Rhetorical Analysis Vocabulary list 6

Rhetorical Tools—words to help analyze rhetoric

Consonance

• The repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds on accented syllables or important words.

• EX: ticktock; singsong.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together.

EX: A line from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: “By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown.”

Metonymy

• A figure of speech in which one thing is represented by something closely related to it. “The relationship is not one of similarity, as with metaphor, but of common association.”

• Ex. “Two daiquiris / withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room / and one told the other a lie”

• Ex. “The students put blood and sweat into their essays.”

• Ex. “No French bob touched Gatsb’y shoulder” (50).

Synecdoche

• A figure of speech in which a whole thing is represented by a part of that thing.

• EX: “Washington is engaging in talks with Tehran,” where “Washington” represents the entire United States.

• “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across floors of silent seas.”

• “I have known the arms already, known them all”

Anaphora

A form of repetition, specifically the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of two or more successive sentences or lines of poetry.

EX: “And do you now put on your best attire?And do you now cull out a holiday? And do you now strew flowers in his wayThat comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone!"

Epistrophe

Ending a series of lines, phrases, sentences, or clauses with the same word or words.

EX: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us.” – Emerson.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which some absent, inanimate, or nonexistent thing or person is addressed as if it/they could understand.

EX: “O, brave desk, how bravely you bare my burden!”

Antithesis

• The rhetorical strategy of stating the exact opposite of the main claim.

• Also known as counterargument.

Imperative Sentence

• A sentence that gives a command or request. In these sentences the subject is not stated because it is implied.

• EX: “Sit down!”