Figures of Rhetoric.— Writers on rhetoric from very early times have distinguished numerous forms of language, which are de partures from the straightforward speech of the . .
masses of the people. Such figures are natural to every tongue; and they belong to the uncul tured speech of the savage as truly as they do to the most highly cultured language of modern civilization. The human mind constantly works in the same way under given conditions. It thus produces the same kind of figures of speech, Which are due to imagery, arrangement of words as a sentence or phrase or to apparent contradiction. It is possible or one figure of speech to contain these three subdivisions. The figures of imagery are metaphor. allegory, synecdoche and metonymy; while those of ar rangement consist of climax and antithesis. The figures of contradiction embrace irony, epigram and hyperbole. In addition to these there are numerous minor figures of speech which often belong to two of the above classifi cations or are merely peculiar sentence struc tures caused by the form in which the thought is presented. These include asyndeton, apos trophe, apopliasis, epanorthosis, negative, in terrogation, epistrophe, epiploce, epiplexis, euphemism, antiphrasis and onomatopoeia.
Scientific Investigations.—Modern students of rhetoric, including dramatic art, have given considerable study to the investigation of the relation of the orator to his audience and to the effect of rhetoric and oratorical display not only upon the actual audience of the speaker or writer but upon society, through the medium of his hearers or the subsequently printed dis course. Some writers have also considered minutely and at great length of mental proc esses involved in the production of oratorical effects and the kind of facuhies involved. They have also given careful attention to the 'speech and the best way of acquiring it; and, in connection therewith, they have dis cussed, from almost every point of view, the character and probable causes of the display in the individual of those superior talents univer sally recognized at genius. The investigation has been carried into the field of social prob lems, where experiments have been conducted to show to what extent language is a social bond.
See ELOCUTION; ORATORY; SPEECH, FIGURES OF.