Rhetorical devices
The rhetorical devices are language tools which help speakers grab their audience’s attention and maintain it, by making their speech sound more convincing. The most used rhetorical devices in Donald Trump’s speech are repetitions, enumerations, and rhetorical questions. Other relevant devices are allusion, analogy, antithesis, direct address, parallelism, and figurative language and hyperb…
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Allusion
In his speech, Donald Trump makes multiple references to current or relatively recent events, as well as to other people (mainly politicians). We call these references allusions.
For example, he alludes to events related to police shootings attacks, to suggest Americans are threatened and that this is due to the fai…
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Analogy
An analogy is a type of comparison usually used to draw parallels between people or events that the speaker finds similar. An example from the speech is the comparison between the system being rigged both…
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Direct Address
Given with the occasion of Donald Trump becoming the official Republican Party nominee for presidential elections, the speech is directly addressed to those present in the audience and to the American public in general: “Friends, delegates and fel…
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Enumeration and repetition
Enumerations and repetitions are frequently used rhetorical devices in the speech and are often combined, like in the following example, meant to convince the audience that Donald Trump will restore American prosperity:
Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace. We wi…
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Imagery, metaphors, and hyperbole
From time to time, the speaker uses figurative language to create certain images for the audience. For example, he uses two particularly vivid metaphors: “One more child to sacrifice on the order and on the altar of open borders.” (ll. 76-77); “She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.” (ll. 167-168)
In the first example, he associa…
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Rhetorical questions
Various rhetorical questions are used in the speech with the purpose of engaging the audience, giving structure to the discourse, or making the audience agree with the speaker’s ideas. For example, “What about our economy?” (l. 77) is used to introduce the next subject in the speech.
In other cases, rhetorical que…
