Rhetoric: the art of persuasion through writing and/or speaking
AP Vocabulary
You must be conversant with all these terms!
SOAPSToneS
Subject- what is the text about?
Occasion-what events lead the writer to write the text?
Audience- who was the text directed toward? (1 quote per
audience)
Purpose- what does the writer want the text to accomplish? (1
quote)
Speaker- The speaker of the text.
Who are he/she/they really?
Tone-how does the writer feel about the topic and how does
he/she want the audience to feel about it?
Style-show does the writer use rhetorical devices to accomplish
his/her purpose? (2 quotes per rhetorical device
The Appeals
Appeal to
logos
•Greek for “word”
•The use of reason and fact to persuade
•Facts, statistics, logical arguments
Appeal to
pathos
•Greek for “suffering”
•To use emotion to persuade
•Sad stories, humor, empathy, anger
Appeal to
ethos
•Greek for “character”
•To persuade the audience that the writer is an
expert or that experts agree with the writer’s ideas
•“Trust me, I’m a doctor”
Aristotle’s Triangle
Logos
Subject
Ethos
Speaker
Audience
Pathos
Rhetorical Tactics
 Anecdote- a short personal story
 Allusion – reference to another author, work of literature, film, element of pop
culture (song, company, website), religion that is commonly known.
The author alludes to…
The author makes an allusion to
The author uses allusion in order to…
Rhetorical Tactics
Rhetorical Question- a question asked for effect, but
not to be answered.
How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?
--Bob Dylan
Are you blind?
--Funny, sarcastic people
Style Devices:
Manipulating Languate
Imagery- visually descriptive language used create evocative
word pictures
“The language of night was not human, it was primitive,
almost animal—hoarse shouting, screams, muffled
moaning, savage howling, the sound of beating. “
-Wiesel
Diction- words chosen for a specific effect or purpose
Jargon
High/low speech
Emotional connotation sets tone
Manipulating language
Jargon – language that is specific to a certain field or
trade
Medical
Scientific
Scholarly diction
Institutional: schools, prisons, hospitals, businesses,
government agencies.
Manipulating Language
•
Hyperbole-exaggeration
“I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse”
•
Understatement-to down play or to lessen
“Vietnam Conflict”
•
Euphemism-a form of understatement in which a
taboo or unpleasant word is exchanged for something
less offensive
“roll in the hay” = having sex
“illness”
= Cancer
Style Devices:
Emphasis
 Parallelism means to repeat two or more parts of a
sentence to make a pattern
"In a democracy we are all equal before the law. In a
dictatorship we are all equal before the police.”
-- Fernandes
“Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered).”
--Julius Caesar
Three forms of parallelism
 Anaphora- repetition of the same word or group of words at
the beginning of several consecutive sentences.
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end… we shall fight in the
fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
--Winston Churchill
We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.
--George Bush
Three forms of parallelism
 Epistrophe is the repetition of the same word or words at
the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.
…government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.
--Abraham Lincoln
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child.
--1 Cor 13:11
Three forms of parallelism
 Isocolon is a figure of speech in which parallelism is in
the form of repeating sentences of the same length.
Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered).”
--Julius Caesar
I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.
--Sherman Alexi
Rhythm
 Asyndeton is a rhetorical tactic in which conjunctions are deliberately
omitted from a series of related clauses. It is used to speed up the text.
Hounded, humiliated, bent like old men who surround them as
though to protect them, unable to do so.
--Wiesel
 Polysyndeton is the use of several conjunctions in close succession,
especially where some might be omitted. It is used to slow down the
text.
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both
man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were
destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him
in the ark.
--Genesis 7:22-24
Rhythm
Zeugma-one verb using different objects. If this changes the
verb's initial meaning, the zeugma is sometimes called
syllepsis:
“He took his hat, and his leave”
"Kill the boys and the luggage!”(William Shakespeare's
Henry V)
"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any
hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the
survival and the success of liberty.”John F. Kennedy
Comparison
•
Metaphor-comparison of two unalike things
Life is a highway, rollercoaster, tornado, puzzle
•
Simile-comparison of two unalike things using like or
as
He is as thick as clotted cream
Comparison
Juxtaposition: The placement of two unlike characters,
objects, symbols next to one another in a sentence,
paragraph or essay/work of literature in order to highlight
the contrast between them.
•
The author juxtaposes dark and light…
•
The juxtaposition of dark and light…
•
Antithesis- juxtaposition of opposites with parallel sentence
structure
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
--Dr. King
Contradiction
Irony-a situation/idea in which there is an
incongruity, discordance or unintended connection
that goes beyond the most evident meaning. In short,
opposite outcomes and weird things that exist together.
Types of Irony
Verbal Irony- the speaker means the opposite of what
they say or hides what they really mean in diction.
•
“Get thee to a nunnery!” Hamlet
Situational Irony-when what actually happens is the
opposite of what should happen.
•
Blizzards in summer.
Dramatic Irony-when the reader/audience knows
something the characters do not
•
Don’t go into the basement!
Contradiction
Paradox: an apparently true statement or group of
statements that leads to a contradiction or
simultaneous existence of opposites together.I
Examples:
You have to spend money to make money
“I can resist anything, but temptation”-Oscar Wilde
The beginning of the end