Rhetorical Strategies Definitions

A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them. This strategy can explain something unfamiliar by associating it with or pointing out its similarity to something more familiar.

A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement.

The ironic minimizing of fact, this strategy presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be humorous and emphatic. This strategy is the opposite of hyperbole.

The sensory details of figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. On a physical level, this strategy uses terms related to the five senses. On a broader and deeper level, one image can represent more than one thing.

The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words.

A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art. This strategy can be historical, literary, religious, topical, or mythical.

One of the devices of repetition in which the same expression (word or words) is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences.

The duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern.

This strategy refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. This can involve, but is not limited to, repetition of a grammatical element such as a preposition or verbal phrase.

Similar to mood, this strategy describes the author's attitude and feeling toward his or her material.

Related to style, this concept refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness.

The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. The difference between what appears to be and what actually is true.

A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense, but upon closer inspection, contains some degree of truth or validity.

A short narrative story dealing with particulars of an interesting episode or event. The term most frequently refers to an incident in the life of a person.

A figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated.