5.4 Use of Language: Figurative Language and Rhetorical Effects
Key Takeaways
- Rhetorical effects and use of language are separate listed sub-topics: the exam asks what a specific choice accomplishes, not merely what it is called.
- Metaphor, simile, personification, and analogy import the connotations of the compared thing, which is where the argument actually happens.
- Hyperbole, understatement, and litotes manage the distance between what is said and what is meant, and all three can signal irony.
- Schemes of arrangement - antithesis, juxtaposition, asyndeton, polysyndeton, chiasmus - create effects through word order rather than word meaning.
- Answer effect questions by naming the device and then stating what it does to the reader's understanding of the claim.
5.4 Use of Language: Figurative Language and Rhetorical Effects
The Rhetorical Analysis outline lists rhetorical effects and use of language as separate sub-topics. Items in this area rarely stop at "identify the device." They ask what the device does: what it makes the reader accept, feel, or notice that plain statement would not.
Answer in two parts every time: name the device, then state its effect on the claim.
Tropes of Comparison
A trope changes a word's meaning. Comparison tropes work by importing the connotations of one thing onto another — which is why they are arguments, not decoration.
| Device | Form | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metaphor | Direct identification, no like or as | "The tax code is a thicket." | Imports impenetrability and the need to be cleared |
| Simile | Explicit comparison with like, as, than | "The policy landed like a summer squall." | Signals suddenness while keeping the terms distinct |
| Extended metaphor | A metaphor developed across several sentences | The economy as an over-leveraged engine, with pistons, coolant, and thermal failure | Lets the writer reason inside the image |
| Personification | Human agency given to an abstraction or object | "The market panicked." | Assigns intention where there may be none — sometimes an argumentative sleight |
| Analogy | Structured comparison used as reasoning | "Regulating platforms is like regulating utilities." | Transfers an accepted framework to a disputed case |
Analytical move: for any comparison, ask what property is being transferred, and is the transfer earned? Calling the tax code "a thicket" transfers impenetrability, which is plausible. Calling a critic "a virus" transfers contagion and the legitimacy of eradication, which is not.
Watch also for the dead metaphor (the branch of government, the flow of capital) that has lost its figurative force, and the mixed metaphor (we must nip this in the bud before it snowballs) that collapses under its own images.
Figures That Manage Distance
These devices create a gap between what is stated and what is meant. The size and direction of that gap is the effect.
| Device | Direction | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperbole | Overstates | "We have reviewed this budget a million times." | Emphasis, exasperation, or comic exaggeration |
| Understatement | Understates | "The eruption caused some disruption to local routines." | Restraint that invites the reader to supply the missing force |
| Litotes | Affirms by denying the opposite | "The result was no small achievement." | Emphatic praise delivered with apparent modesty |
| Irony | Says the opposite of what is meant | "Another triumph of efficient planning." | Critique delivered through the reader's recognition |
| Sarcasm | Irony aimed at a target | "Naturally, the committee needed six years." | Contempt; narrows the audience to those who share it |
Irony is the highest-value device on rhetorical-analysis items because it changes the meaning of the surrounding sentences. If a passage's literal reading is implausibly complimentary about something the author has been criticizing, read for irony before choosing an answer that takes the praise at face value.
Schemes: Effects from Arrangement
A scheme changes word order rather than word meaning.
| Device | Form | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antithesis | Balanced opposition | "Not a triumph of policy but a failure of nerve." | Sharpens a contrast into a choice |
| Juxtaposition | Adjacent placement of contrasting material | A budget figure set beside a casualty figure | Forces an inference without asserting it |
| Anaphora | Repetition at the start of clauses | "We built the roads; we funded the schools…" | Accumulation; cadence of inevitability |
| Epistrophe | Repetition at the end of clauses | "…of the people, by the people, for the people." | Drives the repeated term home |
| Asyndeton | Conjunctions omitted | "They came, they argued, they left." | Speed, compression, urgency |
| Polysyndeton | Conjunctions multiplied | "and the roads and the bridges and the schools" | Weight, abundance, exhaustion |
| Chiasmus | Reversed parallel order (ABBA) | "Ask not what your country can do for you…" | Turns a phrase into an aphorism |
| Rhetorical question | A question not seeking an answer | "Can we call ourselves civilized?" | Recruits the reader into supplying the conclusion |
Imagery, Allusion, and Diction Level
- Imagery is concrete sensory detail. Its effect is to make an abstract claim experiential — a statistic about housing becomes a child in a cold room. On an effect question, imagery's answer is nearly always "makes an abstraction concrete and engages the reader's sympathy," which is pathos operating through language.
- Allusion is an indirect reference to a text, event, or figure the audience is assumed to know. Its effect is twofold: it borrows the authority or emotional charge of the referenced thing, and it flatters the audience by presuming shared knowledge. An allusion that a reader misses does nothing, which is itself evidence about the intended audience.
- Level of diction — Latinate versus plain, technical versus common — produces effects of distance or intimacy. A passage that shifts from Latinate abstraction to blunt monosyllables at its close is using diction to mark the arrival of the conclusion.
Answering an Effect Question
- Locate the quoted language in its surrounding sentences. Effects are contextual; the same metaphor can flatter or attack.
- Name the device precisely. Litotes is not the same as understatement in general; anaphora is not the same as parallelism.
- State what it does to the claim — makes it concrete, sharpens a contrast, invites an inference, undercuts an opponent, establishes distance.
- Eliminate options that stop at identification. An option that names the device correctly but describes an effect the passage does not produce is wrong. So is an option that describes the passage's content instead of the device's function.
Worked item. "The commission's report is a monument — carefully quarried, beautifully finished, and utterly immovable." The extended metaphor treats a document as a stone monument and then turns the monument's virtues into the criticism: what makes a monument admirable, permanence and finish, makes a report useless. Effect: the sentence praises the report's craftsmanship in order to condemn its inflexibility, so the device delivers criticism through apparent compliment — irony achieved by extended metaphor.
An essay on urban planning states: 'The commission's report is a monument - carefully quarried, beautifully finished, and utterly immovable.' What is the primary rhetorical effect of this figure?
A speech includes the line: 'They came, they argued, they left.' Which device is used, and what effect does it create?
After four paragraphs criticizing an agency's repeated delays, an author writes: 'Another triumph of efficient planning.' How should a reader interpret this sentence?