Home › Glossary › Letter A

Anacoenosis

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A rhetorical question posed to one's listeners or readers, as if asking for their opinion or counsel.

Detailed Definition
Anacoenosis is a rhetorical device in which a speaker poses a question to an audience not to elicit information but to invite shared reflection or consensus, often phrased as “Do we not all agree that…?”; in poetry, this technique fosters communal identification, moral urgency, or philosophical inquiry, appearing in elegies, odes, and political verse where the poet seeks to align reader and speaker in a collective stance, as seen in the inclusive interrogatives of Walt Whitman or the civic appeals of W.H. Auden.
Example
Example in poetry:
Anacoenosis|Speaker asking readers "What shall we do?" to create shared deliberation; Poet questioning audience about moral choice; Rhetorical inquiry inviting readers into decision-making; Collective pondering "How should we proceed?"
Additional Notes
Anacoenosis is a rhetorical device where a speaker poses a question to the audience, inviting shared reflection or response, often creating intimacy or dramatic tension.
Other Meanings of “Anacoenosis”
Also Known As
Rhetorical question appeal Common ground query Shared inquiry Audience address question
Skip to main content