Figure of speech

A rhetorical device, also called a rhetorical figure or figure of style is,

• Under rhetorical aspect ...

• Under scientific literature aspect ...

Origin

The familiar in the theory of rhetoric, in the Poetics and Linguistics style funds come mainly from ancient rhetoric and poetics, who already knew more elaborate systems.

The names themselves accordingly originate mostly from Greek or Latin, in exceptional cases, from French and other modern languages. Part also German names are familiar. The definitions of the figures is not uniform and differ according to the system: partly be viewed as synonymous terms (eg pleonasm and tautology ), sometimes called a name in different systems different means (eg catachresis ). The demarcation of similar stylistic devices is often very subtle (eg, metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche ) and varies depending on the definition (eg Hypallage and Enallage and Syllepse and Zeugma ).

Not all stylistic devices are possible in any language: In ancient Greek and in English, for example, is an almost arbitrary way to form new words by composition given ( neologism ); in Ancient Greek, Latin, and also in the German word order is relatively free- especially in poetic language, which allows a variety of position figures (eg hyperbaton, anaphora, chiasmus ).

Classifications of rhetorical stylistic device

The rhetorical stylistic devices are roughly divided into the ( style, voice or word ) characters ( figurae verborum ), the syntax and the tropics, which affect the semantics. Since ancient times, there are several, mutually partially exclusive ways, these genera to be broken down further:

Classification according to Quintilian

Quintilian distinguishes the figures of speech like this:

• Grammatical figures result from a deviation from the norm correctness of language, are allowed speech impediment - for example, in Ernst Bloch: "gang and gäbene sorcery "
• Rhetorical figures are word order variants above the level of grammaticality, such as the chiasm.

The tropics he brings into this system as a third type under the name of figures of thought (Latin figurae Sentences ) that occur at the conceptual level and can be formulated linguistically different - for example, metaphor, paradox, antithesis, etc.

Classification on the basis of the change categories

Also from antiquity comes the overwhelming rhetoric in the classification based on four categories of variations. She goes out with the Deviationstheorie of an underlying actual expression, the verbum proprium. For inauthentic, figurative expression, the verb Translatum, it is the change by one of the four categories:

• Figurae by adiectionem ( by addition ) extend the linguistic expression - for example Geminatio, Hendiadyoin, pleonasm, etc.
• Figurae by detractionem ( by omission ) shorten the linguistic expression - for example, ellipse, etc. Brachylogie
• Figurae by transmutationem ( by permutation ) change the sequence of linguistic expression - for example hyperbaton, hysteron Proteron
• ( by substitution ) replace figurae by immutationem the linguistic expression -site - for example metaphor, metonymy, irony, etc.

The first three categories contain at the figures, the fourth the tropics.

Classification of interpretation aesthetic point of view

Newer classifications share the style usually means the interpretative point of view, and often differ in more detail and less systematically:

• Pictorial figures: Stylistic device, the set instead of the term a replacement name ( tropics);
• Verbal images that allow a graphic representation of how simile or comparison;

• Language elements that are characterized by a special syntactic position ( set figure) or by original combination of their individual members ( word character ), for example climax that repeated figures.

• Language resources, in which a particular effect is achieved by the sound of the phrase, for example alliteration, assonance.

• For example stichomythia.

Use

The effect of stylistic devices is usually a special emphasis, which takes the reader or listener unconsciously. While most style funds are intentionally incorporated into speeches or writings, some are common, for example, the ellipse. The ancient rhetoric system provides with the demand for latinitas ( clear language ), perspicuitas ( clarity ), aptum ( adequacy ) and partly brevitas ( scarcity ) Regulative for figure use. While Cicero uses for a good use of the characters, so as to challenge the mind of the listener, John Locke introduces the need for a scientific style to any figuration that leads only to obscuritas ( veiling of the mind ).