What is a rhetorical question as a stylistic figure

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

The art of speech is the only one that does not require any improvised material for creativity, neither clay, nor stone, nor paints - only the talent of mastering the word. If human memory held everything forever, even paper would not be required.

But for many it is easier to build a fortress out of stone than one sentence conveying thought and feeling. The ancient science of rhetoric is called upon to teach this art. She gave the name to a group of stylistic means - rhetorical figures. She explains what a rhetorical question and other figures are, and also teaches how to use them correctly in speech. Before we figure out what a rhetorical question is and what its functions are, let's find out exactly which turns are rhetorical figures.

Rhetorical are such figures of speech that are built on verbal turns of a conditional-dialogical nature. Rhetorical figures arise as a result of a violation of the communicative and logical norms of the utterance, since the dialogic intonations that they introduce into the speech process are not designed for a real answer or a response practical action, as is usually the case.in live communication. This live communication in everyday life is a dialogue that primarily serves the needs of the exchange of information between its participants. It consists of such appeals to the interlocutor that suggest an answer or encourage him to specific actions. The dialogic nature of rhetorical turns is quite arbitrary, and their use in a work of art is designed to solve the following tasks:

• individualization of characters' speech;
• strengthening the expressiveness and emotional fullness of the speech of the author and characters;
• emphasizing the important aspects of the depicted phenomenon for the author.

In some cases, rhetorical figures can also play a compositional role.

Modern literary scholars refer to rhetorical figures as appeals, denials, exclamations and questions. How do they explain what a rhetorical question, a rhetorical address, a rhetorical exclamation and a denial are? Let's consider an appeal. It is rhetorical if it does not aim to establish real contact with the person, object or phenomenon to which the speech is addressed, but serves only to draw the reader's attention to them and express the speaker's attitude. This treatment is also called "nominative representation". Here is an example: “Moscow! How much in this sound … "Rhetorical appeals are more often used in poetic than in prose texts, where, among other things, it quite often draws up," introduces "the theme of the work. Like here: “Oh joy! There is so much emptiness in the heart that you cannot, cannot…”

The next figure - a rhetorical question - is equally common in prose and poetry. So what is a rhetorical question as a stylistic figure? This is a question that is asked for the purpose of aphoristic generalization and assertion of a well-known or obvious truth. To get an answer - this is the goal of the traditional question, the rhetorical one does not need an answer, since the answer is contained in itself: “Did you overslept again?” Sometimes the role of a rhetorical question is to motivate the further development of an artistic presentation, to contribute to a deeper disclosure of important semantic aspects that accompany it: “This is a dream, and tomorrow everything will be different?” For someone, it will probably be a discovery that there are not only questions, but also rhetorical answers. Or rather, a denial in the form of a response to a possible assumption, assumption or personal opinion of an imaginary interlocutor: “No, my friend, no one is waiting for us there!”

A rhetorical exclamation is a saying that is characterized by a special expressiveness and emphatically emotional character. It is introduced mainly with the aim of drawing attention or strengthening the emphasis on one or another aspect of the depicted object: “O insidious and enticing look!” All of these figures fulfill their role in the text of the work, but the common thing is that they all make this text expressive and emotional.