Rhetorical Devices
AP Language
Balance Schemes
 Purpose:
 To evenly distribute focus of individual
concepts within a scheme: it also helps
with the “flow” of a piece.
Schemes involving Balance
 Parallelism
MOST COMMON!
 The repetition of similar grammatical
or syntactical patterns.
 Parallelism of words
 Parallelism of phrases
 Parallelism of clauses
Examples
 Parallelism of words
 “Exercise physiologists argue that bodypump aerobics sessions benefit a person’ s
heart and lungs, muscles and nerves, and
joints and cartilage.
Active verb
 Parallelism of phrases
 “Exercise physiologists argue that bodypump aerobics sessions help a person
breathe more effectively, move with less
discomfort, and avoid injury of muscles and
cartilage.
Example
 Parallelism of clauses
 “Exercise physiologists argue that bodypump aerobics is the most efficient
exercise class, that body-pump
participants show greater gains in
stamina then participants in comparable
exercise programs, and that body-pump
aerobics is less expensive in terms of
equipment and training needed to lead
or take classes.”
Zeugma (zoog-mah)
 A figure in which more than one item in
a sentence is governed by a single word,
usually a verb.
Examples of zeugma
 “You held your breath and the door for
me.”
~Alanis Morissette
“Head Over Feet”
 “You are free to execute your laws, and
your citizens, as you see fit.”
~Star Trek: Next Generation
“He runs his mouth as much
As his feet” ~Noah P.
Antithesis
 Parallel structure that juxtaposes
contrasting ideas
(placement of two things side by side for emphasis)
 Antithesis of:
 Words,
 Phrases
 Clauses
Examples of Antithesis
 Of WORDS
“When distance runners reach the state they
call the zone, they find themselves mentally
engaged yet detached.
 Of PHRASES
“When distance runners reach the state they
call the zone, they find themselves mentally
engaged with their physical surroundings
yet detached from moment-to-moment
concerns about their conditioning.”
Examples of Antithesis
 Of CLAUSES
“When distance runners reach the
state they call the zone, they find
that they are empirically engaged
with their physical surroundings yet
they are also completely detached
from moment-to-moment concerns
about their conditioning.”
Balance
 Antimetabole (anti-met-ab-olee)
 Words are repeated in different grammatical
forms.
 **Most rhetoricians claim that antimetable and
chiasmus are similar tools of rhetoric.
 Antimetabole examples resemble chiasmus examples as
they are marked by the inversion of structure.
(literarydevices.net)
Antimetabole
 “We didn’t land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth Rock
landed on us.”

Malcolm X
 Eat to live, not live to eat.”

Socrates
 “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”
 “Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what
you can do for your country.” JFK
 “You can take the girl out of the honky tonk, but you
can’t take the honky tonk out of the girl.” Brooks and
Dunn
Student Input: 
 “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight,
it’s the size of the fight in the dog”
 (Tyler A.)
 “How much wood could a woodchuck
chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood”
 (James S.)
 Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers, a peck of pickled peppers Peter
Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck
of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of
pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
 (Bridget S. and Brandi B.)
Schemes Involving
INTERRUPTION
Necessary for
on the spot information or ideas
 Parenthesis (paren-the-ses)
 an amplifying or explanatory word, phrase,
or sentence inserted in a passage from
which it is usually set off by punctuation
“Sports night at the school always brings out
the would-be jocks—who would expect any
different?—ready to show that they’re
potentially as good as the varsity players.
Interruption
 Appositive
 A word or phrase that renames the
nearby noun or pronoun.
“Joe Weider, a pioneer in personal weight
training, would marvel at the facilities
open to today’s student athletes.”
Omission
 Purpose:
 Gives the sentence rhythm is
heightened and often accelerated and
so the reader will pay close attention
to the potentially dramatic effect of
the prose.
Omission
 Asyndeton (a-sin-da-ton)
A writing style that omits
conjunctions between words, phrases,
or clauses
“He has provided the poor with jobs,
with opportunity, with self-respect.”
No “and”
OMISSION
 Polysyndeton
 The deliberate use of many conjunctions
between words, phrases, clauses
 They read and studied and wrote and
drilled.
 I laughed and played and talked and
flunked.
 pg. 20 and 76 of The Glass Castle
Schemes Involving Repetition
“Don’t be repetitive, but use repetition.”

