List of rhetorical stylistic devices
Here rhetorical stylistic devices ( rhetorical figures and tropes ) are listed. For a definition see rhetorical stylistic device .
A.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Accumulatio (also: accumulation ) | Accumulation of thematically related words under a named or not named generic term (see also: Hendiadyoin , Tautology ) | "Field, forest and meadows" ; "Sun, moon and stars" |
| Adynaton | Comparison with the impossible | "The world is going to end sooner than ..." |
| acrostic | The beginnings of words or verses make a new sense when read one after the other | " Ἰ ησοῦς Χ ριστὸς Θ εοῦ Υ ἱὸς Σ ωτήρ" ( Iēsoũs Christòs Theoũ Hyiòs Sōtér "Jesus Christ Son of God Redeemer"), abbreviated as ἸΧΘΎΣ ( Ichthys "fish") |
| Accism | Fake indifference or reject something that you actually want | "That would not have been necessary!" |
| allegory | Visualization, executed metaphor, generally a simile; often an abstract idea is expressed by something objective (see also: symbol ) | "In the theater of the world everyone is a player: some get the role of a king, some that of a beggar ..." |
| alliteration | Two or more consecutive words have the same initial sound | " Kind and Kegel " ; "Milk perks up tired men" ; "Mensch Meier" ; “ Veni vidi vici ” ( Caesar ); “Children's Choir” ; "O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti!" ( Ennius ). See also tautograph |
| Allusion | innuendo | "You know what I mean." |
| Alogism | Expresses a nonsensical fact or represents a consideration that is illogical or ungrammatical in itself, or not causally connected. | "Are naked women intelligent?" - "It's colder at night than outside." |
| Anadiplosis | Special case of the repetitio , repetition of a sentence or verse closing word at the beginning of the next sentence or verse (according to the scheme ... x / x ... ; see also: Anapher , Epipher , Geminatio , Kyklos , Symploke ) | "Wind and waves play with the ship, wind and waves do not play with his heart." ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ) |
| Anakoluth , anakoluthon | Sentence break, a sudden change in the syntactic construction, the structure of a sentence | "Korf invents a lunchtime newspaper / which, once you've read it, / you're full." ( Christian Morgenstern ), "The simpler thinking is often a valuable gift from God" ( Konrad Adenauer ) |
| Anaphora, anaphora | Special case of repetition , repetition at the beginning of a sentence or verse (scheme: x… / x… ), often with parallelism ; often e.g. B. in political speeches (see also: Anadiplose , Epipher , Geminatio , Kyklos , Symploke ) | “I demand morality. I ask for understanding. " |
| Anastrophe | Swap two words that belong together (see also: Inversion ) | "The hard art of pretending" instead of "the hard art of pretending" |
|
Anthropomorphism (also: personification ) |
Transfer of human characteristics to inanimate objects (see also: reification ) | "The woman pours the tea out of the pot nose." |
|
Anticipation (also: prolepse ) |
a preview or a time jump into the future or reader expectations aroused by the text (see also: Prediction ) | "Well, now God rule, [said Hildebrand], disaster happens" ( Hildebrand's song ) |
| Anti-climax | Declining increase, opposite to climax | "Ancestor, grandmother, mother and child" ( Gustav Schwab : Das Gewitter ) |
| Antilabe | Text of a line (which belongs together in terms of rhythm) is distributed to several speakers | “ THE LORD: Do you know Faust? / MEPHISTOPHELES: The doctor? / THE LORD: My servant! " ( JW v. Goethe : Faust I ) |
| Antiphrasis (also: antiphrase ) | The opposite of what has actually been said should be expressed; can refer to a single word, phrase or passage; one of the most common forms of irony | "Are you in a good mood again today!" |
| Antithesis | Polarity (intellectual contrast; see also: antithet ) | “He could do everything, but he couldn't do this.” - “His blood is hot, his blood is cold.” - “What this man builds today, he will tear down tomorrow.” ( Andreas Gryphius ) |
| Antithet | Comparison of two opposing thoughts (no contradiction) (see also: Antithesis ) | "That will do harm, not good." |
| Antonomasia | Special case of the Synekdoche , proper name as a generic term (or vice versa) | " Hercules " as a name for a physically strong person; " Pope of Critics " for an influential reviewer (for example Marcel Reich-Ranicki ) |
| Apokoinu | A part (word or phrase) of a sentence is related equally to two other parts. | "What its arrow reaches is its prey , what crawls and flies." |
| Aposiopesis | Break off in mid-sentence | "Look what I ..." |
| Apostrophes | Turning towards the audience or towards a present, absent or presented person or thing | "Old friend! Always faithful sleep, are you fleeing from me? " |
| Aprosdoketone | an unexpected, surprisingly used, conspicuous word or phrase instead of an expected common phrase | "[Trumpets], who blow the march, the Greek for the Trojans, the Trojan - well, to whom?" Instead of "the Greeks" ( Rudolf Hagelstange : plaything of the gods ) |
| archaism | Outdated linguistic expression | " Doublet " for "jacket"; "Gülden" for "golden" |
| assonance | Vowel half-rhyme | " O tt o s M o ps tr o TZT." ( Ernst Jandl ) - " U nt e RPF a nd - w u nd e rb a r" |
| Asyndeton | Unconnected ranking of equivalent elements; Attachment words and conjunctions are omitted (see also: Polysyndeton ) | "Water, fire, earth, air - they will last forever." |
B.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Bathos | Comparison of a higher value with a lower one | "The explosion destroyed all the houses across the street and my mailbox." |
| Brachylogy | Omission of clauses (see also: Ellipse , Zeugma ) | "The grass withers in the sun, the chicken in the grill." |
| Brevitas | Often conspicuously scarce expression by ellipses support | "If you've had a social drink in a pub, had fun with friends and enjoyed life, you come home unsuspecting and are amazed: car gone, wife gone, money gone." |
| Letter rotator (word swap) | Usually the initial consonants are exchanged, more rarely the vowels, two words that belong together, so that a new, mostly silly meaning or sound results; Special case: Schüttelreim (see also: Paronomasie , Polysemie , Wortspiel , Neologismus ) | “The main prize is a pair of headless corded headphones” (“cordless headphones”); "Add letters" ("mix up letters"); "Dear blasphemy, please ..." (" little sister"); “You cannot change left and right” ( Ernst Jandl , lichtung ); "Nodding spruces" ( Hellmuth Karasek ) |
C.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Captatio benevolentiae | At the beginning, the author asked the reader to kindly accept the following | |
| Chiasmus | Symmetrical crossover of syntactically or semantically corresponding parts of sentences (see also: Epanodos , parallelism ) | "I am large, small you are." ; "How much faster you versorge the world with a king, as kings with a world." ; "He loves roses, he doesn't like carnations." |
| cipher | Signs whose content is puzzling and ultimately cannot be grasped (or only by the author (and the initiated) in the overall context) | “City” as a code of hopelessness in expressionist poetry |
| Chrie | Saying wisdom, motto, ethical maxim | "Do good to friends, do evil to enemies." |
| Contaminatio | The contraction of two words with a similar meaning (see also: Montage ) | "Schlache" for "snake" and "dragon" |
| Concession | The correctness of an opposing argument is admitted, but made ineffective again by stronger own arguments. | "He may have behaved immorally, but you cannot punish him for it." |
| Constructio ad sensum | A syntactic construction that formally violates the rules of grammatical congruence , but is logically correct | "He loved the girl and wanted to marry her." (Formally correct would be: "... and wanted to marry her."); “The whole bunch rushed towards him. They threw him in hot tar and then cushioned him. ” (Formally correct would be:“ He threw him ... ”); "More than a third of the employees went out of work." (Formally correct would be: "... put ...") |
| Contradictio in adiecto | Special case of the oxymoron , contradicting combination of adjective and noun |
"Pentagonal circle" ; "Polished rough diamond" ; "Straight curve" ; "Old youth"
"Former future" ( Ödön von Horváth : Youth without God ) |
| Conversio | Recurrence of a word at the end of a sentence (see also: Epiphora ) | "In the end he only had pain, only pain." |
| Correctio | Improvement, correction | "It was a success - what do I say - a triumph." |
D.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Diaphora | Repetition of the same word in different meanings | “Take care of eight people” ; “When the giant white rabbits race across the lawn in the evening…” ( Robert Gernhardt ); "Everything has an end, only the sausage has two" ( Stephan Remmler ) |
| Dicolon | Two-part expression in which the parts have the same semantic structure and are parallel and / or chiastic to each other (see also: tetrakolon , tricolon ) | "Biblical pictures are often used allegories, Biblical parables are often used metaphors." |
| Diminutive | Belittling form | "Little house" ; "Kid" |
| Triple figure | See: tricolon | "I came, I saw, I conquered." |
| Dysphemism | Derogatory, detrimental paraphrase or word creation / swear word; Opposite of euphemism (see also: Pejoration ) | "Juice push" for: "flight attendant"; "Penner" for: "Homeless (r)" |
E.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| elision | Omission of one or more mostly unstressed sounds ( sometimes indicated by an apostrophe in orthography ) (opposite of epenthesis ) | "Brought" instead of: "brought"; "Fröhl'chen" instead of: "happy" |
| ellipse | Omission of clauses (see also: Brachylogie , Zeugma ) | “So what?” ; "Who? I! " ; but also: "I can do this, you can't" |
| Emphasis | Strong emphasis on a word to reinforce feeling | "People! People! False hypocritical crocodile brood! " ( Friedrich Schiller ) |
| Enallage | See: Hypallage | |
| Enjambement | Continuation of a sentence beyond the end of the verse / line | "The waves are rocking / The funny boat" ( Heinrich Heine ) |
| Enumeration | enumeration | "The green, the blue, the red and the yellow balls" |
| Epanastrophe | Synonymous with anadiplosis or anastrophe | |
| Epanalepsis | Repetition of a word / group of words at the beginning of a sentence or in a sentence (see also: Repetitio ) | "My father, my father, now he's touching me." ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Erlkönig ) |
| Epanodos | Special case of chiasmus , repetition of words in reverse order | "If you can't do what you want, you want what you can." ( Leonardo da Vinci ) |
| Epenthesis | In poetry, a sound insert to add a syllable to a word (opposite of Elision ) | But one night, while she was sleeping, whoever came to her bed ( Christian Morgenstern ) |
| Epiphora, Epipher | Special case of repetitio , (Latin: conversio ) repetition at the end of sentence / verse (scheme: … x /… x ) (see also: Anadiplose , Anapher , Geminatio , Kyklos , Symploke ) | "I demand morality, you live morality." |
| Epiphrase | A sentence that appears to be syntactically terminated receives an addendum to round it off | "You and my angel are my savior." |
| Epithet (ornans) | Standing epithet that is actually not necessary | "The cunning Odysseus , the rose- fingered Eos " |
| Epizeuxis | immediate repetition of a word three or more times | "Woe, woe, woe, when I look to the end!" ( Wilhelm Busch : Max and Moritz ) |
| Eponomy | Replacement of a term by a characteristic proper name of a well-known example | "An unbelieving Thomas" instead of: "skeptic" |
| Etymological figure ( figura etymologica ) | Verb connected with a stem-related noun; also generally the use of two or more related words in a colon | "To fight a battle" ; "Whoever digs a pit for others ..." ; "To serve with my outer pomp" |
| euphemism | Euphemistic description; Opposite: dysphemism | "Strong" instead of: "thick"; "Bless the temporal" instead of "die"; "Senior residence" instead of: "Retirement home" |
| evidence | Detailing-concretizing accumulation, in which the actual main idea is separated into several coordinated sub-thoughts that appear as a list, take up the main idea and carry it out in detail | “His eyes searched for a person - and a horror-awakening monster crawled towards him from a corner that was more like the bed of a wild animal than the dwelling place of a human creature. A pale, death-like skeleton, all the colors of life have disappeared from one face, in which grief and despair had torn deep furrows, beard and nails grown to hideous through neglect for so long, clothes half rotten from long use and from a complete lack of cleaning polluted the air around him - that's how he found this lucky darling, [...] ” ( Friedrich Schiller ) |
| Exclamatio | exclamation | “Die!” ; “Help!” ; “Murderer!” ; "Ouch!" |
| Specimen | Example; illustrates a specific issue | “To do this, let's take a look at our history. The time of the Weimar Republic exemplifies why the right of parliament to dissolve itself does not exist in our Basic Law. " |
F.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Empty phrase | Phrase thrashing; superficial, banal remark | "A man has to do what a man has to do." |
| Figura etymologica | Use of two or more historically related words in a colon | “Whoever digs a pit for another…” ; "To serve with my outer pomp" |
G
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Geminatio | Special case of repetition ; Doubling (see also: Anadiplosis , Anapher , Epipher , Kyklos , Symploke ) | "This, this insolence!" |
