Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis

Coyness: a form of irony in which a person feigns a lack of interest in something that he or she actually desires.

Accumulation is a figure of speech in which a speaker or writer gathers scattered points and lists them together.

Extending a metaphor so that objects, persons, and actions in a text are equated with meanings that lie outside the text.

Repetition of initial consonant sound.

A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or event--real or fictional.

The presence of two or more possible meanings in any passage.

General term for all of the ways that an argument, an explanation, or a description can be expanded and enriched.

Repetition of the last word of one line or clause to begin the next.

Reasoning or arguing from parallel cases.

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

General name for argumentative strategies whereby a speaker or writer foresees and replies to objections.

An abrupt shift from a noble tone to a less exalted one--often for comic effect.

Rejecting an argument because of its insignificance, error, or wickedness.

Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

Substitution of a title, epithet, or descriptive phrase for a proper name (or of a personal name for a common name) to designate a member of a group or class.

(1) A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion. (2) A brief statement of a principle.

The expression of real or simulated doubt or perplexity.

An unfinished thought or broken sentence.

(1) Mark of punctuation used to indicate possessive case or omission of a letter. (2) Rhetorical term for breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing.

Placing side-by-side two coordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation or modification of the first.

Arrangement refers to the parts of a speech or the structure of a text.

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words.

Omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses (opposite of "polysyndeton").

A gradual increase in intensity of meaning with words arranged in ascending order of force or importance.

A litany of abuse--a series of critical epithets, descriptions, or attributes.

An adverbial construction used to support a claim or express a viewpoint more assertively and convincingly.

Direct exposure of an adversary's faults.

A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.

A sarcastic reply that mocks an opponent, leaving him or her without an answer.

Mounting by degrees through words or sentences of increasing weight and in parallel construction with an emphasis on the high point or culmination of a series of events.

Any statement or bit of knowledge that is commonly shared among a given audience or a community.

Repetition of a point several times in different words.

The main part of a speech or text in which logical arguments in support of a position are elaborated.

Argumentative strategy by which a speaker or writer concedes a disputed point or leaves a disputed point to the audience or reader to decide.

The emotional implications and associations that a word may carry.

Expansive richness as a stylistic goal.

Verbal bit or fragment used as an autonomous unit without transitional devices.

A method of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated premises.

Dissuasive advice given with authority.

Speech or writing that attempts to persuade an audience to take (or not to take) some action.

One of the five traditional parts or canons of rhetoric, concerned with control of voice and gestures.

See epideictic: persuasion that deals with values that bring a group together; the rhetoric of ceremony, commemoration, declamation, demonstration, play, and display.

The direct or dictionary meaning of a word, in contrast to its figurative or associated meanings.

Repetition broken up by one or more intervening words.

Recommending useful precepts or advice to someone else.

Explicit references to various meanings of a word--usually for the purpose of removing ambiguities.

Substitution of a more offensive or disparaging word or phrase for one considered less offensive.

Personal description; a head-to-toe inventory of a person's physical attributes or charms.

Omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader.

Tribute or eulogy in prose or verse glorifying people, objects, ideas, or events.

An informally stated syllogism with an implied premise.

Repetition at the end of a clause or sentence of the word or phrase with which it began.

Circumstance in which a speaker quotes a passage and comments on it.

Speech or writing that praises or blames.

Frequent repetition of a phrase or question; dwelling on a point.

Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses.

Asking questions to reproach rather than to elicit answers.

Using an appropriate adjective (often habitually) to characterize a person or thing.

Repetition of a word for emphasis (usually with no words in between).

Erotesis is a rhetorical question implying strong affirmation or denial.

Putting oneself in place of another so as to both understand and express his or her feelings more vividly.

Persuasive appeal based on the projected character of the speaker or narrator.

Substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.

Euphuism is an elaborately patterned prose style.

Facts, documentation, or testimony used to strengthen a claim or reach a conclusion.

The introductory part of an argument in which a speaker or writer establishes credibility (ethos) and announces the subject and purpose of the discourse.

Emotional utterance that seeks to move hearers to a like feeling.

A short narrative meant to teach a moral lesson.

The various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance.

A rhetorical term for a sentence construction in which the last word of one clause becomes the first of the next, through three or more clauses.

An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

Raising questions and answering them.

Hypotaxis is a rhetorical term for the arrangement of phrases or clauses in a dependent or subordinate relationship.

Any of the wide variety of means by which an author may establish a shared sense of values, attitudes, and interests with his or her readers.

Method of reasoning by which a rhetor collects a number of instances and forms a generalization that is meant to apply to all instances.

Denunciatory or abusive language; discourse that casts blame on somebody or something.

The discovery of the resources for persuasion inherent in any given rhetorical problem.

Use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is directly contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.

Speech or writing that considers the justice or injustice of a certain charge or accusation.

The opportune time and/or place, the right time to say or do the right thing.

Litotes is a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

In classical rhetoric, the means of persuasion by demonstration of the truth, real or apparent.

To belittle, use a degrading epithet, often through a trope of one word; rhetorical understatement.

One of the traditional five parts or canons of rhetoric, that which considers methods and devices to aid and improve the memory.

An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (such as "crown" for "royalty").

The part of an argument in which a speaker or writer provides a narrative account of what has happened and explains the nature of the case.

The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

A short and simple story that illustrates a lesson.

A statement that appears to contradict itself.

Emphasizing a point by seeming to pass over it. See apophasis.

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

Parataxis is a rhetorical term for phrases or clauses arranged independently: a coordinate, rather than a subordinate, construction.

(1) Either or both of the upright curved lines, ( ), used to mark off explanatory or qualifying remarks in writing. (2) The insertion of a verbal unit that interrupts the normal flow of the sentence.

The means of persuasion in classical rhetoric that appeals to the audience's emotions.

Long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended syntax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic climax.

The closing part of an argument.

Voice or mask that an author or speaker or performer puts on for a particular purpose.

A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

Ploce is a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or name, often with a different sense, after the intervention of one or more other words.

Repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings.

Polysyndeton is a sentence style that employs a great many conjunctions (opposite of "asyndeton").

(1) Foreseeing and forestalling objections in various ways. (2) Figurative device by which a future event is presumed to have already occurred.

Short, pithy statement of a general truth, one that condenses common experience into memorable form.

A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

The part of an argument wherein a speaker or writer anticipates and counters opposing points of view.

(1) A speaker or writer. (2) A teacher of rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the study and practice of effective communication.

In classical rhetoric, the five overlapping offices or divisions of the rhetorical process.

A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected.

The context of a rhetorical act; minimally, made up of a rhetor, an issue, and an audience.

Sentence style that appears to follow the mind as it worries a problem through.

A series is a list of three or more items, usually arranged in parallel form.

A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.

The rehearsed spontaneity, the studied carelessness, the well-practiced naturalness that lies at the center of convincing discourse of any sort.

Narrowly interpreted as those figures that ornament speech or writing; broadly, as representing a manifestation of the person speaking or writing.

A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

A figure of speech is which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.

Undignified language that debases a person or thing.

The underlying idea or the principal subject that is the meaning of a metaphor.

A person's account of an event or state of affairs.

A series of four members.

Series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses.

Rhetorical device that produces a shift in the meaning of words--traditionally contrasted with a scheme, which changes only the shape of a phrase.

Figure of speech in which a writer deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.

In a metaphor, the figure itself. A metaphor carries two ideas: the vehicle and the tenor, or underlying idea.

The quality of a verb that indicates whether its subject acts (active voice) or is acted upon (passive voice).

Use of a word to modify or govern two or more words although its use may be grammatically or logically correct with only one.