Question

Formal speeches often include rhetorical devices, which are special patterns of language. Rhetorical devices add emphasis to ideas, make speeches memorable, and stir listeners’ emotions. Rhetorical questions and repetition are two of the most commonly used rhetorical devices.

Rhetorical questions are questions asked for dramatic effect, but for which no answer is expected. They are asked to make the audience feel personally involved, or to suggest that an answer or an idea is obvious because the alternative is unthinkable.
Repetition is the repeated use of any element of language—a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence—for effect.
RHETORICAL DEVICE

EXAMPLES

Rhetorical Question

Will we let freedom die?

Repetition

Repeated word: “. . . we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” —John F. Kennedy

Repeated phrase: “. . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight on the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . . ” —Winston Churchill

Practice
Complete the following items.

Answer the following questions.
Identify the important repeated word in this quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
What concept or idea is emphasized by the repetition of this word?

Answer 1

Important repeated word: "together."

What it emphasizes: unity and solidarity — that the struggle for freedom requires collective action, mutual support, and shared commitment.