| parable | Concrete pictorial illustration of a situation by means of a comparison developed through linguistic continuation (see also: Allegory ) | "The news struck like a bolt from the blue." |
H
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Hendiadyoin , Hendiadys | Syntactic assignment of a semantically subordinate term (often misunderstood: two words with the same or very similar meaning are used to reinforce the overall statement (see: Tautology )) | "A hundred herds and Sicilian cows moo around him" ( Horace ) |
| Homearctic tone, homearctic tone | Initial equality, counterpart to homoioteleuton (see also: alliteration ) |
"Billions of bad boys watch Boris Becker drinking cups." ; "Milk perks up tired men." |
| Homooteleuton, Homoioteleuton | Ending equality, (ending) rhyme of closely spaced words | “And devoured the little bland maggot without mercy. Pity! ... " ( Heinz Erhardt : Die Made ) |
| Homeoprophoron, Homoioprόphoron | Successive words that have similar or identical sounds | "O you who love virtue!" |
| Homeoptoton, Homoioptoton | Peculiarity of the home teleuton, equality of endings due to the same case. | "Omnibus viribus" (the plural ending of the Latin fifth case, the ablative "-ibus" has both words)
"Urbi et orbi" (dative singular, ending "i") "Magna villa" (nominative singular feminine, ending "a") |
| Hypallage (also: enallage ) | Assignment of an attribute to the wrong noun | "The blue smile of his eyes" ; "They went dark through the silent night." ( Virgil ) |
| Hyperbaton (also: blocking , blocking position ) | Insertion through conversion; two words that belong together syntactically (and in terms of content) are far apart | “'Here', he called, 'I am'” ; "The collar bear / he picks himself / cheerfully / one after / the other / down ." ( Robert Gernhardt ) |
| hyperbole | Strong exaggeration (see also: understatement ) | "Dead tired" ; "Fuchsteufelswild" ; "Snail's pace" |
| Hypotax | Subordination of subordinate clauses to a higher-ranking sub-clause in nested form (opposite to paratax , see also: sentence structure ) | "When she drove home after a long conference, when it was already getting dark outside, she took a look at the glittering metropolis." |
| Hysteron proteron | Catch-up technique; what follows logically / chronologically is placed at the beginning (special case: anachronism ) | "Your husband is dead and sends his regards." ( JW v. Goethe : Faust I : Mephisto to Marthe) |
I.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| imperative | request | “Go!” ; “Stand still!” ; "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!" |
| Inconsistency | Conscious avoidance of parallels in syntax , choice of words, tenses (see also: concinnity ) | "Germania is separated from the Sarmatians and Dacians by mutual fear and mountains." ( Tacitus : Germania I ) |
| Interjection | Exclamation, expression of emotion | “Ah!” ; "Yuck!" |
| inversion | Reversal of the normal word order in the sentence to emphasize the rearranged (see also: Anastrophe ) | " He is a thief!" Instead of: "He is a thief!" |
| invocation | Solemn invocation, often to a higher power | "God be my witness!" |
| irony | Divergence, not necessarily the opposite, of literal and real meaning (see also: sarcasm ) | “Nice presents!” ; "You did a great job again!" |
K
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| cacophony | Sound, sound or word sequence perceived as unpleasant or unaesthetic; Sound sequence that is difficult to pronounce | "Rex Xerxes" |
| Catachresis (1) | Metaphor / metonymy as a replacement for missing words (especially in the case of technical innovations) | "The arm of a river" ; "The arm of a device" |
| Catachresis (2) | Image breakage, image abuse, wrong connection of two images | "That hits the barrel in the face." ; "The ravages of time that have dried so many tears will also cause grass to grow over this wound." |
| Climax | Gradual increase of words; Opposite to anti-climax | "You work ten, twelve, even fourteen hours a day on success." |
| Konzetto | Ingenious and witty thought or word game | "During his tenure you should have knocked on Bush in good time." |
| Concinnity | Sonic-rhythmic evenness, syntactic elegance (see also: inconsistency ) | |
| Kyklos | Special case of repetition , repetition of the beginning of a sentence / verse at the end (scheme: x ... x ) (see also: anadiplosis , anaphor , epipher , geminatio , symploke ) | "You should do without, you should do without." ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ) |
L.
