Key Rhetorical Devices - Vocabulary 3 Section 4 - Part 1

Lively descriptions that impress the images of things upon the mind.

Imagery that invokes colors, shapes, or things that can be seen.

Imagery that evokes noise, music, or other sounds.

Imagery that evokes the sense of touch.

Imagery evoking the sense of smell.

Imagery evoking the sense of taste.

Deviation from what speakers of a language understand as the ordinary or standard use of words in order to achieve some special meaning or effect.

Addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present.

Comparison or Analogy stated in such a way as to imply one object is another one, figurative speech.

An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverbial preposition such as like or as.

Construction or expression in one language that cannot be matched or directly translated word-for-word in another language.

Saying one thing and meaning another.

Where the reader knows something about the future or present that the character doesn't know.

Speaker makes a statement that differs from its actual meaning.

Exaggeration or overstatement.

Using contradiction in a manner that makes sense on a deeper level.

An understatement made in the negative.

Saying one thing while meaning another.

A casual reference to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature.

Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general idea.

Contradiction used in a way that somehow makes sense.

Where non-human subjects are given human characteristics, traits, abilities, and reactions.

A word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what is literal.

Where part of an object represents the whole or the whole of an object represents a part.

Word or phrase used everyday in plain and related speech, but rarely found in formal writing.

Extra tinge or taint of a meaning each word carries beyond the minimal strict definition found in dictionary.

The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary.

The choice of a particular word as opposed to others.

Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one.

Potentially confusing words and phrases used in a occupation, trade, or field of study.

Dialectal variation used only for a particular circumstance or for a specific purpose.

Means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood.

Successive words, phrases or clauses with the same grammatical/syntactical construction

Parallelism used in a series of three phrases or classes

Straight forward, generally simple, sentence of less than 6 words

A sentence in which the main independent clause or predicate comes at the end of the sentence, preceded by modifying clauses and phrases

a sentence with two grammatical units fairly equal in structure, length, and importance

A sentence in which the main independent clause comes at the beginning of the sentence accompanied by proceeding modifying phrases and clauses

Use of indirect language to express an idea

Consecutive phrases or clauses beginning with the same words

Rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures, aimed at making a point; the words can be the same or not

A balanced sentence or a pair of similarly structured sentences back-to-back that directly contradict each other

An unanswered question for which the answer supports the argument

An incomplete sentence that helps to underscore or punctuate the argument before it

A series in which the author uses conjunctions between each word, phrase, or clause in the series

A series in which the author uses conjunctions between each word, phrase, or clause in the series

A grammatical strategy in which the sentence is somehow reversed