Rhetorical questions

Content

• When are rhetorical questions used?
• Examples of rhetorical questions

A rhetorical question it is a question that does not wait for an answer but rather invites reflection. It is a discursive and argumentative strategy, but also a rhetorical figure. For example: Why me?

It is important that the protagonists of the communication circuit handle the same competences so that everyone understands that the question is being elaborated without waiting for an answer.

• It can help you: Philosophical questions

When are rhetorical questions used?

• In an argumentation. It is common to find some questions whose main meaning is not that the receiver of these questions thinks of an answer and enunciates it immediately, but with the same question to generate one more argument for what they are trying to say. For example: This point is important. Why? Why…
• At the close of an oral speech. A good rhetorical question gives a sense of fundamental conclusion in speeches or oral debates, since it concludes what has been said inviting reflection, raising concerns and doubts in the public. For example: Finally, will we be willing to take on the challenges of today's world?
• In a critical comment. Rhetorical questions can be used to express irony and as a way to mask the hurtful charge of a comment or to mask an insult. For example: Was that comment necessary?
• In a scolding. It is very common to find rhetorical questions in the scolding or challenges of parents (or teachers) to children when they fill their patience, in an exercise of avoiding saying what is being thought. For example: How many times do I have to tell you?

Examples of rhetorical questions

1. Will our people be able to forget those who gave their lives in a bloody war, and deny them this grant?
2. Who can prefer the second brand of detergents? The first is much better.
3. How did you have no electricity for three days?
4. Are you crazy?
5. Why do all the misfortunes happen to me?
6. Where are those who said that by voting for this party we would end up without work?
7. How can I not vote for this candidate if I have a house thanks to him?
8. And don't you think that, finally, a rise in taxes will imply a disincentive to investment and with it a future decrease in public income?
9. I have monkeys in the face?
10. How can the minister maintain that we must reduce the budget when we have been reducing it for years and nothing has improved?
11. Can you believe that after I asked him, he only managed to give me a handkerchief?
12. How many years will it be until I can finally forget her?
13. How many times do I have to tell you that I don't want to be with you?
14. What woman would not dream of having a husband like me?
15. Can you have a little silence?
16. Who would read such mediocrity?
17. Don't you think that those who make war are actually friends, and the only ones who really fight are the young men sent to die?
18. When will this ordeal end?
19. Do you understand that I will finally go out with her?
20. After all, who but you took care of me from the first days of my life?
21. So I wonder why me?
22. When are you going to understand?
23. Who will believe me?
24. Does this all make sense?
25. How could you do something like that to me?

Other types of questions:

• Explanatory questions
• Mixed questions
• Closed questions
• Complementation questions