| designation | Description or German name | example |
|---|---|---|
| Onomatopoeia | Imitation of a natural sound or any other extra-linguistic acoustic phenomenon through the sound form of a linguistic expression perceived as similar in sound (see also: onomatopoeia ) | "Schnattattattattern" ( Ernst Jandl ) |
| litotes | Emphasis on a term through understatement, weakening or double negation | "Yours truly" ; “Earn not a little” (special case negation ); "Not insignificant" |
| Littera secuta | Two or more consecutive words have initial sounds that appear in alphabetical order (see also: Abecedarius ) | “Zanten's yacht Xanthippe was completely unpredictable, always drifting against the rules.” ( James Krüss ); "On forever." ( Georg Heym ) |
M.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Malapropism | Replacing a word with a similar sounding word of the same part of speech for humorous purposes (although the meaning of the replacing word is inappropriate). | "To the pencil" ; “He was a conifer in his field.” ; "The museum holds numerous valuable exponents." |
| metaphor | Use of a pictorial expression, whereby a special characteristic ( tertium comparationis ) acts as a connecting factor between the donor and recipient of the picture (see also: metonymy , synecdoche , comparison , personification ). | "Guise of cowardice" ; "At the foot of the mountain" ; "A sea of people" |
| Meiosis, miosis | "Abraham was not weak in faith." | |
| Melioration | A word with positive connotations
(see also: denotation , connotation , pejoration ) |
"Favorite" instead of: "Relationship partner" |
| metonymy | Replacement by pictorial expression, whereby there is a real relationship between the two: cause / effect, raw material / product, container / content, ... (see also: metaphor , synecdoche ) | "Reading Schiller" ; "The iron" for: "the sword"; "Drink a glass" ; "Eat a plate" |
| Assembly | Shifting different language / content levels into one another |
N
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| neologism | linguistic new formation, word creations | Self-life description ( Jean Paul ); Boys' Morning Blossom Dreams ( Goethe ); crease |
O
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Onomatopoeia , onomatopoeia, onomatopoeia | Onomatopoeia; the sound of the word emphasizes the meaning | “Quack!” ; “Cuckoo!” ; “Moo!” ; “Boom!” ; “Bang!” ; “Hiss!” ; "Rum!" ; "It crackles and cracks" |
| oxymoron | Inner contradiction (special case: contradictio in adjecto ) | "Hot and cold" ; "Bittersweet" ; "LPG" ; "Pretty ugly" ; "Love-hate relationship" ; "Big dwarf" ; “Eloquent silence” ( Cicero ); "Flip-flop" |
P
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| palindrome | Words or sentences that stay the same when read from the front and back | "Anna" ; "Otto" ; " Relief pillars " |
| Paradox , paradox | Apparent inconsistency or formulation of an idea that contradicts common opinion | “The design is diabolical, but truly - divine” (also antithesis ); "The crimes produce immeasurable benefits and the greatest virtues develop disastrous consequences." ( Paul Valéry ), "I know that I know nothing." ( Socrates ) |
| Paralipse (also: Praeteritio / Praeterition ) | Purported omission; the author pretends to be leaving out something he is really insisting on | "Not to mention that Caesar was also in Gaul ..." ; "I will not do you the shame of reminding you that ..." |
| parallelism | Parallel construction of (partial) sentences | "Bird flies, fish swims, man runs." ( Emil Zátopek ) |
