Rhetorical question

A rhetorical question is a stylistic figure having the form of a question but requiring no answer, since it contains a hidden affirmation or negation. Its aim is not to obtain information but to emphasise a thought emotionally, to attract the attention of the reader or listener, to lend the utterance an agitated, oratorical intonation ("Who does not love their homeland?"). The rhetorical question activates the addressee, as if drawing them into a dialogue while at the same time leading them to a conclusion known in advance. This figure is widely used in journalism, oratorical speech, philosophical and civic lyric. Rhetorical questions often form whole series, combining with anaphora and gradation, thereby reinforcing the emotional accumulation and the persuasiveness of the authorial stance.