KEY TERMS!
RHETORIC, RHETORICAL DEVICES & RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
Language that has been created to be powerful or influential in some way in order to make it persuasive is called rhetoric or rhetorical language. If you look closely at this kind of language, you will see that some of the words are being used in slightly unusual ways: they are being used as a part of a rhetorical device.

There are very many rhetorical devices but a few of the most important are hyperbole (when exaggeration is used for effect, for example, "The end of the world is nigh...!"), repetition (e.g. "It's not good enough, simply not good enough!") and using a triadic structure such as a list of three (e.g. "It's not fair, it's not sensible and it's certainly not decent!").

A very useful and common type of rhetorical device is the rhetorical question. This is a particular kind of question which, although it appears as very innocent, it works very persuasively to involve the reader quickly within the world of the text.  Rhetorical questions work because we enjoy being engaged in conversation by being asked a question, and we feel good when we have an answer. Of course, in a rhetorical question, we are bound to have just that as the answer has already, in effect, been given. Here is an example: 'How would you like to be in his position?' You might ask just this in a persuasive essay, and obviously the answer is implied in the question and need not be given, yet the effect is to engage the reader's attention persuasively.