| paradigm | Basic way of thinking, doctrine | "Man hates change." |
| Paraphrase | Explanatory description (as an addition) (see also: Periphrase ) | "Fish, the mute sea creatures " |
| Paraprosdokian | A phrase whose ending is surprising or unexpected, so that the reader or listener has to rethink and rearrange the beginning | "I had a perfect, wonderful evening - but it wasn't this one." ( Groucho Marx ) |
| Paratax | Juxtaposition of equivalent main clauses or associated subordinate clauses (opposite to hypotax , see also: sentence series ) | “Here I stand, I can't help it. God help me! Amen! " ( Luther ) |
| parenthesis | Insertion of words or parts of sentences in a sentence | "That is - as I said - unimportant." |
| Paronomasia (also: Annominatio ) | Special case of a play on words , combination of two terms that differ in meaning but sound similar (see also twisted letters , polysemy , shaking rhyme ) | "If you rest, you rust." ; "Better arm on than arm off." |
| Pars pro toto | the part for the whole . Special case of the Synekdoche : something is named by a part (see also: totum pro parte ). | “Per head” for: “per person”; "Have a roof over your head" |
| Pejoration | A deterioration in importance for a thing; it is achieved by choosing a word that deliberately makes the matter appear negative. It is the opposite of euphemism (see also: dysphemism ). | "Vermin" instead of: "Insects"; "Gather together" instead of: "gather together" |
| periphrasis | Description of a term using individual features (see also: Paraphrase ) | "The father of the economic miracle," describes Ludwig Erhard |
| Personification , personification, prosopopoeia, person poetry | Assignment of human characteristics to animals, objects or the like (see also: anthropomorphism ) | "The sun is laughing" ; "Voice of conscience" ; "Mother Earth" ; "Father State" ; "The wind is playing" |
| Pleonasm | Compilation of mostly two parts of speech according to different words, whereby the meaning of the second word already contains the meaning of the first word (see also: Accumulatio , Hendiadyoin , Tautologie ) | "Round ball" ; "Old man"; "Dead corpse" |
| Pluralis Auctoris (author plural) | Use of the plural in scientific works | "This brings us to the core of the problem ..." |
| Pluralis majestatis | Use of the plural in relation to oneself as an expression of power, originally among nobility and dignitaries | “We, Benedictus PP. XVI in the 1st year of our pontificate ... " |
| Pluralis Modestiae | Use of the plural instead of the singular to express modesty | "We made it." Instead of: "I made it." |
| Pluralis sanitatis | Use of the plural for often caring downplaying paternalism or instruction, mostly in medical or nursing practice. | "So, now let's go to bed!" Or "Then let's put our jacket on!" |
| Punchline | Unexpected escalation | "If someone who barely crawled up a tree with effort / already thinks that he is a bird / He is wrong ." ( Wilhelm Busch : The flying frog ) |
| Polyptoton | Repetition of a word in different inflections | " Homo homini lupus " ( "Man is a wolf to man." ) ( Plautus : Asinaria ) |
| Polysyndeton | Multiple connected sequence through a conjunction (frequent connecting words are "and" or "or") (see also: Asyndeton ) | “And it waves and boils and roars and hisses.” (Friedrich Schiller: Der Taucher) |
| Procatalepsy | Anticipation (e.g. of a possible objection) | "Of course one could argue here that ..." |
R.
