A rhetorical question is an expressive stylistic device

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

In our lexicon such a thing as a rhetorical question has long been fixed. This is a form of speech created to give it richness and expressiveness. In the modern world, this term most often means a question that does not require an answer. Let's try to understand everything in more detail.

A rhetorical question is an affirmative sentence, which is only dressed in a questioning form. In such statements, the truth often sounds, which there is no need to prove. These can be both dogmas that have long been familiar to everyone (“And what Russian does not like fast driving?” - N. V. Gogol), and statements addressed to a specific case or person (“Who would think that a prisoner decides to run away during the day, in front of the entire prison?” - M. Gorky). As a rule, in order to put the appropriate punctuation mark at the end of such expressive declarative-interrogative sentences, they are arranged according to the principle of a question.

Deepering into the science of etymology (it studies the origin of words),we can say that a rhetorical question is an expression of expression. It is necessary to give additional colors to our speech, to create this or that effect.

The fact is that the root of the very word "rhetorical" is the term "rhetoric". And it is directly related to eloquence and oratory. You can figure out how to understand a rhetorical question by carefully listening to the speeches of politicians, actors and diplomats.

As a rule, this form of speech is often used to convince the interlocutor or a certain group of people of something. A rhetorical question is an opportunity to make a person think that the thing being asserted is obvious, and it is worth understanding and accepting it. Often he “rescues” in family quarrels, for example, when a husband tries to prove his loy alty to his wife (“Do you really think that I could come to our restaurant with another lady?”), And he is also a very effective political device that allows you to persuade to the allegiance of a certain party or candidate by a large part of the people.

Understanding what a rhetorical question means in literature is even easier. It is enough to cite as an example the famous letter of Tatyana Larina, which begins with the words: “I am writing to you - what more? What more can I say? The brilliant poet of the Golden Age used this stylistic device to make the heroine's statement more emotional, expressive and intriguing. Similar examples inRussian, and in the foreign classics a lot. We often do not notice this, but it is thanks to this simple technique that learning poetry and even prose becomes much easier.

As it turned out, a rhetorical question is something that each of us has to deal with all the time. It is indispensable both in colloquial speech and in advertising, literature, politics. Well, if you delve into the study of rhetoric and eloquence, then you can easily use it to attract as many of the right people into your life as possible.