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For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").
Other than the function of emphasizing ideas, the use of anaphora as a rhetorical device adds rhythm to a word as well as making it more pleasurable to read and easier to remember. Anaphora is repetition at the beginning of a sentence to create emphasis. Anaphora serves the purpose of delivering an artistic effect to a passage.
Sentences can be long or short, written in the active voice or passive voice, composed as simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. They may also include such techniques as inversion or such structures as appositive phrases, verbal phrases (gerund, participle, and infinitive), and subordinate clauses (noun, adjective, and adverb).
Paraprosdokian – a sentence in which the latter half takes an unexpected turn. Parataxis – using juxtaposition of short, simple sentences to connect ideas, as opposed to explicit conjunction. Parenthesis – an explanatory or qualifying word, clause, or sentence inserted into a passage that is not essential to the literal meaning.
Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a short space of words (including in a poem), with no particular placement of the words to secure emphasis.It is a multilinguistic written or spoken device, frequently used in English and several other languages, such as Hindi and Chinese, and so rarely termed a figure of speech.
A common intended effect of figurative language is to elicit audience responses that are more emotional (like excitement, shock, laughter, etc.), aesthetic, or intellectual. Literal usage confers meaning to words, in the sense of the meaning words have by themselves, [4] for example as defined in a dictionary.
Pun: A verbal device by which multiple definitions of a word or its homophones are used to give a sentence multiple valid readings, typically to humorous effect. Similitude: An extended simile or metaphor that has a picture part (Bildhälfte), a reality part (Sachhälfte), and a point of comparison (tertium comparationis). [19]
Parallel structures in short passages such as proverbs help direct the listener or reader to compare the parallel elements and thus more easily deduce the point. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. (English proverb) Wounds caused by knives will heal, wounds caused by words will not ...