| designation | Description or German name | example |
|---|---|---|
| redundancy | Duplication of information | “The street lamps come on at dusk and illuminate the streets when it gets dark.” ; "The event took place on Friday, March 30, 2018." |
| Repetition | Repetition of a word / phrase (see also: Anadiplosis , Anapher , Epanalepse , Epipher , Geminatio , Kyklos , Polyptoton , Symploke ) | “He gave and gave and gave et” ( Konrad von Würzburg ); "Soon there, soon there" |
| Rhetorical question | Question to which no answer is expected (dummy question) | “What is normal?” ; "If I see that stupid look like?" ; "Where are we here?" |
S.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| sarcasm | Biting, bitter and / or hurtful mockery and scorn; often using irony (e.g. in response to an attack) (see also: cynicism ) | "I blessed his bath with the ax!" ( Friedrich Schiller : Wilhelm Tell ) |
| Mock definition | Pretends to explain something universally, but is just the speaker's opinion or a tautology | “Purex is a taste.” ; "Night is when no more sunlight hits the earth." |
| Sentence | Brief, aptly formulated motto that summarizes a sentence and elevates it to general meaning | "The ax in the house saves the carpenter" ( Friedrich Schiller : Wilhelm Tell ) |
| Sermocinatio | Introduction of a living, deceased or fictional person by means of a speech in the 1st person . The language is adapted to this person. | "And so I close this chapter with a saying that shows Aunt Jolesch not only in linguistic terms at the height of her formulation power: 'What a man is more beautiful than an ape' is a luxury." ( Friedrich Torberg : Die Aunt Jolesch ) |
| solecism | Gross linguistic error, especially in the syntactic connection of the words | “Where do you want?” ; "Here you will be helped." ; " Fear eats the soul " ( RW Fassbinder ) |
| Alliance | Words that follow one another or that are close to one another have the same initial sound , whereby all vowels are below each other (see also: alliteration , tongue twister ) | "Fischers Fritze fishes fresh fish" ; "Swaying wave on a surging sea" |
| Stichomythie | Quick exchange speech, exchange of blows in a few words, speaker change from verse to verse | Dialogue between Iphigenia and Arkas in Iphigenia on Tauris (JW v. Goethe): “Iphigenia: 'As befits the soldier, the orphaned.' / 'Arkas: Do you seem to yourself driven out and orphaned here?' / Iphigenie: 'Can we go to the fatherland become a stranger? '/ Arkas:' And your fatherland has become a stranger. '" |
| Sustentio | Triggering surprise in the listener by not satisfying the expectations of how the text should go on, or a seemingly contradicting reason for a previously given explanation | “Self-knowledge is the best way to disguise.” ; "Milk is a strong drink." |
| Syllepse | A part of a sentence that is only set once belongs to several kola ( parts of a sentence) or words in different grammatical forms or different senses and must be supplemented in a modified form in the omitted cases. | “ What does it mean and at what end do you study universal history? “ ( Schiller ); "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are on their cries." ( Psalm 34 ( Luther )) |
| symbol | Image that refers to an abstract idea (see also: Allegory ) | "White dove" for: "peace"; "Red heart" for: "love" |
| Symploke | Connection of anaphor and epipher (see also: Anadiplose , Geminatio , Kyklos ) | “What is the fool's greatest good? Money! What attracts even the wise? Money!" |
| Synesthesia | Connection of different sensory impressions, as if one sensory perception could explain another | "The wet grass sounded like a love song" ; " The bells never sound sweeter " ; "And blue songs smell the violets!" ( Arno Holz ) |
| Synecdoche | Replacement by numerically related term: part / whole, genus / species, singular / plural, earlier / later (see also: antonomasia , metaphor , metonymy , pars pro toto , periphrase , totum pro parte ) | "Having a roof over your head" for: "Living in a house / apartment"; "Head" for: "person / person"; "The German" for: "many Germans" |
T
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| tautology | Accumulation, repetition of what has been said with a synonymous word, whereby both words already contain the meaning of the overall expression; both words belong to the same part of speech (see also: Accumulatio , Hendiadyoin , Pleonasmus ) | "Cherish and care for" ; "Always and forever" ; "Fear and anxiety" ; “Need and misery” ; "Cunning and trickery" |
