Rhetorical figures, also known as speech figures, they are language resources that help to create a figurative and expressive meaning to the transmitted message.
Rhetorical figures are often used both in colloquial language and in literary texts. In fact, this resource is very useful in literature, as it is responsible for assisting in the aesthetic and creative construction of the work.
Etymologically, the word "rhetoric" is derived from the Greek rhetorike, which precisely means “the art of speaking well”. It used to be used in Ancient Greece to refer to the way ideas were conveyed, based on conviction and clarity.
Learn more about the meaning of Rhetoric.
Rhetoric figures can be subdivided into three categories: word pictures, thought figures and construction figures. Some authors still consider a fourth category: sound figures.
Word Pictures
- Catachresis: use of a word in the figurative sense because there is no proper term.
- Metaphor: establishes a relationship of similarity by using a term with a meaning different from the usual one.
- Comparation: similar to a metaphor, a comparison is a figure of speech used to qualify a similar feature between two or more elements.
- Metonymy: logical substitution of one word for a similar one.
- Onomatopoeia: imitation of a sound.
- Periphrasis: use of a word or expression to designate something or someone.
- Synesthesia: mix of different sensory impressions.
Thought Figures
- Antithesis: words of opposite meanings.
- Paradox: referring to two contradictory ideas in a single sentence or thought.
- Euphemism: intention to soften a fact or attitude.
- Hyperbole: intentional exaggeration.
- Irony: affirmation contrary to what one thinks.
- Prosopopoeia or Personification: attribution of proper predicates of animate beings to inanimate beings.
Construction Figures
- Alliteration: repetition of a certain sound in verses or phrases.
- Anacoluto: alteration of the normal construction of the sentence.
- Anaphora: intentional repetition of a word or expression to reinforce the meaning.
- Ellipse: omission of an easily identifiable term.
- Pleonasm: repetition of a term, redundancy.
- Polysyndeton: repetition of the conjunction between the terms of the clause.
- Zeugma: omission of a term previously expressed.
See also: the meaning of Figures of Language and Metaphor Examples.