Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The answer is reflected in your last sentence. It is referred to as a "rhetorical question." This is also applicable to questions for which you expect a "no" answer, and probably also valid for a question you recognize has no answer, such as "I wonder what lies beyond the edge of the Universe?"

Added via edit: after reading your question again, especially with your example of "Isn't it a nice day outside?" I decided to add this footnote. There's also a type of conversation referred to as "small talk." In some regional variations, it's also called "chewing the rag" (at least in the Midwest). There are surely other regional equivalents. What it means is "conversation meant more to engage a pleasant companion, as opposed to exchanging real information."

Rhetorical questions and small talk are probably just points on a continuum.

wordswirth said:

What do you call a Question that You expect a Yes Response? For example, when you say "Isn't it a nice day outside?" you expect the other person to say "yes, it is"

What's the name of this literary device or rhetorical device?

Thanks,

Wordswirth

In my experience, this is called an "affirmative question." The reverse is called a "negative question." These are slightly different from rhetorical questions per se since they are open to response and, in particular, to response contrary to the expectation communicated in the question. French is an interesting case. In French, there is a special word used as an emphatic yes, and this word is most used in contrary response to a negative question. This word is si.

Glenn said:
In French, there is a special word used as an emphatic yes, and this word is most used in contrary response to a negative question. This word is si.

Where does that fit with "Au contraire?"

In German it's doch.
In Danish, it's jo.

I see them also used in answer to a negative statement, not just a question.

I agree with you, Heimhenge. A rhetorical question is one where you don't expect an answer– at all.
It maybe used in small talk but it's also used in sales as Telemath said.
telemath said these are leading questions used alot in sales. e.g. "This is a good deal on a car, isn't it?"
But is this what they call it in the study of English grammar? a leading question? Isn't there a term or phrase that they call these types of questions in the study of English sentence structure?

Thanks word buffs.--wordswirth

They are affirmative questions because you're looking for agreement either yes or no.
"It's not raining out, isn't it?" expects a "No" response. (technically a double negative would make it "yes" but we're not robots.
The car dealer will say "The savings on this car deal is incredible, isn't it?" expects a "yes" response from the prospective car purchaser.

In both cases the person asking the question already has in mind what response he's looking for from the other person.

Thanks guys.

As my best friend once wrote in a tagline, "In English two negatives make a positive, but two positives don't make a negative. Yeah, right."

Just in passing, English is the only language I know of where two negatives make a positive; in most languages I'm familiar with, two negatives make an emphatic negative.

("So the girl says 'I don't want nothing to do with you, no how, no way'. To an English professor she means 'yes', which may explain why English professors are so cautious." I forget where I first read that—Readers' Digest, probably.)

Me, I tend to be a literalist, and one of my daughters inherited it. Ask many people "do you mind if I sit here?" and they answer in the affirmative, which confuses Christy and me; but we answer the question "No", which confuses the asker. As I get older I sometimes answer in the Chinese fashion, not Yes or No but something more complete like "I do not". But only when I'm in a sober mood; the rest of the time I get a minor pleasure in answering the question directly.

Hey, I did.