rhetorical question

rhetoric
Also known as: interrogatio

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figure of speech

  • Louisa May Alcott: Little Women
    In figure of speech: Common figures of speech and their use

    …I could chew nails”; the rhetorical question (asked for effect, with no answer expected), as in “How can I express my thanks to you?”; litotes (conscious understatement in which emphasis is achieved by negation), as in “It’s no fun to be sick”; and onomatopoeia (imitation of natural sounds by words),…

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use in rhetoric

  • In rhetoric: Elements of rhetoric

    …be supplied by the audience), interrogatio (the “rhetorical” question, which is posed for argumentative effect and requires no answer), and gradatio (a progressive advance from one statement to another until a climax is achieved). However, a certain slippage in the categories trope and scheme became inevitable, not simply because rhetoricians…

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