Scribd
Upload
9 views

Rhetorical Devices and Appeals

Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speaking or writing, utilizing various figures of speech and compositional techniques. Key rhetorical devices include anaphora, allusion, simile, metaphor, and parallelism, each serving to enhance the effectiveness of communication. Additionally, speakers appeal to logos (logic), ethos (credibility), and pathos (emotions) to connect with their audience.

Uploaded by

basami6022
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
9 views

Rhetorical Devices and Appeals

Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speaking or writing, utilizing various figures of speech and compositional techniques. Key rhetorical devices include anaphora, allusion, simile, metaphor, and parallelism, each serving to enhance the effectiveness of communication. Additionally, speakers appeal to logos (logic), ethos (credibility), and pathos (emotions) to connect with their audience.

Uploaded by

basami6022
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 16

What is

rhetoric?
Speechwriting
Techniques –
Rhetorical Devices
and Appeals
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive
speaking or writing, especially the use of figures
of speech and other compositional techniques.
Anaphora
• anaphora – repetition of words at the beginning of
neighboring sentences
Example:
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in the air, we shall defend our
island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall
fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.” – Winston
Churchill
Repeating Key “Theme” Words
Key words in Barack Obama’s first inaugural address. The bigger the word, the
more often it was used.
Allusion
• Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a
person, place, thing, or idea of historical,
cultural, literary, or political significance. It
does not describe in detail the person or thing
to which it refers. It is just a passing comment
and the writer expects the reader to possess
enough knowledge to spot the allusion and
grasp its importance in a text.
Examples of Allusion in Speeches
• In his second inaugural address, Lincoln used the
phrase, "but let us judge not, that we be not
judged." This is an allusion to the words of Jesus
in Matthew 7:1, which in the King James Version
reads, "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

• "And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we


see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho,
we will not pass to the other side." George Bush
Examples of Allusion in Everyday Life
•“Don’t act like a Romeo in front of her.” – “Romeo” is a reference to Shakespeare’s
Romeo, a passionate lover of Juliet, in “Romeo and Juliet”.

•The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandora’s box of crimes. – This is an allusion to
one of Greek mythology’s origin myths, “Pandora’s Box”.

•“This place is like a Garden of Eden.” – This is a biblical allusion to the “garden of
God” in the Book of Genesis.

•“Hey! Guess who the new Newton of our school is?” – “Newton”, means a genius
student, alludes to a famous scientist Isaac Newton.

• You’re acting like such a Scrooge! - Alluding to Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, this
line means that the person is being miserly and selfish, just like the character
Scrooge from the story.
Simile and Metaphor
• A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison,
showing similarities between two different things. A simile
draws resemblance with the help of the words “like” or
“as”. Therefore, it is a direct comparison.

• A metaphor is a figure of speech which makes an implicit,


implied, or hidden comparison between two things that
are unrelated but share some common characteristics. In
other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or
different objects is made based on a single or some
common characteristics.
The Archbishop George Carey used a simile, which he
developed during his eulogy at the funeral of Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
“Like the sun, she bathed us in her warm glow. Now
that the sun has set and the cool of the evening has
come, some of the warmth we absorbed is flowing back
to her.”

In 1946, Winston Churchill used a metaphor when he


referred to the separation of eastern and western
Europe.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an
iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
Parallelism
• parallelism - the repeated use of similar
grammatical structures.
Examples:
• Good students learn to read, to question, and to
respond.
• “In the light of this equality, we know that the
virtues most cherished by free people—love of
truth, pride of work, devotion to country—all are
treasures equally precious in the lives of the most
humble and of the most exalted.”- D. Eisenhower
Logos Ethos Pathos
The speaker appeals to The speaker tries to The speaker appeals to
the audience’s sense of show the audience that the audience’s
reason, using logic, he or she is reliable, emotions, using
facts, and statistics. credible, and emotional language,
trustworthy. The sensory images, and
speaker also tries to anecdotes.
build a bridge to the
audience by using first-
person plural pronouns
(we, us).
Example of Ethos
"I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al
Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to
meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct
diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and
curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the
threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation;
poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore
our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best
hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for
lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future."

Democratic Presidential Candidate Acceptance Speech by Barack


Obama. August 28th, 2008.
Example of Pathos
"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great
trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow
jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest
-- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution
and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the
veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that
unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back
to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back
to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern
cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be
changed."

I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. August 28th, 1963.


Example of Logos
"However, although private final demand, output, and employment have
indeed been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently
appears somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing
in mid-2009, real household spending in the United States has grown in the
range of 1 to 2 percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households'
caution is understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the
labor market has restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about
job security and prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer
credit shows some signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer
Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to
households generally remain tight."

The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy by Ben Bernanke. August 27th,
2010.
Speech Activity
• With your group, read
and annotate your
speech for rhetorical
devices and appeals.
• Use your chart to help
you recognize the
different devices.

You might also like