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Rhetorical devices are techniques used to persuade through logic, emotion, or character. Examples include hyperbole, personification, and syllogism. They are often combined in political speeches and ads to convince the audience.
A rhetorical device is a technique used in speech to convey ideas and messages persuasively. Several rhetorical devices are classified as related to logos, pathos and ethos. Logos is an appeal to logic, pathos is an appeal to emotion, and ethos is an appeal to the perception of the speaker’s character. An example of a rhetorical device is hyperbole, which is essentially exaggeration for emotional effect. Several rhetorical devices are often combined in political speeches and advertisements to persuade the listener or reader to accept an argument.
The definition of rhetorical device is a technique used to convey information in a persuasive manner. These devices are methods set up to present information for a logical or emotional effect. They can also be used to deny the emotional impact of ideas or arguments. For example, a politician who supports the legalization of hunting an animal may use a euphemism to reduce the emotional impact of the action. The word “killing” is emotionally neutral compared to a word like “murder” or “killing”, which have the same logical meaning.
Pathos is the appeal to emotion and different devices can be used to appeal to this area of rhetoric. A rhetorical device related to pathos is personification. For example, a politician might say that “the country’s welfare system lies abandoned like an orphaned and sick child, and it’s time to take it back”. This rhetorical device allows the speaker to create an emotional response to an unemotional topic by speaking about it as if it were human. Listeners and readers can then associate the emotion felt for the orphaned child rhetoric with the abandonment of the welfare system.
Ethos is an area of rhetoric relating to the character of the speaker and different devices can be used to appeal to it. Hyperbole is a rhetorical device that can be used to influence listeners or readers’ perception of a person’s character. Politicians can use it to exaggerate their own successes or an opponent’s failures. For example, a politician may denounce his opponent’s “unintentional destruction of everything we hold dear” if the opponent has proposed the sale of the country’s forests. The actual action may have sound reasons behind it, and it’s certainly not related to “everything we hold dear,” but the exaggeration makes the opponent look like a monster.
Appeals to logos are the last main group of devices, related to the rationale for a decision. A syllogism is the most common rhetorical device used to appeal to logic. This is a three-part argument where the conclusion is definitely true given the truth of two premises. For example, an advertisement may state, “Mint X cures bad breath and bad breath can keep you from making friends, so mint X helps you make friends.” If the listener accepts that mint cures bad breath and that bad breath can keep you from making friends, the listener must accept that mint helps people make friends in some way.
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