Amplification (rhetoric)

The amplificatio (from Latin amplificatio "extension" gr auxesis " growth, increase ") is the artificial extension of a statement about the statement they need to understand the addition. This can be done by repeated viewing of a fact from different angles and a detailed painting of individual aspects, for example.

In ancient rhetoric, the amplificatio increasing effect in speech, such as through the means of the variations ( variation thoughts or figures of accumulation, such Accumulatio, Enumeratio or synonymy ), the periphrasis, the comparison and the description was.

In the rhetoric of the Middle Ages amplificatio an end in itself and the text corpus was unnecessarily expanded ( see also material bombast ). To this end, served the modes amplificationis such as apostrophes ( for example by exclamation ), personification or digression, as well as the figures Litotes and oppositional.

A common use of amplificatio is typically found in the literature of Mannerism.

Also in sociology, this term is considered and is, for example, embedded in the consequences of printing: see, eg, Niklas Luhmann (1998 ): The company of the Company, Vol.1: 323-4.

• Rhetorical term