Figures Of Speech
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Figures Of Speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use in order to produce a rhetorical effect. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into '' schemes,'' which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and '' tropes,'' where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify. An example of a scheme is a polysyndeton: the repetition of a conjunction before every element in a list, whereas the conjunction typically would appear only before the last element, as in "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"—emphasizing the danger and number of animals more than the prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as something that it clearly is not in order to lead the mind to compare them, in "All the world's a stage." Four rhetorical operations Classical rhetoricians classified figures of speech into four categories or :Jansen, Jeroen (2008) Imitatio'' ...
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Whitehall MOD 45155526
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Square. The street is recognised as the centre of the Government of the United Kingdom and is lined with numerous departments and ministries, including the Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards and the Cabinet Office. Consequently, the name "Whitehall" is used as a metonym for the British civil service and government, and as the geographic name for the surrounding area. The name was taken from the Palace of Whitehall that was the residence of Kings Henry VIII through to William III, before its destruction by fire in 1698; only the Banqueting House has survived. Whitehall was originally a wide road that led to the front of the palace; the route to the south was widened in the 18th century following the destruction of the palace. As well as governm ...
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Oxymoron
An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical device to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox. A more general meaning of "contradiction in terms" (not necessarily for rhetoric effect) is recorded by the ''OED'' for 1902. The term is first recorded as Latinized Greek ', in Maurus Servius Honoratus (c. AD 400); it is derived from the Greek word ' "sharp, keen, pointed" Retrieved 2013-02-26. and "dull, stupid, foolish"; as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish".. Retrieved 2013-02-26. "Pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd." The word ''oxymoron'' is autological, i.e. it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The Greek compound word ', which would correspond to the Latin formation, does not seem ...
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Anacoluthon
An anacoluthon (; from the Greek ''anakolouthon'', from ''an-'': "not" and ἀκόλουθος ''akólouthos'': "following") is an unexpected discontinuity in the expression of ideas within a sentence, leading to a form of words in which there is logical incoherence of thought. Anacolutha are often sentences interrupted midway, where there is a change in the syntactical structure of the sentence and of intended meaning following the interruption. An example is the Italian proverb "The good stuff – think about it." This proverb urges people to make the best choice. When anacoluthon occurs unintentionally, it is considered to be an error in sentence structure and results in incoherent nonsense. However, it can be used as a rhetorical technique to challenge the reader to think more deeply or in "stream of consciousness" literature to represent the disjointed nature of associative thought. Anacolutha are very common in informal speech, where a speaker might start to say one thing, th ...
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Alliteration
Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various languages around the world, including Arabic, Irish, German, Mongolian, Hungarian, American Sign Language, Somali, Finnish, Icelandic. Historical use The word ''alliteration'' comes from the Latin word ''littera'', meaning "letter of the alphabet". It was first coined in a Latin dialogue by the Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano in the 15th century. Alliteration is used in the alliterative verse of Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, Old Saxon, and Old Irish. It was an important ingredient of the Sanskrit shlokas. Alliteration was used in Old English given names. This is evidenced by the unbroken series of 9th century kings of Wessex named Æthelwulf, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, and Æthelred. These were followed in the 10th ...
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Accumulatio
Accumulatio is a figure of speech, part of the more general group of ''enumeratio'', in which the statements made previously are presented again in a compact, forceful manner. It often uses a climax for the summation of a speech. The word is Latin, from a verb meaning "to amass". Examples *"Your organization, your vigilance, your devotion to duty, your zeal for the cause must be raised to the highest intensity." Winston Churchill, ''Speech'', 14 July 1941. (This sentence comes after a lengthy passage in which Churchill warns the public that their courage and effort are still needed to defeat the enemy). *"He is the betrayer of his own self-respect, and the waylayer of the self-respect of others; covetous, intemperate, irascible, arrogant; disloyal to his parents, ungrateful to his friends, troublesome to his kin; insulting to his betters, disdainful of his equals and mates, cruel to his inferiors; in short, he is intolerable to everyone." (''Suae pudicitiae proditor est, insidiato ...
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Rhetorical Device
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device, persuasive device, or stylistic device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading them towards considering a topic from a perspective, using language designed to encourage or provoke an emotional display of a given perspective or action. Rhetorical devices evoke an emotional response in the audience through use of language, but that is not their primary purpose. Rather, by doing so, they seek to make a position or argument more compelling than it would otherwise be. Modes of persuasion Originating from Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', the four modes of persuasion in an argument are as follows: ;Logos : is an appeal to logic using intellectual reasoning and argument structure such as giving claims, sound reasons for them, and supporting evidence.Selzer, J. (2004). Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers. In C. Bazerman & P. Prior (Eds.), ''What Writing Do ...
