Rhetorical Terms
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| Allegory | Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and charac
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| Ambiguity | A purposeful use of language that allows for multiple interpretations
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| Amplification | The act and the means of extending thoughts or statements to increase rhetorical effect, to add importance, or to make the most of a thought or circumstance.
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| Anadiplosis | Repeating the last word of one clause or phrase to begin the next
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| Analogy | The use of a similar or parallel case or example to reason or argue a point
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| Anaphora | A succession of sentences beginning with the same word or group of words
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| Anecdote | A brief narrative describing an interesting or amusing event
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| Antiphrasis | The use of a word or phrase in a sense contrary to its normal meaning for ironic or humorous effect, as in a mere babe of 40 years.
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| Antistrophe | Repeating the last word in successive phrases
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| Antithesis | The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, or grammatical structures; the second stage of the dialectic process
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| Aphorism | A brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words.
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| Apophasis | Allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned, as in I will not bring up my opponent's questionable financial dealings
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| Aposiopesis | An abrupt stop in the middle of a sentence; used by a speaker to convey unwillingness or inability to complete a thought or statement
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| Apostrophe | a figure of speech consisting of a sudden turn in a text towards an exclamatory address to an imaginary person or a thing
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| Appeals | Rhetorical devices used to enhance the plausibility of one's argument; Aristotle's appeals included ethos, logos, and pathos.
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| Argument | . Discourse characterized by reasons advanced to support conclusions
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| Audience | Real, imagined, invoked, or ignored, this is a concept that seems to be at the very center of the intersections of composing and rhetoric.
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| Axioms | Principles that are not questioned
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| Backing | Supporting an argument's merit
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| Bombast | Grandiloquent, pompous speech or writing
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| Brevity | Concise expression
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| Burden of proof | Theory of argument giving the obligation of proving a case to the challenging party.
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| Chiasmus | A figure of speech consisting of the contrasting of two structurally parallel syntactic phrases arranged "cross-wise", i.e. in such a way that the second is in reverse order from the first.
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| Circumlocution | The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language. Evasion in speech or writing.
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| Claim | A primary point being made to support an argument.
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| Climax | Climax occurs when words or sentences are used to increase weight by mounting degrees in parallel construction
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| Connotation | An idea or meaning suggested by or associated with a word or thing
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| Context | The circumstances surrounding an issue that should be considered during its discussion
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| Data | Initial evidence supporting a claim
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| Deduction | Moving from an overall hypothesis to infer something specific about that hypothesis
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| Denotation | The dictionary definition of a word
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| Dialectic | It means using verbal communication between people to discuss topics in order to come to an agreement about them
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| Diction | Choice and use of words in speech or writing
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| Dramatic Irony | Irony that occurs when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play
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| Enumeration | A numbered list
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| Epideictic | Ceremonial rhetoric, such as might be found in a funeral or victory speech
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| Epistemology | Philosophical study directed at understanding how people gain knowledge
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| Epistrophe | A succession of clauses, phrases or sentences that all end with the same word or group of words.
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| Epithet | A term used as a descriptive and qualifying substitute for the name of a person, place or thing.
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| Ethos | A rhetorical appeal to an audience based on the speaker/writer's credibility
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| Euphemism | An innocuous, inoffensive or circumlocutory term or phrase for something unpleasant or obscene
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| Evidence | In rhetoric, facts or testimony used to strengthen a claim
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| Expletive | An exclamation, especially one that is profane, vulgar, or obscene
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| Extended metaphor | A metaphor which is drawn-out beyond the usual word or phrase
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| Figurative Language | Language which implies a secondary, symbolic meaning
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| Hyperbole | A figure of speech where emphasis is achieved through exaggeration, independently or through comparison. For example (from Rhetorica ad Herennium), "'His body was as white as snow, his face burned like fire.'"
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| Hypophora | When a speaker asks aloud what his/her adversaries have to say for themselves or against the speaker, and then proceeds to answer the question
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| Hypotaxis | (a.k.a. subordination)
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| Hypothesis | An educated guess
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| Imagery | The use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such as way as to evoke mental images and sense impressions.
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| Induction | Rhetorical method for coming to general conclusions through specific examples
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| Inference | The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence
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| Irony | A deliberate contrast between indirect and direct meaning to draw attention to the opposite
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| Jargon | Highly technical language used by specific group
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| Juxtaposition | Is an act or instance of placing two things close together or side by side
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| Litotes | Stating a positive by negating the negative - a form of understatement. ("I am not unaware of your difficulties.")
