Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical Devices to Use• Alliteration• Anadiplosis• Antithesis• Double negative• Parallelism

Alliteration

• Repetition of sound in the beginning of a word

• “They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different, and difficult places.” – President Barack Obama

Anadiplosis

• The last word or phrase is repeated to begin the next.

• “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

Anadiplosis examples

• "Strength through purity, purity through faith." —Chancellor Adam Susan, V for Vendetta

• "Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music and music is the best." – Frank Zappa

Antithesis

• A word, phrase, or sentence that opposes the original proposition.

• “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong

Double Negative

• Two negatives that then equal a positive

• “She’s no dummy” (she’s smart)• “This is no small problem” (this is a big

problem)

Parallelism

• The use of identical or equivalent syntactic constructions in corresponding clauses or phrases.

• “With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

President’s Speech from Independence Day• you will once again be fighting for our

freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.

• We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! • We're going to live on! We're going to survive!

Parallelism

Rhyme

Triple structure

PLAY

Hillary Clinton

• …let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights…

• …the uneducated, the unhealthy, the unfed…

• They want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our own bodies.

Parallelism

Parallelism / Triple structure

Anadiplosis

PLAY

Hillary Clinton

• …to get up and get out…• …we weren’t able to shatter that highest,

hardest glass ceiling this time…it’s got about 18 million cracks in it…

• My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president.

• …as fearless…as committed…as audacious

Repetition/ Rhythm

Parallelism / Triple structure

alliteration/ metaphor

Parallelism

sources

• http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/speech/index.htm

• http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2011/03/15/nine-rhetorical-devices-for-your-next-speech/