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Henry Peacham (born 1546)
Henry Peacham (1546–1634), sometimes called Henry Peacham the Elder, was an English curate, best known for his treatise on rhetoric entitled ''The Garden of Eloquence'', first published in 1577. He lived at Leverton-in-Holland, in Lincolnshire, and was the father of Henry Peacham the Younger, who also became an author.Peacham, Henry (the Younger), ''Minerva Brittana'' (London, 1612), p. 170, emblem "Zelus in Dream" Further reading *Shawn Smith, "Henry Peacham the Elder," ''The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 236: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500–1660, First Series'', Detroit: Gale, 2001, pp. 188–201. *Willard R. Espy, ''The Garden of Eloquence: A Rhetorical Bestiary'', New York: Dutton, 1983 *Alan R. Young, "Henry Peacham, Author of ''The Garden of Eloquence'' (1577): A Biographical Note," ''Notes and Queries'', vol. 24, 1977, pp. 503–507 Notes References * External links *Henry Peacham''The Garden of Eloquence''(at silva rhetoricae' – ...
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Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity. It occurred after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages and was associated with great social change. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. The traditional view focuses more on the early modern aspects of the Renaissance and argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it was an extension of the Middle Ages. However, the beginnings of the period – the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the Italian Proto-Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300 – overlap considerably with the Late Middle Ages, conventionally da ...
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Trope (linguistics)
A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as, "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase." The word ''trope'' has also come to be used for describing commonly recurring or overused literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works. Literary tropes span almost every category of writing, such as poetry, film, plays, and video games. Origins The term ''trope'' derives from the Greek (''tropos''), "turn, direction, way", derived from the verb τρέπειν (''trepein''), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change". Tropes and their classification were an important field in classical rhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again in modern criticism, especially in deconstruction. Tropological criticism (not to be confused with tropological reading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical study of tr ...
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Apposition
Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way. The two elements are said to be ''in apposition'', and one of the elements is called the appositive, but its identification requires consideration of how the elements are used in a sentence. For example, in these sentences, the phrases ''Alice Smith'' and ''my sister'' are in apposition, with the appositive identified with italics: * My sister, ''Alice Smith'', likes jelly beans. * Alice Smith, ''my sister'', likes jelly beans. Traditionally, appositions were called by their Latin name ''appositio'', derived from the Latin ''ad'' ("near") and ''positio'' ("placement"), although the English form is now more commonly used. Apposition is a figure of speech of the scheme type and often results when the verbs (particularly verbs of being) in supporting clauses are eliminated to produce shorter descriptive phrases. That ...
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Scheme (linguistics)
In linguistics, scheme is a type of figure of speech that relies on the structure of the sentence, unlike the trope, which plays with the meanings of words. (Scheme, in poetry end rhetorics) A single phrase may involve both a trope and a scheme, e.g., may use both alliteration and allegory. Structures of balance * Parallelism – The use of similar structures in two or more clauses **Isocolon – Use of parallel structures of the same length in successive clauses **Tricolon – Use of three parallel structures of the same length in independent clauses and of increasing power *Antithesis – The juxtaposition of opposing or contrasting ideas *Climax – The arrangement of words in order of increasing importance Changes in word order *Anastrophe – Inversion of the usual word order * Parenthesis – Insertion of a clause or sentence in a place where it interrupts the natural flow of the sentence *Apposition – The placing of two elements side by side, in which the second def ...
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Tautology (grammar)
In literary criticism and rhetoric, a tautology is a statement that repeats an idea, using near-synonymous morphemes, words or phrases, effectively "saying the same thing twice". Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature. Like pleonasm, tautology is often considered a fault of style when unintentional. Intentional repetition may emphasize a thought or help the listener or reader understand a point. Sometimes logical tautologies like "Boys will be boys" are conflated with language tautologies, but a language tautology is not inherently true, while a logical tautology always is. Etymology The word was coined in Hellenistic Greek from ('the same') plus ('word' or 'idea'), and transmitted through 3rd-century Latin and French . It first appeared in English in the 16th century. The use of the term logical tautology was introduced in English by Wittgenstein in 1919, perhaps following Auguste Comte's usage in 1835. Examples * "Only time will tell if w ...
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