Rhetorical devices
Rhetorical devices are language techniques designed to attract and maintain the audience’s attention by making the speaker’s arguments more appealing.
In Boris Johnson's speech on the EU referendum, the most used rhetorical devices are repetition, rhetorical questions, analogy, and irony. The speaker also uses direct address, allusion, enumeration, figurative speech, antithesis, and parallel…
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Allusion
An allusion is a reference to an event or historical figure, that is in some way relevant to the speaker’s case.
In the speech, Boris Johnson makes several allusions to events related to the British Prime Minister’s attitude to the relationship between the EU and UK: “In that excellent speech the Prime Minister savaged the EU’s lack of competitiveness, its remoteness from the voters, its relentless movement in the wrong directio…
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Analogy
An analogy is a kind of comparison or extended simile, where the speaker describes a particular situation and uses it to explain a different situation because he believes that there are significant similarities between th…
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Enumeration and repetition
Often the speaker chooses to combine enumeration with repetition for an added rhetorical effect. In this way, the speaker both outlines the gravity of the situation and makes it easier for the readers to recall his arguments: “We have got to stop trying to kid the British people; we have got to stop saying one thing in Brussels, and another thing to the domestic audience; we have …
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Imagery and metaphors
In the speech, there are a few instances which create imagery for the audience through metaphorical associations. For example, the EU referendum is described as being like a door, to…
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Irony and sarcasm
The speaker frequently uses devices like irony and sarcasm to criticise the EU or British politicians: “…the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to go around personally asking other finance ministers to allow him to cut VAT on ta…
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Parallelism
In the speech there are a couple of instances of parallelism, a device through which the speaker uses similar sentence structures to emphasise an idea, contradiction, etc.:
What the government wants …
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Rhetorical questions
Several rhetorical questions are used for the purpose of either making the audience reflect on what the speaker is saying or to suggest that the speaker is claiming somet…
