Rhetorical Devices

I. Scheme: An artful deviation from the ordinary arrangement of words.

1. Structures of Balance
   1. Parallelism
   2. Antithesis
   3. Climax
2. Word Order
   1. Anastrophe
   2. Parenthesis
   3. Apposition
3. Omission
   1. Ellipsis
   2. Asyndeton
4. Repetition
   1. Alliteration
   2. Assonance
   3. Anaphora
   4. Epistrophe
   5. Anadiplosis
   6. Chiasmus

II. Tropes- An artful deviation from the ordinary or principal signification of a word.

1. Figurative Language
   • Simile
   • Metaphor
   • Personification
   • Synecdoche
   • Metonymy
2. Word Play and Puns
   1. Syllepsis
   2. Onomatopoeia
3. Substitutions
   1. Anthimeria
   2. Periphrasis
4. Overstatement/Understatement
   1. Hyperbole
   2. Litotes (we’ve called this understatement)
5. Semantic Inversions
   1. Rhetorical questions
   2. Irony
   3. Oxymoron
   4. paradox