Freshman Persuasive Speech 2013 Rhetorical Devices #2 Freshman Persuasive Speech 2013

Rhetorical Devices Rhetorical: _______________________________ _________________________________________ Remember: you already know about literary devices, which authors use to convey their themes! the art of persuading somebody or impressing somebody a tool used for a particular task or purpose tools that speakers use when they want to be persuasive

Parallelism Definition: repeating the same sentence structure or pattern of words If this works, no longer will students suffer infernal boredom. No longer will they have to go over material that they understood the first time … No longer will they make annoying noises or throw things in class while you’re trying to learn! Note: This is different from repetition because this is not repeating the most important words/phrases – just the sentence structure!

Rhetorical Question Definition: posing a question without expecting an answer – you assume that your audience already knows the answer This theory is supported with an overwhelming amount of evidence. Then why do so many people disregard it?

Analogy Definition: making a comparison to emphasize a point Summit’s school system hinders excellence in math. We simply cannot allow this because math is to success as oxygen is to life. (Math: success = oxygen: life) I feel like a fish out of water. This implies that you are not comfortable in your surroundings

Personification Giving human characteristics to an animal, thing/object, or idea These video games are killing our children. Remember: You already learned about personification when reading Lord of the Flies in English!

Allusion Definition: using an example from history, literature, religion, or pop culture because your audience is already familiar with it Remember when we were young, we had this idol called Smokey the Bear? He told us not to burn down the forests. But all around the world, nations are still doing that. Remember: We talked about this (a little) in English during the Poetry Unit!

Partner Practice With your partner, read through each example and decide which rhetorical device is being used. Explain how you know which rhetorical device is being used! When you are finished, go to the next slide for the answer key. Do NOT look at the answer key before trying all of them yourself!

Answer Key – Rhetorical Devices #1 Analogy – This is an analogy because the speaker is comparing wearing a bike helmet to having car insurance. They are similar because both “protect” you after an accident. Rhetorical Question – This is a rhetorical question because the speaker is asking a question when he/she already knows what the audience’s answer is.

Answer Key – Rhetorical Devices #1 Allusion – This is an allusion to Star Wars, where characters often say, “May the Force be with you.” By using this, the speaker is connecting with the audience’s prior knowledge. Parallelism – This is parallelism because the speaker is repeating the phrase “verb ANY object.”

Answer Key – Rhetorical Devices #1 Personification – This is personification because the speaker is giving “Facebook comments and Instagram photos” the human action of pushing, shoving, poking, and stabbing, even though comments and photos can’t actually do that.