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Brevitas
Brevitas is a rhetorical style Rhetorica ad Herennium calls "the expressing of an idea by the very minimum of essential words." By implying more than is said, it is distinguished from tautology and understatement. Brevitas is related to concision, parataxis, sprezzatura, and elliptic style. It contrasts with periphrasis, aureation and pleonasm Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness" or "burning fire". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for em .... References {{reflist Rhetorical techniques ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concision
Concision (also called brevity, laconicism, or conciseness) is a writing principle of eliminating redundancy.UNT Writing Lab. "Concision, Clarity, and Cohesion." Accessed June 19, 2012Link./ref> For example, this: * "It is a fact that most arguments must try to convince readers, that is the audience, that the arguments are true." expressed concisely, becomes * "Most arguments must demonstrate their truth."Program for Writing and Rhetoric, University of Colorado at Boulder. "Writing Tip #27: Revising for Concision and Clarity." Accessed June 19, 2012 ""It is a fact that most arguments must try to convince readers, that is the audience, that the arguments are true." Notice the beginning of the sentence: "it is a fact that" doesn't say much; if something is a fact, just present it. So begin the sentence with "most arguments..." and turn to the next bit of overlap. Look at "readers, that is the audience"; the redundancy can be reduced to "readers" or "audience." Now we have "Most argu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law, for passage of proposals in the assembly, or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies, he calls it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics". Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhetorica Ad Herennium
The ''Rhetorica ad Herennium'' (''Rhetoric for Herennius''), formerly attributed to Cicero or Cornificius, but in fact of unknown authorship, sometimes ascribed to an unnamed doctor, is the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric, dating from the late 80s BC, and is still used today as a textbook on the structure and uses of rhetoric and persuasion. At the request of William of Santo Stefano, the ''Rhetorica ad Herennium'' was translated into Old French by John of Antioch in 1282. Overview The ''Rhetorica ad Herennium'' was addressed to Gaius Herennius (otherwise unknown). The ''Rhetorica'' remained the most popular book on rhetoric during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was commonly used, along with Cicero's ''De Inventione'', to teach rhetoric, and over one hundred manuscripts are extant. It was also translated extensively into European vernacular languages and continued to serve as the standard schoolbook text on rhetoric during the Renaissance. The work focuses on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tautology (rhetoric)
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Understatement
Understatement is an expression of lesser strength than what the speaker or writer actually means or than what is normally expected. It is the opposite of embellishment or exaggeration, and is used for emphasis, irony, hedging, or humor. A particular form of understatement using negative syntax is called litotes. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression. Understatement may also be called underexaggeration to denote lesser enthusiasm. Understatement also merges the comic with the ironic, as in Mark Twain’s comment, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Use by the English Understatement often leads to litotes, rhetorical constructs in which understatement is used to emphasize a point. It is a staple of humour in English-speaking cultures. For example, in ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'', an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parataxis
Parataxis (from el, παράταξις, "act of placing side by side"; from παρα, ''para'' "beside" + τάξις, ''táxis'' "arrangement") is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conjunctions or with the use of coordinating, but not with subordinating conjunctions. It contrasts with syntaxis and hypotaxis. It is also used to describe a technique in poetry in which two images or fragments, usually starkly dissimilar images or fragments, are juxtaposed without a clear connection. Readers are then left to make their own connections implied by the paratactic syntax. Ezra Pound, in his adaptation of Chinese and Japanese poetry, made the stark juxtaposition of images an important part of English-language poetry. Etymology Edward Parmelee Morris wrote in 1901 that the term was introduced into linguistics by Friedrich Thiersch in his ''Greek Grammar'' (1831). The term has remained unchanged, but the concept of parataxis has e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sprezzatura
''Sprezzatura'' () is an Italian word that first appears in Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 ''The Book of the Courtier'', where it is defined by the author as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". It is the ability of the courtier to display "an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them". ''Sprezzatura'' has also been described "as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance". The word has entered the English language; the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "studied carelessness", especially as a characteristic quality or style of art or literature, although it is also used in the aesthetic context. History During his stay in Spain as Ambassador of the Holy See (1524-1529), and inspir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellipsis (linguistics)
In linguistics, ellipsis (from el, ἔλλειψις, ''élleipsis'' 'omission') or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic factors, the means by which the elided elements are recovered, and the status of the elided elements. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis can vary greatly depending in part upon whether a constituency-based or a dependency-based theory of syntactic structure is pursued. Background Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a basis of linguistic theory that addresses basic questions of form–meaning correspondence: in particular, how the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form may be bypassed or supplanted via elliptical structures. In generative linguistics, the term ''ellipsis'' has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers (known as E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill, Brill ()) is a Dutch international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, Netherlands. With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn and Singapore, Brill today publishes 275 journals and around 1200 new books and reference works each year all of which are "subject to external, single or double-blind peer review." In addition, Brill provides of primary source materials online and on microform for researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Areas of publication Brill publishes in the following subject areas: * Humanities: :* African Studies :* American Studies :* Ancient Near East and Egypt Studies :* Archaeology, Art & Architecture :* Asian Studies (Hotei Publishing and Global Oriental imprints) :* Classical Studies :* Education :* Jewish Studies :* Literature and Cultural Studies (under the Brill-Rodopi imprint) :* Media Studies :* Middle East and Islamic Studies :* Philosophy :* Religious Studies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Periphrasis
In linguistics, periphrasis () is the use of one or more function words to express meaning that otherwise may be expressed by attaching an affix or clitic to a word. The resulting phrase includes two or more collocated words instead of one inflected word. The word ''periphrasis'' originates from the Greek word ''periphrazein'', which means ''talking around''. Periphrastic forms are a characteristic of analytic languages, whereas the absence of periphrasis is a characteristic of synthetic languages. While periphrasis concerns all categories of syntax, it is most visible with verb catena. The verb catenae of English (verb phrases constructed with auxiliary verbs) are highly periphrastic. Examples The distinction between inflected and periphrastic forms is usually illustrated across distinct languages. However, comparative and superlative forms of adjectives (and adverbs) in English provide a straightforward illustration of the phenomenon. For many speakers, both the simple and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aureation
Aureation ("to make golden", from la, aureus) is a device in arts of rhetoric that involves the "gilding" (or supposed heightening) of diction in one language by the introduction of terms from another, typically a classical language considered to be more prestigious. Aureation commonly involves other mannered rhetorical features in diction; for example circumlocution, which bears a relation to more native literary devices such as the kenning. It can be seen as analogous to Gothic schools of ornamentation in carving, painting, or ceremonial armoury. In terms of prosody it stands in direct contrast to plain language and its use is sometimes regarded, by current standards of literary taste, as overblown and exaggerated. But aureated expression does not necessarily mean loss of precision or authenticity in poetry when handled by good practitioners. Loanwords and neologisms In the context of language development, aureation can be seen as an extension of processes in which historical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleonasm
Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness" or "burning fire". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for emphasis, or because the phrase has become established in a certain form. Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature. Usage Most often, ''pleonasm'' is understood to mean a word or phrase which is useless, clichéd, or repetitive, but a pleonasm can also be simply an unremarkable use of idiom. It can aid in achieving a specific linguistic effect, be it social, poetic or literary. Pleonasm sometimes serves the same function as rhetorical repetition—it can be used to reinforce an idea, contention or question, rendering writing clearer and easier to understand. Pleonasm can serve as a redundancy check; if a word is unknown, misunderstood, misheard, or if the medium of communication is poor—a wireless telephone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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