Rhetorical Terms - Writing Material

aesthetic reading - Reading to experience the world of the text.

aim - The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text -- for example, to clarify difficult material, to inform, to convince, to persuade. Also called intention and purpose.

Anglo-Saxon diction - Word choice characterized by simple, often one- or two- syllable nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

apposition - Two nouns that are adjacent to each other and reference the same thing.

arrangement - In a spoken or written text, the placement of ideas for effect.

assonance - The repetition of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more adjacent words.

assumption - An opinion, a perspective, or a belief that a writer or speaker thinks the audience holds.

attitude - In an adapted dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order to invent materials, the manner in which an action is carried out.

auxesis - Magnifying the importance or gravity of something by referring it with a disproportionate name.

begging of the question - The situation that results when a writer or speaker constructs an argument on an assumption that the audience does not accept.

causal relationship - The relationship expressing, "If X is the cause, then Y is the effect," or, "If Y is the effect, then X caused it."

character - A personage in a narrative.

complex sentence - A sentence with one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

compound-complex sentence - A sentence with two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.

context - The convergence of time, place, audience, and motivating factors in which a piece of writing or a speech is situated.

contradiction - One of the types of rhetorical invention included under the common topic of relationships. Contradiction urges the speaker or writer to invent an example or a proof that is counter to the main idea or argument.

denotation - The "dictionary definition" of a word, in contrast to its connotation, or implied meaning.

descriptive writing - Writing that relies on sensory images to characterize a person or place.

dialect - The describable patterns of language--grammar and vocabulary--used by a particular cultural or ethnic population.

dialogue - Conversation between and among characters.

diction - Word choice, which is viewed on scales of formality/informality, concreteness/abstraction, Latinate derivation/Anglo-Saxon derivation, and denotative value/connotative value.

double entendre - The double meanings of a group of words that the speaker or writer has purposely left ambiguous.

drafting - The process by which writers get something written on paper or in a computer file so that they can develop their ideas and begin moving toward an end, a start-to-finish product; the raw material for what will become the final product.

dramatic monologue - A type of poem, popular primarily in the nineteenth century, in which the speaker is delivering a monologue to an assumed group of listeners.

epistrophe - The repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses.

erotema - Asking a question to assert or deny something obliquely not for an answer.

ethos - The appeal of a text to the credibility and character of the speaker, writer, or narrator.

exaggeration - An overstatement.

example - An anecdote or a narrative offered in support of a generalization, claim, or point.

exordium - In ancient roman oratory, the introduction of a speech; literally, the "web" meant to draw the audience in the speech.

extended analogy - An extended passage arguing that if two things are similar in one or two ways, they are probably similar in other ways as well.

extended example - An example that is carried through several sentences or paragraphs.

fable - A narrative in which fictional characters, often animals, take actions that have ethical or moral significance.

figures of rhetoric - Schemes--that is, variations from typical word or sentence formation--and tropes, which are variations from typical patterns of thought.

flashforward - A part of the plot that jumps ahead in time and returns to the present.

heuristic - A systematic strategy or method for solving problems.

house analogy - In ancient Roman oratory, the method that speakers used to memorize their speeches, connecting the introduction to the porch of a house, the narration and partition to the front foyer, the confirmation and refutation to rooms connected to the foyer, and the conclusion to the back door.

hyperbaton - Unusual or inverted word order.

imagery - Language that evokes particular sensations or emotionally rich experiences in a reader.

implied metaphor - A metaphor embedded in a sentence rather than expressed directly as a sentence.

inductive reasoning - Reasoning the begins by citing a number of specific instances or examples and then shows how collectively they constitute a general principle.

intention - The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text.

jargon - The specialized vocabulary of a particular group.

konnoi topoi - People's topics; ordinary patterns of reasoning; also called basic topics.

