30 Rhetorical Devices †And How to Use Them

30 Rhetorical Devices - And How to Use Them 30 Rhetorical Devices - And How to Use Them Rhetorical devices are as useful in writing as they are in life. Also known as persuasive devices, stylistic devices, or simply rhetoric, rhetorical devices are techniques or language used  to convey a point or convince an audience. And they're used by everyone - politicians, businesspeople, and even, you guessed it, your favorite novelists.You may already know some of them: similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia. Others, maybe not (bdelygmia, we’re talking to you). But at the end of the day, you’ve probably run into all of these devices some time or another. Perhaps, you’ve even used them yourself. And if you haven’t, don’t let their elaborate Greek names fool you - they’re pretty easy to implement, too. But before you dive in, let’s identify the different categories of rhetorical devices out there.Types of Rhetorical DevicesAlthough there exists plenty of overlap between rhetorical and literary devices, there’s one significant d ifference between the two. While the latter are employed to express ideas with artistic depth, rhetoric is designed to appeal to one’s sensibilities in four specific ways:Logos, an appeal to logic;Pathos, an appeal to emotion;Ethos, an appeal to ethics; or,Kairos, an appeal to time.These categories haven’t changed since the Ancient Greeks first identified them thousands of years ago. This makes sense, however, because the ways we make decisions haven’t changed, either: with our brain, our heart, our morals, or the feeling that we’re running out of time. What's the difference between rhetorical and literary devices? Find out here. So without further ado, here is a list of rhetorical devices designed to tug at those strings, and convince a listener to give you what you want - or a reader to continue reading your book. (Source: 20th Century Fox)Wham! Pow! Crunch! These are all examples of onomatopoeia, a word for a sound that phonetically resembles the sound itself. Which means the finale of the 1966 Batman is the most onomatopoeic film scene of all time.24) PersonificationIt’s a lot easier for humans to understand a concept when it’s directly related to them. And since rhetoric is used to convey your point more effectively, there’s naturally a rhetorical device for that: personification, which assigns human characteristics to an abstract concept.Personification is present in almost all forms of literature, especially mythology, where concepts like war, love, and wisdom are given humanity in the form of gods such as Ares, Venus, Saraswati. But anthropomorphism, which assigns human characteristics to animals, is almost as common, in everything from Peter Rabbit and Winnie-the-Pooh to The Hobbit and Watership Down.25) PleonasmDid you know that being redundant can actually be rhet orically useful? Certain words are so overused that they’ve lost meaning - darkness, nice, etc. However, â€Å"black darkness† or â€Å"pleasantly nice† reinvigorate that meaning, even if the phrases are technically redundant. Redundant phrases like these are called pleonasms, and they are persuasively rhetorical.26) Rhetorical comparisonsSome of the most prevalent rhetorical devices are figures of speech that compare one thing to another. Two of these, you surely know: the simile and the metaphor.  But there is a third, hypocatastasis, that is just as common†¦ and useful.The distinctions between the three are pretty simple. A simile compares two things explicitly: â€Å"You are like a monster.† A metaphor compares them by asserting that they’re the same: â€Å"You are a monster.† And with hypocatastasis, the comparison itself is implied: â€Å"Monster!†If you can't get enough rhetorical comparisons, check out these 90+ exampl es of metaphors in literature and pop culture!27) Rhetorical questionYou’ve probably heard of a rhetorical question, too: a question asked to make a point rather than to be answered. Technically, this figure of speech is called interrogatio, but there are plenty of other rhetorical devices that take the form of questions.If you pose a rhetorical question just to answer it yourself, that’s anthypophora (or hypophora†¦ they mean the same thing). And if your rhetorical question infers or asks for a large audience’s opinion (â€Å"Friends, Romans, countrymen Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?†) that’s anacoenosis - though it generally doesn’t warrant an answer, either. Do you know the three different types of rhetorical questions? 28) SynecdocheYou know how a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t necessarily a square? If you referred to all rectangles as â€Å"squares,† you’d have a synecdoche: a rhetorical device in which part of one thing is used to represent its whole. This differs slightly from metonymy, which refers to one thing by something related to it that is nevertheless not part of it. If you referred to an old king as â€Å"greybeard,† that would be the former. If you referred to him as â€Å"the crown,† it would be the latter.29) TmesisHave you ever, in a fit of outrage, referred to something un-effing-believable? If you have, congratulations on discovering a surprisingly useful rhetorical device: tmesis, the separation of one word into two parts, with a third word placed in between for emphasis.30) ZeugmaZeugma, often used synonymously with syllepsis, is a grammatical trick that can be used rhetorically as well: placing two nouns with very different meani ngs in the same position in a sentence. Mark Twain was a master at this:â€Å"They covered themselves with dust and glory."This might feel a bit like a list of fancy names for things you already do. If so, that’s great! You’re already well on your way to mastering the art of rhetoric. And, now that you know the specifics, you can take the next step: implementing it in your writing and swaying readers onto your side.Leave any thoughts or questions about rhetorical devices in the comments below!