Rhetorical devices

In her speech “Women's Rights are Human Rights”, Hillary Clinton frequently uses enumerations and repetitions, as well as allusions. Direct address, parallelism and imagery are additional devices that add to the rhetorical appeal of the speech.

Rhetorical devices are used with the purpose of making a speech more memorable and appealing. Through various language devices, speakers attempt to catch their audience’s attention and to make them more likely to accept their argum…

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Direct Address

To make the audience feel engaged, the speaker makes some direct calls to action throughout the speech: “Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.”; “Let – Let this conference be our –  and the world’s – call to action. Let us heed that call…”…

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Enumeration and repetition

Enumeration (listing) and repetition are two rhetorical devices that are used together by the speaker. The first gives structure to speeches. The second makes ideas, images, and arguments memorable.

One example of the two devices combined in the same phrase is: “Yet much of the work we do is not valued – not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.”

In this case, the speaker w…

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Imagery and metaphors

The speaker frequently creates imagery regarding the lives of women, often by using extensive enumerations: “…the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in the community, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens, and leaders.”…

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Parallelism

Parallelism means using the same syntax structure in consecutive clauses. This gives language musicality and helps the audience to remember Clinton’s arguments.

Hillary Clinton uses this device when she repeats “There are some who” versus “Let them”. Here, Clinton uses paralleli…