The document outlines various rhetorical devices, including alliteration, anaphora, metaphor, and more, with explanations and examples for each. It also discusses the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos, which pertain to credibility, logic, and emotional appeal respectively. The purpose of these devices is to enhance communication effectiveness in writing and speech.

1. RHETORIC
R H E TO R I C A L D E V I C E S

2. ALLITERATION
•Repetition of the same sound beginning of words
•Ex:
–“Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.” (The Beatles Let it Be)
–“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” (Joni Mitchell
BigYellowTaxi)
–“Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance, five-
hour phone conversation?” (Train Drops of Jupiter)

3. ALLUSION
• an expression designed to call something to mind without
mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference:
• Ex:
–“This place is like a Garden of Eden.” – This is a biblical allusion to the
“garden of God” in the Book of Genesis.
–The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandora’s box of crimes. – This is
an allusion to one of Greek Mythology’s origin myth,“Pandora’s box”.
–“The two knitting women increase his anxiety by gazing at him and all
the other sailors with knowing unconcern.Their eerie looks suggest
that they know what will happen (the men dying), yet don’t care”
Referencing the Fates in Greek Mythology (Conrad Heart of Darkness)

4. ANAPHORA
• the use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to
avoid repetition, such as do in I like it and so do they.
• Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or line
• Ex:
– “What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?” (William Blake “TheTyger”)
– “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight
on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,
we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall
fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills. We shall never surrender.” (Winston Churchill “WWII Speech”)

5. ANASTROPHE
• Transposition of normal word order
• Ex
–“Yoda Effect” –Yoda I am.
– Patience I lack.
–" Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there
wondering, fearing." Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven“
–A roast is what we will have for dinner.

6. ANTITHESIS
• a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or
something else
• a figure of speech in which an opposition or contrast of ideas is
expressed by parallelism of words that are the opposites of, or
strongly contrasted with, each other
• Ex:
–Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.
–Speech is silver, but silence is gold
–“Hot ‘n Cold” Katy Perry

7. ASSONANCE
• Repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words
• Ex:
–Men sell the wedding bells.
–“Those images that yet,
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.” (W. B.Yeats Byzantium”)
–“Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living
things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems
came.” (Carl Sandburg Early Moon)

8. CONSONANCE
•Repetition of consonant sounds within words or ending
words
•Ex:
–She ate seven sandwiches on a sunny Sunday last year
–“A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon— “ (Emily Dickinson As imperceptibly
as Grief)

9. REPETITION
• A literary device that repeats the same words or phrases a few
times to make an idea clearer
• It could be a word, a phrase or a full sentence, or a poetical line
repeated to emphasize its significance in the entire text
• Ex:
– Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful.
And since we've got no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Oh, it doesn't show signs of stopping,
And I've brought some corn for popping.
The lights are turned way down low,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne “Let It Snow”)

10. HYPERBOLE
• exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally
• Ex:
– Your suitcase weighs a ton!
– He was in such a hurry that he drove his car at a bazillion miles per hour.
– “Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the
fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid
that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait
until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before.”
(American Folklore Babe the Blue Ox)

11. HYPOPHORA
• a figure of speech in which the speaker poses a question and then
answers the question.
• Ex:
– “Thirty-one cakes, dampened with whiskey, bask on window sills and shelves.
Who are they for?
Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends: indeed, the larger share is intended for
persons we’ve met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who’ve struck our
fancy. Like President Roosevelt.” (Truman Capote A Christmas Memory)
– “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But
the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible
disease of loneliness can be cured.” (KurtVonnegut Palm Sunday:An
Autobiographical Collage)

12. JUXTAPOSITION
• the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with
contrasting effect:
• Ex:
–“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, it was the season of Light, it was the season
of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we
had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going
direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” (Charles
Dickens ATale ofTwo Cities)

13. METAPHOR
• refers to something as being the same as another thing for rhetorical
effect.
• may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas.
• Where a simile compares two items, a metaphor directly equates them,
and does not use "like" or "as" as does a simile.
• Ex:
– The assignment was a breeze.
– The skies of his future began to darken.
– “…and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you …” (E. E. Cummings “i carry your heart
with me”)

