Figures of sound
Many figures rely for their effect through some emphasis upon the aural qualities of expression. These include:
Alliteration-repetition of the same sound at the beginning of two or more stressed syllables.
Paroemion - Alliteration taken to an extreme—every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant.(don't do this as it gets irritating very quickly)
Assonance- Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words.
Paromoiosis - Parallelism of sound between the words of adjacent clauses whose lengths are equal or approximate to one another.
Consonance -The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words.
Onomatopoeia - Using language whose sound imitates that which it names.
Figures of sound can be used anywhere you are looking to please or find favour with a judge or jury, as they please the ear. In moderation, they can be usefully used when opening, and also in a closing speech. They can be used at any point, but opening and closing is where they are most commonly found.
Acknowledgement
The above information on individual rhetorical techniques is reproduced from the website “Silva Rhetoricae” (www.rhetoric.byu.edu ) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Credit for this content lies with Professor Gideon O Burton of Brigham Young University.