Rhetorical
Devices
Rhetorical Devices to Use
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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 Triple
structure
freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or
persecution -- but from annihilation.
• We will not go quietly
Rhyme
into the night! We will
not vanish without a fight!
• We're going to live on!
We're going to survive!
Parallelism
PLAY
PLAY
Hillary Clinton
• …let it be that human rights are
women’s rights and women’s rights
Anadiplosis
are human rights…
• …the uneducated, the unhealthy, the unfed…
Parallelism / Triple structure
• 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
Hillary Clinton
• …to get up and get out… Repetition/ Rhythm
• …we weren’t able to shatter that highest,
hardest glass ceiling this time…it’s got about
18 million cracks in it… alliteration/ metaphor
• My mother was born before women could
vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother
for president. Parallelism
• …as fearless…as committed…as audacious
Parallelism / Triple structure
sources
• http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/speech
/index.htm
• http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2011/03/1
5/nine-rhetorical-devices-for-your-nextspeech/