. • I have arrived. • The child cried as if he knew something was terribly wrong.

15. Examples • “That certainly did not describe me.” – Vonnegut, “Why my Dog is not a Humanist” • “Depression is common among children in Mott Haven.” – Amazing Grace

16. Discourse • Refers to the speech patterns and usage of language, dialects, and acceptable statements, within a community.

17. Examples • My mom and I recently discussed what colleges I will be visiting and applying for in the future. • Jonathan Kozol interviews Mrs. Washington in the South Bronx where they discuss poverty in the area. • The Iroquois Six Nations discussed with the White Missionaries the mistreatment of their people. • “Can we make apple pie: “Yea, sure, but you have to help me peel the apples and make the pie dough.”

18. Dogma • The unshaken belief that something is true, regardless of proof. (Frequently applied to religion) • “The world is going to end in 2012.”

19. Examples • Hinduism expresses a basic belief in the concept of karma and of reincarnation. • “Sandy obviously worshipped not just me but simply any person as though he or she were the creator and manager of the universe.” (“Why My Dog Is Not a Humanist” by Kurt Vonnegut) • “His sister told him, ‘God is with you.’” (Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol)

20. Equivocation • The use of ambiguous words or expressions in order to mislead. Classified as using logical fallacies to deceive readers. • All banks are beside rivers. Therefore, the financial institution where I deposit my money is beside a river.

21. Examples • “ ‘… so far from anything they dream of, that they don’t resent its absence. Things like that aren’t on their map. Many of them never go into Manhattan. Some have never traveled as far as 125th Street…’ ” (Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol) • “Duck!” “Where?” “No, duck!” as a rock hurtles towards the small child. • “…I have described it to people as ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’ English. But I wince when I say that. It has always bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than "broken," as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed” (“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan)

22. Ethnographic Observation • The observation of human culture in a particular field of study. • In Amazing Grace Jonathan Kozol visits the Bronx and observes the lives of the children that reside there. • Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol is based on observations of many classrooms on the east coast.

23. Examples • The scientist has learned more about the Italians by living in Italy for a year. • "Well, I'm not going to learn English so I don't become American." .He chuckled. "Being American is not just a language, negrita, it's a lot of other things.""Like what?"He scratched his head. "Like the food you eat . . . the music you listen to . . . the things you believe in.""Do they believe in God?""Some of them do.""Do they believe in phantasms and witches?""Yes, some Americans believe in that.“ – Esmeralda Santiago asking her father about Americans in When I Was Puerto Rican

24. Exclamatory Sentence • A sentence that expresses a strong statement or conveys a strong feeling or sudden emotion. • I am extremely frustrated with you!

25. Examples • “ ‘But he was too cold to move his mouth! He couldn’t talk!’ ” (Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol) • “In spite of the ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ on the outside of your envelope, I did not like to act until I had consulted Mother and thought the matter over…” ("Proper Place for Sports" by Theodore Roosevelt) • Help me! I’m drowning!

26. Euphemism • A figure of speech in which an offensive, harsh, or blunt word or expression is avoided and one that is milder but less precise or accurate is used instead. • A euphemism for a car accident is a fender bender.

27. Examples • “I hate you.” “Hate is a strong word.” “I dislike you.” • “I often disagree with you - your treatment of black women, of Lani Guinier and the wonderful Jocelyn Elders in particular, has caused me to feel a regrettable distance.” (“Letter from Alice Walker to President Clinton” by Alice Walker) • “He was alive. Now he was gone, like that” (Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol) Gone replaces dead, deceased, kicked the bucket.

28. Hypozeuxis • Use of a series or parallel clauses. • “I came, I saw, I conquered” Julius Caesar

29. Examples • The good girl smiles as the bad boy scowls and the indifferent man passes by. • “…Red is to stoplight, bus is to arrival, chills is to fever, yawn is to boring…” (“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan) • “Shake it to the east, shake it to the west, shake it to the one that you love best!” (Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol)

30. Imperative Sentence • A sentence that gives instruction or expresses a command or request • And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."(President John Kennedy, 1961) • Treat others how you would like to be treated.

