Rhetorical Devices
Style is part of classical rhetoric and a
number of rhetorical devices are worth considering in any analysis of style.
For the analysis of literature a knowledge of
rhetorical devices is indispensable, since there is often a considerable
density of rhetorical figures and tropes which are important generators and
qualifiers of meaning and effect. This is particularly the case in poetry.
Especially the analysis of the use of imagery is important for any kind of
literary text.
Figures of speech in classical rhetoric
were defined as "a form of speech artfully varied from common usage" (Quintilian, Inst. Orat. IX.i.2). The forms
of figurative languages are divided into two main groups: schemes (or figures) and tropes.
Rhetorical schemes describe the
arrangement of individual sounds (phonological schemes), the arrangement of
words (morphological schemes), and sentence structure (syntactic schemes). Rhetorical tropes are devices of figurative
language. They represent a deviation from the common or main significance of a
word or phrase (semantic figures) or include specific appeals to the audience
(pragmatic figures).
The following definitions are mainly based
on:
Abrams 1988, Corbett 1971, Holman/Harmon 1992, Preminger 1993, Jahn 2002, Scaif 2002
Schemes:
Phoneme-level (level of individual sounds)
Schemes:
Word-level
Schemes:
Sentence-Level
aposiopesis |
the speaker fails to complete his
sentence, (seemingly) overpowered by his emotions
|
asyndeton |
the omission of conjunctions to
coordinate phrases, clauses, or words (opposite of polysyndeton)
where normally conjunctions would be used
|
chiasmus |
from the shape of the Greek letter
'chi' (X); two corresponding pairs are arranged in inverted, mirror-like
order (a-b, b-a)
|
ellipsis |
a word or phrase in a sentence is
omitted though implied by the context
|
hyperbaton
(see also inversion) |
(Greek for "stepping over")
a figure of syntactic dislocation where phrase or words that belong
together are separated
|
hypotaxis |
clauses and sentences are arranged
with subordination, usually longer sentence constructions (opposite of
parataxis)
- The house
had a name and a history; the old gentleman taking his tea would
have been delighted to tell you these things: how it had been built
under Edward the Sixth, had offered a night’s hospitality to the
great Elizabeth (whose august person had extended itself upon a
huge, magnificent and terribly angular bed which still formed the
principal honour of the sleeping apartments), had been a good
deal bruised and defaced in Cromwell’s wars, and then, under the
Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, finally, after
having been remodeled and disfigured in the eighteenth century,
it had passed into the careful keeping of a shrewd American banker,
who had bought it originally because (owing to circumstances too
complicated to set forth) it was offered at a great bargain; bought
it with much grumbling at its ugliness, its antiquity, its incommodity,
and who now, at the end of twenty years, had become conscious of
a real aesthetic passion for it, so that he knew all its points
and would tell you just where to stand to see them in combination
and just the hour when the shadows of its various protuberances—which
fell so softly upon the warm, weary brickwork—were of the right
measure. (James, Portrait of a Lady)
|
inversion |
the usual word order is rearranged,
often for the effect of emphasis or to maintain the meter (a type of
hyperbaton)
|
parallelism |
the repetition
of identical or similar syntactic elements (word, phrase, clause)
|
parataxis |
clauses or sentences are arranged
in a series without subordination, usually shorter sentence constructions
(opposite of hypotaxis)
|
polysyndeton |
the unusual repetition of the same
conjunction (opposite of asyndeton)
|
redditio / kyklos / framing |
a syntactic unit or verse line is
framed by the same element at the beginning and at the end
|
zeugma |
(Greek for "yoking") one
verb controls two or more objects that have different syntactic and
semantic relations to it
|
Tropes
antithesis |
opposition, or contrast of ideas or
words in a parallel construction
|
apostrophe |
addressing an absent person, a god
or a personified abstraction
|
euphemism |
substitution of an agreeable or at
least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh
or unpleasant
|
hyperbole |
obvious exaggeration for emphasis
or for rhetorical effect
|
irony |
expression of something which is
contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another
- 'Well!' said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, 'after
this, I forgive Fanny everything!' It was a declaration in a
Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that it did her good.
Not that she had anything particular to forgive in her sister-in-law,
not indeed anything at all, except her having married her brother—in
itself a species of audacity—and her having, in the course
of events, given birth to a girl instead of a boy [. . .]. (Dickens, Dombey and Son)
- In addition
[...] you are liable to get tide-trapped away in the swamps, [...]
Of course if you really want a truly safe investment in Fame, and
really care about Posterity, and Posterity's Science, you will jump
over into the black batter-like, stinking slime cheered by the thought
of the terrific sensation you will produce in 20,000 years hence,
and the care you will be taken of then by your fellow-creatures,
in a museum (Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa)
|
metaphor |
a figure of similarity,
a word or phrase is replaced by an expression denoting an analogous
circumstance in a different semantic field. The comparison adds a
new dimension of meaning to the original expression. Unlike in simile,
the comparison is not made explicit ( 'like' or 'as' are not used)
|
metonymy |
a figure of
contiguity, one word is substituted for another on the basis of some
material, causal, or conceptual relation
|
oxymoron |
(Greek for "sharp-dull")
a self-contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal units;
usually noun-noun, adjective-adjective, adjective-noun, adverb-adverb,
or adverb-verb—a paradoxical utterance
that conjoins two terms that in ordinary usage are contraries
|
paradox |
a daring
statement which unites seemingly contradictory words but which on closer examination
proves to have unexpected meaning and truth
|
paronomasia /
pun |
wordplay, using
words that are written similarly or identically, but have different meanings
|
pejorative |
the use of words
with disparaging connotations
|
periphrasis |
a descriptive
word or phrase is used instead of a proper name
|
personification
/ prosopoeia |
animals, ideas,
abstractions or inanimate objects are endowed with human characteristics
|
simile |
two things are
openly compared with each other, introduced by "like" or
"as"
|
synaesthesia |
the description of one kind of sensation in terms of
another (description of sound in terms of colour:
blue note; description of colour in terms of sound:
loud shirt; etc.)
|
synecdoche |
A figure of contiguity
(form of metonymy), the use of a part for the whole, or the whole
for the part: "pars pro toto" or "totum pro parte"
|
understatement
(meiosis) |
an idea is
deliberately expressed as less important than it actually is; a special case
of understatement is litotes, which denies the opposite of the thing
that is being affirmed (sometimes used synonymously with meiosis)
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