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| Logical Fallacy | Misconceptions resulting from faulty reasoning
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| Logos | Rhetorical appeals based on logic or reasoning
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| Major Premise | Statement in a syllogism. Generalization
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| Malapropism | Ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound
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| Maxim | A saying drawn from life, which shows concisely either what happens or ought to happen in life, for example: 'Every beginning is difficult.'
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| Metaphor | A figure of speech where a word that normally applies to one thing is used to designate another for the sake of creating a mental picture
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| Metonymy | A figure of speech which substitutes one word or phrase for another with which it is closely associated. For example (from Rhetorica ad Herennium), "one should say 'wine' for 'Liber', 'wheat' for 'Ceres'."
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| Minor Premise | The second statement in a syllogism that identifies the particular example or case.
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| Mood | A set of verb forms or inflections used to indicate the speaker's attitude toward the factuality or likelihood of the action or condition expressed.
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| Narration | Story telling, involving the elements of time, place, actor, action, cause and manner
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| Necessary Cause | Cause without which effect couldn't/wouldn't have occurred
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| Non Sequitur | A statement bearing no relationship to the preceding context
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| Onomatopoeia | Words that imitate the sounds, objects, or actions they refer to. (ex. "buzz")
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| Oxymoron | A condensed paradox
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| Paradox | A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true
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| Parallel Syntax | Repetition of similar sentence structures
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| Parataxis | The juxtaposition of clauses or phrases without the use of coordinating or subordinating conjunctions, as It was cold; the snows came.
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| Parenthetical Comment | An aside comment set apart from the sentence by parenthesis (Get it?).
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| Parody | A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule
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| Pathos | The emotional appeal made to an audience in an argument. One of Aristotle's three appeals.
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| Periodic sentence | A sentence in which the main clause or its predicate is withheld until the end; for example, Despite heavy winds and nearly impenetrable ground fog, the plane landed safely.
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| Periphrasis | The substitution of many or several words where one would suffice; usually to avoid using that particular word
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| Personification | A figure of speech that gives human characteristics or inanimate objects, or represents an absent person as being present
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| Plausibility | Rhetoric that is believable right away due to its association with something that the audience already knows or has experienced
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| Presumption | An idea is reasonable or acceptable only until it is sufficiently challenged
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| Public Sphere | Place where individuals can engage in discussion without the political or state interests interferring
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| Pun | A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words
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| Purpose | What an author is trying to accomplish.
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| Qualifier | A word or phrase that qualifies, limits, or modifies the meaning of another word or phrase
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| Rhetoric | The study and practice of good effective expression. Also a type of discourse- focusing on goals of the speech or piece of writing that attempts to sway the mind of the audience
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| Rhetorical Question | A question to which no answer is expected, often used for rhetorical effect
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| Rhetorical Situation | A term made popular by Lloyd Bitzer; describes the scenario that contains a speech act, including the considerations (purpose, audience, author/speaker, constraints to name a few) that play a role in how the act is produced and perceived by its audience
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| Satire | A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit
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| Scientific Method | A system of observing and analyzing data through induction; prominent school of thought since the 1600s whose proponents are often critical of rhetoric
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| Sign | Term that describes something that has meaning through its connection to something else, like words
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| Signifying | Term that describes the method through which meaning is created with arbitrary signs
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| Simile | A figure of speech that compares unlike things, implying a resemblance between them
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| Situational Irony | Situational irony defies logical cause/effect relationships and justifiable expectations
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| Situational Irony | Situational irony defies logical cause/effect relationships and justifiable expectations
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| Skepticism | Type of thought that questions whether universal truth exists and is attainable by humans
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| Status quo | The generally accepted existing condition or state of affairs
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| Style | The way in which something is said, done, expressed, or performed: a style of speech and writing.
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| Syllogism | A type of valid argument that states if the first two claims are true, then the conclusion is true. (For example: Claim 1: People are mortal. Claim 2: Bob is a person.
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| Symbol | A visual or metaphorical representation of an idea or concept
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| Synecdoche | A rhetorical device were one part of an object is used to represent the whole
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| Syntax | The study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences
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| Theme | The basic principle expressed in an artistic work.
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| Thesis | The major claim or premise made in an argument to be proven or disproven
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| Tropes | Figure of speech that uses a word aside from its literal meaning
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| Understatement | A form of irony in which something is intentionally represented as less than it is
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| Warrant | An underlying assumption used to establish a link between data and a claim
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| Zeugma | A sentence in which a word used in a phrase or clause is omitted from subsequent parallel phrases or clauses.
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