14. METONYMY
• A figure of speech in which one thing is replaced with a word closely associated with it
• The substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant
• Ex:
– Suit = for business executive “Those suits don’t know what they’re talking about”
– “I’m mighty glad Georgia waited till after Christmas before it secedes or it would
have ruined the Christmas parties.” *Scarlett uses “Georgia” to point out
everything that makes up the state: citizens, politician, government etc. It is a
metonymy extremely common in the modern world, where a name of a country
or state refers to a whole nation and its government.Thus, it renders brevity to
the ideas. * (Margaret Mitchell Gone with theWind)
– “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” *ears for attention* (William
Shakespeare Julius Caesar)

15. PARALLELISM
• The arrangement of words, phrases, clauses, or larger structures placed
side by side, making them similar in form
• Ex:
– Like father, like son.
– Easy come, easy go.
– He came, he saw, he conquered.
– “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, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” (Charles Dickens ATale ofTwo Cities)

16. RHETORICAL QUESTION
• a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to
make a point rather than to get an answer:
• Ex:
–“Did you hear me?”
–“Are you paying attention?”
–Shylock:“If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” (Shakespeare The
Merchant ofVenice)

17. SIMILE
• A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with
another thing of a different kind using like or as.
• Ex:
–Our soldiers are as brave as a lion
–He is as cunning as a fox.
–At exam time, the student was as busy as a bee.
–Othello: She was false as water.
Emilia: Thou are rash as fire,
To say that she was false: O she was heavenly true. (William
Shakespeare Othello)

18. SYNECDOCHE
• a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent
the whole or vice versa
• Ex:
–Cleveland won by six runs. *meaning “Cleveland's baseball
team”*
–“His eye met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than
anyone in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her.” *Faces
refers to people in the crowd* (Frank R. Stockton The Lady or
theTiger?)

19. TRICOLON
• consists of three parallel clauses, phrases, or words, which happen to
come in quick succession without any interruption.
• Ex:
– “After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities
and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength. Let us
search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves. And when the
night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our
best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the
words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell …” (Barack
Obama speaks in Memorial Service for Nelson Mandela, December, 10, 2013)
– “You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom,
and chuckled at catastrophe.” (L. Frank Baum TheWizard of Oz)

20. UNDERSTANDING ETHOS, PATHOS,
AND LOGOS
President B. Obama

21. ETHOS = ETHICS
• Greek for the word character.
• Refers to the trustworthiness or credibility of the writer or speaker.
• Ethos is often conveyed through tone and style of the message and through the way
the writer or speaker refers to differing views.
• It can also be affected by the writer's reputation as it exists independently from the
message--his or her expertise in the field, his or her previous record or integrity, and
so forth.
• The impact of ethos is often called the argument's 'ethical appeal' or the 'appeal from
credibility.’
• Effective arguers not only possess good character, but also argue in ways that reveal
that good character.
• Your test of evidence can establish your ethos, or credibility, as well as that of your
sources.

22. LOGOS = LOGIC
•Greek for word.
•Refers to the internal consistency of the message--
the clarity of the claim, the logic of its reasons, and
the effectiveness of its supporting evidence.
•The impact of logos on an audience is sometimes
called the argument's logical appeal.
•Focus on the facts!

23. PATHOS = EMOTIONS
• Greek for suffering or experience.
• Appeals to the audience's sympathies and imagination.
• An appeal to pathos causes an audience not just to respond emotionally
but to identify with the writer's point of view--to feel what the writer
feels.
• In this sense, pathos evokes a meaning implicit in the verb 'to suffer'--to
feel pain imaginatively.
• Pathos thus refers to both the emotional and the imaginative impact of the
message on an audience, the power with which the writer's message
moves the audience to decision or action.
• Passion, not logic, stirs most people. Use carefully! “Sob stories” should
be avoided.