Rhetorical devices: types, examples and how to spot them

A rhetorical device is a deliberate departure from the plain way of saying something. Deliberate is the key word: the same repetition that counts as anaphora in a poem is a verbal tic in a work email.

Repetition

• Anaphora: repeating the beginning. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (Dickens).
• Epistrophe: repeating the ending.
• Anadiplosis: ending one clause and starting the next with the same word. “…then came the night. The night brought…”
• Polyptoton: the same word in different forms. “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 116).
• Alliteration: repeating sounds. It has its own article.

Substitution

• Metaphor: calling one thing by the name of another. “Her eyes are two embers.”
• Simile: the same, but stated openly. “Her eyes like two embers.”
• Metonymy: the part for the whole, the author for the work, the cause for the effect. “Reading Shakespeare.”
• Synesthesia: mixing the senses. “A rough silence.”
• Personification: giving human traits to something that doesn't have them.

Construction

• Hyperbaton: changing the usual word order. “Whose woods these are I think I know” (Robert Frost).
• Asyndeton: dropping the conjunctions. “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
• Polysyndeton: adding extra ones to slow the rhythm.
• Ellipsis: leaving out what's understood.
• Chiasmus: crossing the elements. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (Shakespeare, Macbeth).

Figures of thought

Irony, saying the opposite of what you mean. Hyperbole, exaggerating. Paradox, joining things that contradict each other. Oxymoron, doing it in two adjacent words: “a deafening silence.” Antithesis, setting ideas against each other.

Finding them in your own writing

Anaphora is the one device you can detect without interpreting the text: just check whether several sentences in a row begin with the same word. Scan the first word of each sentence in a passage and any streak will stand out, whether you put it there on purpose or not.

The rest is where any algorithm hits its limit. Spotting a metaphor means understanding that “embers” isn't about fire, and no amount of counting can work that out. For those, read slowly, mark each place where the text says one thing by way of another, and ask whether each figure earns its place.

Frequently asked questions about rhetorical devices

What's the difference between a metaphor and a simile?

A simile states the comparison with a connecting word (like, as, as if): “her eyes like embers.” A metaphor takes it for granted and substitutes directly: “her eyes are two embers,” or even “two embers were watching him.” A metaphor asks more of the reader, which is why it usually hits harder, and also why it's riskier.

Are rhetorical devices only used in poetry?

No. They show up in advertising, journalism, political speeches and everyday conversation: “I'm starving” is a hyperbole. What changes in poetry is the density and the intent. In narrative prose, restraint pays off: one good metaphor every few pages carries more weight than three per paragraph.

How many rhetorical devices are there?

Classical treatises list more than two hundred, but most are fine variations on about twenty core ones. For writing, it's enough to master the repetition, substitution and construction devices; knowing the exact name of a hypallage matters less than recognizing when a text needs an image and when it needs clarity.

Can rhetorical devices be detected automatically?

Only partly. Repetition devices can be found by counting: anaphora, epistrophe, alliteration. Substitution devices require understanding meaning, because you have to know that “embers” isn't about fire, and that takes a language model. That's why it pays to be wary of any detector that promises to find them all without reading.