Parallelism (rhetoric)

Parallelism means giving two or more parts of one or more sentences a similar form to create a definite pattern, a concept and method closely related to the grammatical idea of parallel construction or structure, which can also be called parallelism.

Parallelism as a rhetorical device is used in many languages and cultures around the world in poetry, epics, songs, written prose and speech, from the folk level to the professional. It is very often found in Biblical poetry and in proverbs in general.

Parallelisms of various sorts are the chief rhetorical device of Biblical poetry in the Tristich and in multiples of Distich parallels and also in the poetry of many other cultures around the world, particularly in their oral traditions.Robert Lowth coined the term parallelismus membrorum (parallelism of members, i.e. poetic lines) in his 1788 book, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrew Nation. Roman Jakobson pioneered the secular study of parallelism in poetic-linguistic traditions around the world, including his own Russian tradition.

Chinese and Vietnamese classical poetry and prose have frequently made use of parallelism. Conversations between learned men in many cases involved exchanging single as a form of playing with words, as well as a kind of mental duel. In a parallel couplet, not only must the content, the parts of speech, the mythological and historico-geographical allusions, be all separately matched and balanced, but most of the tones must also be paired reciprocally. Even tones are conjoined with inflected ones, and vice versa.

Parallelisms in artistic speech are common in some languages of Mesoamerica, such as Nahuatl (Aztec). It has also been observed in a language of Indonesia (that Fox imprecisely referred to as "Rotinese") and Navajo. Other research has found parallelisms in the languages of the Ural-Altaic area (including Finnish-Karelian folk poetry and the epics and songs of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples) and Toda, suggesting wider distribution among Dravidian languages.

Parallelisms in proverbs are very common in languages around the world. Parallel structures in short passages such as proverbs help direct the listener or reader to compare the parallel elements and thereby more easily deduce the point.

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