Purpose: Leads the reader to pay closer
attention, to see the writer as
purposeful, forceful, even artistic.
Alliterationwords following each other or close
together that start with the same
consonant sound
“Intramural hockey is a strenuous,
stimulating, satisfying sport.
Repetition
Assonance (ass-o-nance)
the repetition of identical or similar
vowel sounds in the stressed syllables
(and sometimes in the following
unstressed syllables) of neighboring
words
“A workout partner is finally a kind,
reliable, right-minded helper.”
Repetition
Anaphora (ana-for-a)
Deliberate repetition of words or
phrases at the beginning of several
successive verses, clauses, or
paragraphs
“Exercise builds stamina in young children,
exercise builds stamina in teenagers and
young adults, exercise builds stamina in
older adults and senior citizens.
Schemes involving Repetition
 Epistrophe (E-pis-tro-fee)
 Repetition a word or expression at the
end of successive phrases, clauses,
sentences, or versus especially for
rhetorical or poetic effect.
To become a top-notch player, I thought
like an athlete, I trained like an athlete, I
ate like an athlete.
Repetition
 Anadiplosis (ana-dip-lo-sis)
 Repetition of the last words at one clause
and the beginning of the next clause.
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads
to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads
to suffering.
~(Yoda to Anakin Skywalker)
Repetition
 Climax
 Repetition of words, phrases, or clauses
in order of increasing number or
importance
Excellent athletes need to be respectful of
themselves, their teammates, their
schools, and their communities.
Comparison
 Purpose
 Leads the reader to emphasize or
downplay a particular topic and perhaps,
achieve a better understanding
Comparison
 Synecdoche
Metaphor where the part stands for the
whole: seems more literal
We decided we could rearrange the gym
equipment if everyone would lend a
hand.
Comparison
 Metonymy
 A figure of speech in which one word or
phrase is substituted for another with which it
is closely associated at a deeper level
 (“crown for royalty; “lend me your heart”)
Today, the White Announced that…”
Comparison
 Personification:
Giving human qualities to something that is
not human
The wind whispered through the
pines.
Comparison
 Periphrasis (puh-RI-frah-suhs)
A trope in which one substitutes a
descriptive word or phrase for a
proper noun
The New York Rangers and the New
York Islanders vie to be the best
hockey team in the Big Apple.
Schemes Involving Comparison
 Metaphor:
 A figure of speech that makes a direct
comparison between two unlike things
Many an athletic contest is lost when
the player’s mind is an idling engine.
Comparison
 Simile:
To compare two unlike things using the
connecting words like or as
An athlete’s mind must be like a welltuned engine, in gear and responding
to the twists and curves of the
contest. (This sentence begins w/
simile and ends with implied
metaphor.)
Word Play
 Purpose:
 To attract reader’s attention
Tropes Involving Word Play
 Pun
 The use of similar sounding words to
create an alternate meaning to the
sentence in which they are used.
When an actress saw her first strands of
gray hair she thought she'd dye.
Word Play
 Anthimeria (anti-mer-ia)
 One part of speech, usually a verb, that
substitutes for another word, usually a
noun (any novel change in a word’s use)
When the Little Leaguers lost the
championship, they just needed to have
a good cry before they could feel okay
about their season.
Word Play
 Onomatopoeia (ono-mato-pia)
 A word that imitates or suggests the
source of the sound that it describes.
The puck whizzed and zipped over the
ice, then clattered into the goal.
Word Play
 Euphemism
 Mild, indirect or vague term substituting
for a harsh, blunt, or offensive terms
 “passed away” vs. “died”
Overstatement and
Understatement
 Hyperbole (Hy-per-bowl-ee)
 Also known as overstatement;
exaggeration used to emphasize a point
He couldn’t make that shot again if he tried
a million times.
Overstatement and
Understatement
 Litotes (LYE-tuh-tees)
 A particular form of understatement
generated by denying the opposite of the
word which would otherwise be used
Shutting out the opponents for three
straight games is no big deal (NBD) .
Litotes Examples
 "Not bad."
“Good”
 "[…] no ordinary
city
“[ ] a very impressive
city.
 "She is not as
young as she once
was."
“She’s old.”
Management of Meaning
 Irony
 The use of words to convey a meaning
that is the opposite of its literal meaning
Their center is over seven feet tall- where
do they come up with these little
pipsqueaks?
Management of Meaning
 Sarcasm
 A style of bitter irony intended to hurt or
mock its target
“Thanks for everything you did for us
tonight” (when he really did nothing…).
Management of Meaning
 Oxymoron
 A figure of speech that combines two usually
contradictory terms in a compressed paradox
When you have to face your best friend in competition,
whoever wins feels an aching pleasure.
Jumbo shrimp, deafening silence, alone together
Same difference, constant variable, unbiased
opinion, pretty ugly, old news, freezer burn,
organized chaos, living dead, plastic silverware
Management of Meaning
 Rhetorical Question
 A question that is merely asked for
effects
Hasn’t the state of intercollegiate athletics
reached the point where the line
between professionalism and
amateurism is blurred?
Word Play
 Imperative Sentence
 Sentence giving a command.
 And so, my fellow Americans: ask not
what your country can do for you; ask
what you can do for your country. ~JFK
 “We’re going into the attic now, folks.
Keep your accessories with you at all
times.” (Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story 3)
Imperative Sentence
 "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."
(Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a
Dream," August 1963)
Imperative Sentence
"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make
your lives extraordinary."
(Robin Williams as John Keating in Dead Poets Society, 1989)