31. Examples • “Forgive me if I am not solemn about my award tonight.” – Kurt Vonnegut’s speech “Why My Dog is Not a Humanist” • “Be as interesting as you always are” – Cliffie’s mother from Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace.

32. Interrogative Sentence • A sentence having the force or form of a question. • Why don't you want to come with me? • “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” • The Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland

33. Examples • “Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years?What is going on in these pictures in my mind?” -Joan Didion’s Why I Write • “What is it like for children to grow up here? What do they think the world has done to them?” – Amazing Grace

34. Mesodiplosis • The repetition of the same word or words in the middle of a successive sentence. • We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. —2 Corinthians 4:8-9

35. Examples • I have faith in love and in hate, • in good and bad times, • in peace and in war. • “We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.” – Ronald Reagan, Challenger Shuttle Disaster Speech. • “Evil exists? Yes, I said that. People who let other people be destroyed do evil. People who know but do not act do evil too. I don’t know if I would call them evil but they’re certainly not thinking about heaven.” – Amazing Grace.

36. Personification • Giving human traits to non living objects. • The sun smiles upon the world. • “Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. There was no one there.” • Proverb quoted by Christopher Moltisanti, The Sopranos

37. Examples • "They bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language” – Louis Pasteur from Kay Redfield Jamison's Exuberance: The Passion for Life. •  “The bears, rain-sodden now and looking quite forlorn, have seen it all.” – Amazing Grace

38. Point-of-view • The position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator’s outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters. • Amazing Grace is in the first person point of view of Jonathon Kozol.

39. Examples • “Perched on the railing of a veranda in Kunming, China, Julia McWilliams was aware only of the uniformed man beside her, reading the poem he wrote for her thirty-third birthday.  She stretched her very long legs out in front of her, crossing them at her ankles.” – Excerpt from Julia Child’s biography, Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Finch, 3rd person viewpoint. • To Kill a Mockingbird is written in the first person view point of Scout. -You should really think about what you are about to do. Your whole future depends on it. (second person view point.)

40. Pleonasm • The use of more words that are necessary to convey meaning. Redundancy of expression. • The tiny, small, little child ran far far away. • “This was the most unkindest cut of all.” • Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

41. Examples • “If it were not that I feel you will be so bitterly disappointed, I would strongly advocate your acquiescing in the decision to leave you off the second squad this year.” - "Proper Place for Sports" by Theodore Roosevelt   • “She spent another three nights down there on the stretcher in the hallway. When they finally found a room for her, she suddenly began to shiver and her hands were cold. They didn’t have no blankets. They ran out. I took a blanket to her today. No Curtains. So they put a sheet over the window.” – Amazing Grace

42. Subplot • A plot subordinate to the main plot, a secondary story within a main story. • In Finding Nemo the main plot is Marlin looking for Nemo. The subplot is Nemo surviving his strange new habitat.

43. Examples • In the Wizard of Oz, the main plot is Dorothy on the yellow brick road, and the subplot is what is occurring at the Wicked Witch’s castle. • In Amazing Grace, a subplot in the novel would be that of Mrs. Washington’s life and what is going on with her health. • In James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone, the main plot is about Leo thinking about his brother, and the subplot is Leo and his lover Barbara.

44. Syllogism • Deductive reasoning from which a conclusion is derived from two premises. • Premise 1:All dogs are animals. • Premise 2:All animals go to heaven. • Conclusion: All dogs go to heaven. • Major premise: All books from that store are new. • Minor premise: These books are from that store.Conclusion: Therefore, these books are new.

45. Examples • “Where did I get the idea for Stuart Little and for Charlotte’s Web? Well, many years ago I went to bed one night in a railway sleeping car, and during the night I dreamed about a tiny boy who acted rather like a mouse. That’s how the story of Stuart Little got started.” – “Letter From E.B. White • “Of the drug lord Calderon . . . ‘The man was addicted to heroin when he was ten years old. Then logically, he came to be a dealer. Since the mother couldn’t control her children, she made up her mind to join them. So it became a family of Godfathers.’” – Amazing Grace