rhetorical devices used in speeches

Speech craft

How to use rhetorical devices to spice up your speech?


1. Attention getters like anecdotes /quotations/shocking fact/statistic/rhetorical question


2. anaphora - same word repeated at beginning of successive sentences

epistrophe-same word repeated at the end of successive sentences

3. Key theme words repeated throughout the speech

4. use alliteration - He had a hidden horror in his hands - germs. -he/had/hidden/horror/hands
use consonance - how/now/cow/
use onomatopoeia - the whoosh of the water, the mooing of the cow lulled him

5. sentence inversion . We are part of earth and the earth is part of us.
cumulative effects (place the punchline /unexpected idea at the end of a series
of sentences to build up suspense.

eg.- She had the appetite of a horse.Everyday she gobbled up stacks of pancakes,munched on bags of crisps and slurpped gallons of juice.She was the last person on earth you would think was suffering from malnutrition.

6. metaphor
personification