TERMS Rhetoric Isocrates that power which of all the faculties which belong to the nature of man is the source of most of our blessings Plato rhetoric is the knack of producing pleasure in the audience Aristotle Let rhetoric be defined as ability in each case to see the available means of persuasion Cicero speech designed to persuade Kenneth Burke the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols Campbell Burkholder persuasive discourses written and oral encountered face to face or through the electronic or print media that seek to affect attitudes and actions Richard Weaver we have no sooner uttered words than we have given impulse to other people to look at the world or some small part of it our way Lloyd Bitzer rhetoric is a mode of altering reality not by the dialect application of energy to objects but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action Rhetorical Criticism analyzing and explaining the persuasive functions of public discourse Elements of Criticism o Describe What do I see What is it made of What are its parts o Interpret What does it do How does it work o Evaluate How well does it do it Is it good bad Likable objectionable Etc Rhetorical Situation Bitzer contexts in which speaker writer creates rhetorical discourse o Exigence urgency immediate problem needed to be solved able to be solved using rhetoric o Audience must be able to make change o Constraints negative aspects that hold speaker back o Resources positive aspects that will give speaker credibility help o Persuasive Field all other messages events going on that might impact rhetoric o Medium how message is being transmitted Parts of Speech Nouns words that name person place thing or abstraction ex Love justice o Common describes one or more members of a class of things ex elk flower movie o Collective give name to a group of things ex flock squad audience o Concrete identifies something perceivable by the senses ex bottle fence tree o Abstract name a quality or idea ex shame anger virtue o Proper names capitalized ex New York Washington Obama Verbs word or group of words that asserts something about the subject of a sentence describe an action or express an identity or state of being o Intransitive does not need a direct object or complement to complete meaning of sentence ex John fell o Transitive requires a direct object or a complement to complete sentence ex John hit the ball CANNOT have just John hit o Finite always marked for tense and agree with the subject or noun phrase ex Joe went to college to avoid the draft went is finite agrees with subject o Non Finite Not marked for tense ex John wanted to jump off a cliff Infinitives add to before verb I would like to respond Participles add ing to verb acting like adj smiling losing winning Gerunds add ing to a verb BUT functions as noun Learning is easy Adjectives describe or limit a noun or pronoun Adverb modify verbs other adverbs and in some cases adjectives Prepositions indicates the relation of a noun or pronoun to some other word in the sentence he put the coat in the closet Conjunctions join words phrases and clauses o Coordinate joins words phrases and clauses of equal importance or rank ex and but or for FANBOYS o Subordinate connect a subordinate clause with the main clause of a sentence ex after as because before if in order that since though unless until when where while Subject identifies an entity about which something is asserted Predicate make a comment about the subject provides info about the subject or describes what the subject did or did not do etc Object o Direct do something to direct objects The owner fired the coach o Indirect indicate whom or for whom something is done she gave the dog the popcorn Types of Sentences Simple one independent clause Compound two independent clauses Complex one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses Compound complex two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses Independent Clause John went to the gym Dependent Clause John went to the gym after folding laundry Noun style vs Verb style Noun style contains a lot of to be verbs was is were are am A LOT of prepositions dull monotonous repetitive Verb Style active verbs faster pace featured action Parataxis vs Hypotaxis Parataxis no ranking ex I came I saw I conquered Hypotaxis creates ranking through the relationship between dependent clauses to independent all complex and compound complex sentences ex Because I came then I saw and I conquered Asyndeton vs Polysyndeton Asyndeton few connectors Metaphor Involves talking about one thing in the terms of another A comparison between two things doesn t use like or as Polysndeton many connectors ex and Small scale stylistic patterns Simile comparison with like or as Hyperbole extreme exaggeration Personification giving human characteristics to non human things Assonance the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences Parallelism repetition of a grammatical structure o we have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion We ve seen the unfurling of flags the light of candles the giving of blood the saying of prayers Alliteration repetition of consonant sounds ex Lucky and the left out powerful glue that connect elements without logical relationship Lanham A B B A Describes an inverted repetition pattern Particularly Chiasmus useful to support the idea of reversal If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns Diacope be boys repetition of a word phrase with one or two intervening words Boys will Anadiplosis is when the word at or near the end of a clause is used to begin the next clause or sentence A B B C suggesting a logical relationship between the terms in the expression Suffering breeds character character breeds faith Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or paragraphs Anaphora can be very useful for building to a climax Produces strong emotional effect Antithesis is a compact expression of contrast or opposition sometimes combined with parallelism and or alliteration signifying an end as well as beginning signifying renewal as well as change antithesis with alliteration and parallelism Epistrophe Politics is your life Now make it your living repetition of same word at end of end of successive clauses sentences Ultimate Terms god terms