LinguisticNEUTRAL — Rhetoric

Hypophora

What it is

Asking a question and immediately answering it yourself — “What is the answer? It is this.” — a figure that lets a speaker raise the audience's question, control its wording, and supply the answer in one motion.

How it works

Hypophora differs from the rhetorical question, which expects no answer, and from the Socratic question, which expects the other person's. The speaker asks and answers. The device is as old as oratory — Demosthenes and Cicero use it on nearly every page — and it survives because it does several things at once. It manufactures curiosity: George Loewenstein's information-gap account describes how a question opens a gap the listener wants closed, and attention holds until it is. It structures: a speech organized as a series of questions and answers is easy to follow and easy to remember. And it lets the speaker choose which question gets asked, in what words, at what moment, rather than leaving that to an opponent or an interviewer. Ward Farnsworth notes that hypophora is also a way to voice an objection without an objector, which makes it prolepsis in dialogue form. Its abuse lies entirely in the selection: a speaker who asks and answers only the questions that flatter the case has staged a cross-examination with a compliant witness, and an audience that hears many questions answered can come away feeling the hard ones were among them. The figure is neutral craft; the honesty lives in which questions get asked.

Real-world examples

  • •Falstaff's catechism in Henry IV, Part 1 (Act V, scene 1): “What is honour? A word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour? Air.”
  • •King's “I Have a Dream” (1963): “There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as…” — the opponents' question, restated and answered on the speaker's terms.
  • •A product keynote: “So what does this mean for developers? It means three things.” The question the audience would have asked in the hallway is asked and answered on stage.
  • •Workplace: a status email organized as “Are we on schedule? Yes. Are we on budget? No, and here is why.” The format signals that the writer is not hiding the bad question.
  • •The abuse: a spokesperson's statement that asks and answers six questions about the company's response and none about its cause.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●Ask the question the audience would actually ask, including the one you would rather not answer.
  • ●Answer the question you asked; a hypophora whose answer changes the subject is a pivot with a question mark.
  • ●Do not use the form to put words in an opponent's mouth — “they will ask, why do we bother?” — unless they would actually ask it.
  • ●Keep the ratio honest: if six of your seven self-asked questions are softballs, the audience will notice the seventh is missing.

How to defend against it

  • ►Inventory the questions: after a speech built on hypophora, list the questions that were asked and the ones that were not. The second list is where the case is weak.
  • ►Check that each answer answers its question; the form can smuggle a pivot under the cover of a question the speaker chose.
  • ►When you are the audience in a live setting, ask the missing question aloud in the same form: “You asked what it will cost. What will it cost if it fails?”
  • ►In your own writing, use it to surface the objection you fear rather than the one you can answer; readers reward the courage.

References

  1. Farnsworth, W. (2011). Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. David R. Godine
    Hypophora as a figure of self-answered questions and its relation to anticipating objections.
  2. Lanham, R. A. (1991). A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (2nd ed.). University of California Press
    Definition of hypophora and its distinction from the rhetorical question (erotema).
  3. Loewenstein, G. (1994). The Psychology of Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation. Psychological Bulletin, 116(1), 75-98
    The information-gap account of curiosity that a posed question exploits.
  4. Shakespeare, W. (1598). The History of Henry the Fourth (Part 1), Act V, scene 1. First quarto, London
    Falstaff's honour catechism as an extended hypophora.
Last reviewed
Suggest a correction

Detect Hypophora in any text

Paste any message, email, or article into our free Manipulation Detector to see if Hypophora or other techniques are being used on you.

Try the Detector FreeCreate Free Account