SYNTAX AND TONE, AND DICTION . . . OH MY!

But before all that . . . A few more rhetorical devices . . .

1) Expletive: a single word or short phrase used to lend emphasis. ("I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.“ )

2) Apostrophe: a sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group or person or personified abstraction absent or present (“For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel.”

3) Epistrophe: Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words. (type of repetition . . . “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." —Emerson )

4. Antithesis: opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction. (“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”-Neil Armstrong)

5. aphoristic: a short statement containing a general truth . . . OR, a sentence that alludes to an aphorism. (Every cloud has a silver lining. OR A penny saved is a penny not spent.)

6. Chiasmus: a figure of speech based on inverse parallelism (Fair is foul and foul is fair.)

What exactly is tone? Tone is that unique quality of a speech

or a piece of writing that reveals the attitudes and presuppositions of the author or speaker.

There are many words to define tone. (see hand-out for variety)

Tone is conveyed through syntax and diction! So what is diction? Diction is an author’s particular word

choice. Specific words that authors use, along

with their syntactical style, help the reader establish the tone of a piece.

Take a look at this paragraph on diction.

“A Model of Christian Charity”

Using the “Style and Rhetorical Appeals” Graphic Organizer, you are going to analyze the structure, syntax, diction, etc . . . . of “A Model Of Christian Charity”.

Please organize your analysis using the guidelines of the Graphic Organizer.

Cite exactly from the text when necessary.