Latinate diction - Vocabulary characterized by the choice of elaborate, often complicated words from Latin roots.

limited narration - A narrative in which the reader or viewer has access to the unspoken thoughts of one character or partial thinking of more than one character.

litotes - Understatement.

logic - The art of reasoning.

logos - The appeal of a text based on the logical structure of its argument or central ideas.

mood - The feeling that a text is intended to produce in the audience.

narrative - An anecdote or a story offered in support of a generalization, claim, or point. Also, a function in texts accomplished when the speaker or writer tells a story.

omniscient narration - A narrative in which the reader or viewer has access to the unspoken thoughts of all the characters.

parable - A usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.

paradox - A statement that seems untrue on the surface but is true nevertheless.

paronomasia - To call with a slight change of name; a play on words.

partition - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech where the speaker would divide the main topic into parts.

pathos - The appeal of a text to the emotions or interests of the audience.

peer review - A system calling for writers to read or listen to one another's work and suggest ways to improve it.

pentad - Kenneth Burke's system for analyzing motives and actions in communication. The five points of the pentad are act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose.

periphrasis - The substitution of an attributive word or phrase for a proper name, or the use of a proper name to suggest a personality characteristic.

persona - The character that a writer or speaker conveys to the audience; the plural is personae.

personae - The plural of persona.

personification - The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects.

persuasion - The changing of people's minds or actions by language.

petitio principi - Begging of the question; disagreeing with premises or reasoning.

planning - Determining appropriateness of information for audience and for purpose.

plot - Arrangement of events in a story.

plot devices - Elements of plot that operate to cause or resolve conflicts and to provide information.

poem - Louise Rosenblatt's term for the interpretive moment when reader and text connect.

polyptoton - Repetition of words derived from the same root.

polysyndeton - Repetition of conjunctions in close succession.

premise, major - The first premise in a syllogism. The major premise states an irrefutable generalization.

premise, minor - The second premise in a syllogism. The minor premise offers a particular instance of generalization stated in the major premise.

prosopopoeia - The giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects.

pun - A play on words. Types of puns include anataclasis, words that sound alike but have different meanings; paranomasia, words alike in sound but different in meaning; and syllepsis, a word used differently in relation to two other words it governs or modifies.

purpose - The goal a writer or speaker hopes to achieve with the text. Also called aim and intention. In a dramatistic pentad created by a speaker or writer in order in invent material, the words the speaker or writer uses to describe the reason something happened or happens in a particular situation.

reader's repertoire - The collection of predictions and revisions a person employs when reading a text.

recursive - Referring to the moving back and forth from invention to revision in the process of writing.

refutation - In ancient Roman oratory, the part of a speech in which the speaker would anticipate objections to the points being raised and counter them.

reliable narrator - A believable, trustworthy commentator on events and characters in a story.

repetition - In a text, repeated use of sounds, words, phrases, or clauses to emphasize meaning or achieve effect.

rhetor - The speaker who uses elements of rhetoric effectively in oral or written text.

rhetoric - The art of analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective; the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a situation.

rhetorical intention - Involvement and investment in and ownership of a piece of writing.

rhetorical question - A question posed by the speaker or writer not to seek an answer but instead to affirm or deny a point simply by asking a question about it.

rhetorical situation - The convergence in a situation of exigency (the need to write), audience, and purpose.

rhetorical triangle - A diagram showing the relations of writer or speaker, reader or listener, and text in a rhetorical situation.

romance language - A language that is derived from Latin.

round character - A figure with complexity in action and personality,

sarcasm - The use of mockery or bitter irony.

scenic narration - Narration in which an event or a moment of a plot is stretched out for dramatic effect.

six-part oration - In classical rhetoric, a speech consisting of exordium, narration, partition, confirmation, refutation, and peroration.

slang - Informal language, often considered inappropriate for formal occasions and text.

soliloquy - Dialogue in which a character speaks aloud to himself or herself.

speaker - The person delivering a speech, or the character assumed to be speaking a poem.

stance - A writer's or speaker's apparent attitude toward the audience.

static character - A figure who remains the same from the beginning to the end of a narrative.

style - The choices that writers or speakers make in language for effect.

subject - One of the points on the Aristotelian or rhetorical triangle; the subject matter a writer or speaker is writing or speaking about.

subordinate clause - A group of words that includes a subject and verb but that cannot stand on its own as a sentence; also called dependent clause.

summary narration - Narration in which a brief statement of events moves the plot quickly.

support - In a test, the material offered to make concrete or to back up a generalization, conclusion, or claim.