Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Types and examples. Oxymorons in the narrow sense are a rhetorical device used deliberately by the speaker and intended to be understood as such by the listener. In a more extended sense, the term "oxymoron" has also been applied to inadvertent or incidental contradictions, as in the case of "dead metaphors" ("barely clothed" or "terribly good").
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). [1][2] In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter.
Quintilian saw rhetoric as the science of the possible deviation from a given norm, or from a pre-existing text taken as a model. Each variation can be seen as a figure (figures of speech or figures of thought). [4] From this perspective, Quintilian famously formulated four fundamental operations according to the analysis of any such variation.
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device, persuasive device, or stylistic device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading them towards considering a topic from a perspective, using language designed to encourage or provoke an emotional display of a given perspective or action.
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which a pair of opposite or contradictory terms is used together for emphasis. [25] Examples: Organized chaos, Same difference, Bittersweet. A paradox is a statement or proposition which is self-contradictory, unreasonable, or illogical. [26] Example: This statement is a lie. Hyperbole is a figure of speech ...
List of narrative techniques. A narrative technique (also, in fiction, a fictional device) is any of several specific methods the creator of a narrative uses [1] —in other words, a strategy applied in the delivering of a narrative to relay information to the audience and to make the narrative more complete, complex, or engaging.
The easiest stylistic device to identify is a simile, signaled by the use of the words "like" or "as". A simile is a comparison used to attract the reader's attention and describe something in descriptive terms. Example: "From up here on the fourteenth floor, my brother Charley looks like an insect scurrying among other insects."
Chiasmus – a figure of speech consisting of the contrasting of two structurally parallel syntactic phrases arranged "cross-wise", i.e., in such a way that the second is in reverse order from the first. Chreia – an anecdote (a deed, a saying, a situation) involving a well-known figure. Circumlocution – use of many words where a few would do.