Rhetorical Style
A Really Brief Overview
A Forest of Terms
Alliteration Anacoluthon Anadiplosis Anaphora
Anastrophe Antistrophe Antithesis Aporia Aposiopesis
Apostrophe Archaism Assonance Asyndeton Brachylogy
Cacophony Catachresis Chiasmus Climax Euphemism
Hendiadys Hypallage Hyperbaton Hyperbole Irony Litotes
Metaphor Metonymy Onomatopoeia Oxymoron Paradox
Paralipsis Paraprosdokian Paronomasia Personification
Pleonasm Polysyndeton Praeteritio Prolepsis Simile
Syllepsis Synchysis Synecdoche Synesis Tautology Zeugma
And so on and so on and so on
The Basic Principle
• DECORUM: The aesthetic idea that the style of
communication should match the occasion.
– Important matters should be made to sound
important
– Less important matters should be made to sound
less important
Three Types of Style
Cicero’s Basic Typology, adapted many times (by
Augustine, Burke, lots of others)
1. Low: Used for teaching, explanation, fact.
2. Middle: Used to please, coax, or persuade.
3. High: Used to move people to action.
Low Style: An example
Caxton’s achievement was not, however, limited
to publishing books. From the very beginning he
saw himself in the role of translator and author.
While he was not a trained scholar, there can be
no doubt that he was a very conscious editor
even of works he did not translate.
D. C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An
Introduction (New York: Garland, 1992) 106.
Middle Style: An example
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I
was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.
When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was
middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm
my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job.
Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the
hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an
engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement
brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot
palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Kew York:
Viking, 1962
High Style: an example
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the
sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will
be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I
have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a
state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the
heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little
children will one day live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character. I have a dream today!
Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” (28 August 1963)
The Figures
Two Kinds:
1. Figure of Speech
1. Trope – Use of a word to mean something other than its
usual meaning
Metaphor, Metonymy/Synechdoche, Irony the “four master
tropes” according to Burke
2. Scheme – Words have their usual meaning, but are
placed in some significant arrangement
Examples: Assonance, Rhyme, Alliteration, Litotes,
Paralipsis. Thousands of others!
2. Figure of Thought – Basically a figure of speech on a
large scale, like an Allegory (which is just an
extended metaphor in a way)
Four Master Tropes
Metaphor: Achilles is a lion. This test is a breeze.
Metonymy: Bay Street is in charge of Canada.
Synecdoche: Let’s take a head count.
Irony: I could care less.
BASIC TYPES OF SCHEMES
ADDITION:
”Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.”
SUBTRACTION:
“The average person thinks he isn’t.”
BALANCE:
“If pizza is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.”
INVERSION:
“Troubles, I’ve got.”