| Tetracolon | Four-part expression in which all four parts have the same semantic structure and are parallel and / or chiastic to each other (see also: dicolon , tricolon ) | "Dare, donare, dicare, consecrare" ( Cicero ) ("give to him, give him, dedicate to him, offer him") |
| totemism | Opposite of anthropomorphism . A person or a human quality is given animal characteristics. In the area of prehistoric religions, for example, mixed creatures made up of humans and various animals, such as the so-called magician from the Trois-Frères cave. | “Then said the king: 'If only I knew what could make you happy. Do you want my beautiful daughter as a wife? ' 'Oh yes,' said the donkey, suddenly she was very funny and in good spirits, because that was just what it had wanted. So a great and splendid wedding was held. " |
| Totum pro parte | Special case of the Synekdoche . Something is expressed through the generic term of its meaning field (see also: metonymy , pars pro toto ) | "Forest" for: "tree"; “Germany wins” instead of: “the German athlete wins”; “ We are Pope ” instead of: “ Joseph Ratzinger is Pope”; "America" for "USA" |
| Tricolon (also: figure of three ) | Tripartite expression in which all three parts have the same semantic structure and are parallel and / or chiastic to each other (see also: Dikolon , Tetrakolon ) | " Veni, vidi, vici " ; "Square, practical, good" |
| Tricolon in membris crescentibus | Tripartite expression in connection with an increase in content or syntax ( climax ) | "I respect, love, adore you" |
U
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Exaggeration | An adjective, which for semantic reasons actually cannot have a comparative or superlative , is nevertheless increased in order - often in connection with a comparison - to emphasize the message. | "The deadliest of all weapons" ; "More dead than ever before" |
| understatement | It is not said what is actually meant by seemingly downplaying it, reducing its value, understating (see also: Litotes ) | "It works quite well" instead of: "it works out very well " |
V
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Variatio | Avoidance of unison / repetition (see also: Synonym ) | “Born in Munich, she spent her youth in the Bavarian metropolis and returned to the white-blue state capital when she was old ." |
| reification | Assignment of non-human characteristics to persons (see also: anthropomorphism ) | "Roofers fall and go in two" ( Jakob van Hoddis ) |
| comparison | Illustration, marked by a comparative word (see also: parable ) | "Strong as a lion" ; "Bigger than an elephant" |
| Vulgarism | crude or vulgar language (vulgar or fecal language) | " Poop " |
W.
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Pun | 1) Use of the same word, a word derived from the same root word or a similar-sounding word in the same sentence to indicate different meanings or different contexts of meaning that appear or actually exist 2) Slight change in the word, which gives it an additional meaning (see also: Reversing letters , paronomasia , polysemy , shaking rhyme ) |
"His will is inflexible, but his back is flexible" ; "Jesuit - Resist Jesus" |
Z
| designation | Description or German name | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| zeugma | Syntactically correct connection of semantically not related parts of the sentence | "He raised his eyes and one leg to heaven." ; "He opened the box, then his mouth." ; "He sat through the whole night and chair" ; "My name is Heinz Erhardt and you welcome" |
| cynicism | (As a rhetorical stylistic device :) Maliciously hurtful, often ironic utterance as a demonstration of superiority, disregarding, reinterpreting or ad absurdum use of generally widespread / recognized values (see also: sarcasm ) | “After his act, the bat says: 'Did you like it? Should I hit it again? '” ; " Every people has the government it deserves " |
literature
- Heinrich Lausberg : Elements of literary rhetoric. An introduction for students of classical, Romance, English and German philology. Munich 1949; 2nd, expanded edition, ibid. 1963
- Heinrich Lausberg: Handbook of literary rhetoric. A foundation of literary studies. 2 volumes, Munich 1960, etc.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://norberto68.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/alliteration-stabreim-beispiele/
- ^ Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Iphigenia on Tauris . Reclam, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-15-000083-1 , p. 7 .
- ^ Schrott, Raoul & Jacobs, Arthur: Brain and Poem. How we construct our realities . 2011, p. 45 .
- ↑ http://www.maerchenlexikon.de/texte/archiv/derungs01.htm