Writing in the Classroom: High School: Rhetorical Devices

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. rhetorical device
    a use of language that creates a literary effect
  2. figure of speech
    language used in a nonliteral sense
  3. trope
    a common or clichéd plot device, idea, or theme in a creative work
  4. literal
    limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text
  5. figurative
    not literal
  6. rhetorical
    relating to using language effectively
  7. allegorical
    characteristic of or containing a symbolic meaning or moral
  8. sensory
    involving or derived from the senses
  9. imagery
    the use of vivid sensory language in literature
  10. alliteration
    use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word
  11. simile
    a figure of speech expressing a resemblance between things
  12. metaphor
    a figure of speech that suggests a non-literal similarity
  13. symbolism
    the practice of investing things with arbitrary meaning
  14. repetition
    the continued use of the same word or word pattern
  15. rhetorical question
    an inquiry that is not supposed to be answered
  16. onomatopoeia
    using words that imitate the sound they denote
  17. personification
    representing an abstract quality or idea as a human
  18. irony
    incongruity between what is expected and what occurs
  19. dramatic irony
    when the audience understands something the characters don't
  20. situational irony
    incongruity between what happens and what was expected
  21. analogy
    drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity
  22. idiom
    expression whose meaning cannot be inferred from its words
  23. hyperbole
    extravagant exaggeration
  24. antithesis
    the juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas for balance
  25. understatement
    something said in a restrained way for ironic contrast
Created on July 29, 2022 (updated August 2, 2022)

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