Figures of Speech

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Unit 3

• Figures of Speech

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• Contents
• 1. Function of figures of speech
• 2. Some common English rhetorical devices

• Objectives
• Make Ss have a rough understanding about English
  figures of speech so that they can appreciate the
  novel better.

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Classroom Activities

• News reporting
• Check ss understanding about figures of speech
  and get them list some common figures of speech
  with examples
• introduction about some common figures of
  speech
• Exercises about rhetorical devices.

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Introduction

• Figures of speech are ways of making our language 
  figurative. When we use words in other than their
  ordinary or literal senses to lend force to an
  idea, to heighten effect, or to create suggestive
  imagery, we are said to be speaking or writing
  figuratively.  
• For example, it is more vivid and colorful to say
  that stars twinkle like diamonds in the sky
  than to say that they shine brightly in the
  sky.
• Except simile, there are also metaphor, personific
  ation, metonymy and so on.
• At one time, figures of speech were mainly associa
  ted with poetry and poetic writingprose, drama,
  and even scientific writing and advertisements.
  In fact, effective writing of any kind is seldom
  without a figure or two, and most writers have
  their own way of weaving figures of speech so as
  to form their characteristic style.

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Simile (??)

• It is a figure of speech which makes a comparison
  between two unlike elements having at least one
  quality or characteristic in common. To make the
  comparison, words like as, as...as, as if, as
  though, than and like are used to transfer the
  quality we associate with one to the other.
• E.g.
• 1) As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good
  news from a far country.
• 2) He and his brother are as like as two peas.
• 3) She is happy as a rose tree in sunshine.
• 4) My heart is like a singing bird.
• cf.
• 1) He looks like his brother.
• 2) He is as tall as his father.

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Metaphor (??)

• It is like a simile, also makes a comparison
  between two unlike elements, but unlike a simile,
  this comparison is implied rather than stated.
• E.g.
• 1) The world is a stage.
• 2) He is a fox.
• 3) The thought was fire in him.
• 4) a golden opportunity
• 5) a stony heart
• 6) a stormy discussion

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Metonymy (??)

• It is a figure of speech that has to do with the
  substitution of the name of one thing for that of
  another because they have close relationship.
• E.g.
• 1) The hall applauded. (audience)
• 2) The kettle boils. (water in the kettle)
• 3) Grey hair should be respected. (old people)
• 4) He has fallen in a possession of a complete
  Shakespeare.
• (
  books written by Shakespeare )
• 5) England won. (England team)
• 6) The pen is mightier than the sword.
  (words) (forces)

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Personification (??)

• It gives human form of feelings to animals, or
  life and personal attributes to inanimate
  objects, or to ideas and abstractions. Simply
  speaking, a human character is given to a
  non-human thing.
• E.g.
• 1) Everything smiled at him.
• 2) Father time waits for no man.
• 3) The tree signed in the tree tops.
• 4) Life has cheated her.
• 5) the childhood of the earth
• 6) the thirsty ground
• 7) The wind whistled through the trees.

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Hyperbole / Exaggeration / Overstatement (??)

• It is the deliberate use of overstatement or
  exaggeration to achieve emphasis. In
  exaggeration, big words are used to describe
  things.
• E.g.
• 1) She almost died laughing.
• 2) She shed a flood of tears.
• 3) a sea of flowers (faces, troubles)

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Understatement/Litotes (????)

• It is the opposite of hyperbole. It achieves its
  effect of emphasizing a fact by deliberately
  understating it, impressing the listener or the
  reader more by what is merely implied or left
  unsaid than by bare statement. Its a restrained
  statement in ironic contrast to what might be
  said. The purpose is for emphasis.
• E.g.
• 1) He has no small chance of success. (a great)
• 2) The problem is not above us. (We can solve
  this problem)
• 3) The place is some distance off. (It is far
  from here)
• 4) He did not go to Oxford for nothing. (He is
  an excellent man)
• 5) It is no laughing matter.

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Irony (??)

• It is a figure of speech that achieves emphasis
  by saying the opposite of what is meant, the
  intended meaning of the words being the opposite
  of their usual sense. It means a humor or light
  sarcasm that adopts a mode of speech which is the
  opposite of the literal sense of the words.
• E.g.
• 1) You are a fine goalkeeper, allowing the other
  side to score six goals.
• 2) This hard-working boy seldom reads more than
  an hour per week.

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Pun (???)

• Pun is a figure of speech in which you can find
  two meanings or double meaning. It is a play on
  words, or rather a play on the form and meaning
  of words.
• E.g.
• 1)???? (??)
• 2) Ask More.
• (the advertisement for a cigarette with the name
  of More)
• 3) The Unique Spirit of Canada.
• (the advertisement of the wine Spirit)
• 4) A cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid
  down his arms.
• (Here "arms" has two meanings a person's body
  weapons carried by a soldier.)

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Oxymoron (????)

• In oxymoron, apparently contradictory terms are
  combined to produce a good language effect. It is
  a compressed paradox, formed by the conjoining of
  two contrasting, contradictory or incongruous
  terms.
• E.g
• 1) a living death
• 2) a victorious defeat
• 3) cruel kindness
• 4) tearful joy
• 5) shine darkly
• 6) speaking silence
• 7) bitter-sweet memories
• 8) orderly chaos
• 9) proud humility

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Euphemism (??)

• It is the substitution of an agreeable or
  inoffensive expression for one that may offend or
  suggest something unpleasant, to take the sting
  out of an unpleasant reality.
• E.g.
• 1) Die pass away
• 2) Kill eliminate
• 3) A prisoner guest of the law
• 4) To be a loose woman/prostitute to go on the
  streets
• 5) Old of a certain age
• 6) Blind eye trouble

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More Forms of Figures of Speech

• Climax (??) It is derived from the Greek word
  for "ladder" and implies the progression of
  thought at a uniform or almost uniform rate of
  significance or intensity, like the steps of a
  ladder ascending evenly. For example, I came, I
  saw, I conquered.
• Anti-climax or bathos (??) It is the opposite of
  Climax. It involves stating one's thoughts in a
  descending order of significance or intensity,
  from strong to weak, from weighty to light or
  frivolous. For instance, But thousands die,
  without or this or that, die, and endow a
  college, or a cat.
• Transferred Epithet (?????) It is a figure of
  speech where an epithet (an adjective or
  descriptive phrase) is transferred from the noun
  it should rightly modify to another to which it
  does not really apply or belong. For instance, I
  spent sleepless nights on my project.
• Alliteration (??) It has to do with the sound
  rather than the sense of words for effect. It is
  a device that repeats the same sound at frequent
  intervals and since the sound repeated is usually
  the initial consonant sound, it is also called
  "front rhyme". For instance, the fair breeze
  blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed
  free.
• Antithesis (??) It is the deliberate arrangement
  of contrasting words or ideas in balanced
  structural forms to achieve emphasis. For
  example, speech is silver silence is golden.

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Exercises---Simile Directions Read each
unfinished sentence. Write in the blank space the
letter of the part that best completes each
simile.

• A field of hay
• Shoe leather
• Tiny parachutes
• Crawling bugs
• A withered apple
• A broom
• Tap dancers
• A wary cat
• A great waterfall
• diamonds

• Leaves drifted down from the maple tree like__.
• Yesterdays quiet brook now roars like __.
• The kings men cut down the enemy like __.
• He approached silently, picking his way like __.
• From the plane the cars on the road looked like
  __.
• Raindrops on the grass sparkled like __.
• The steak was as tough as __.
• Steady rain beating on the roof sounded like __.
• The March wind swept the street as briskly as __.
• The old mans face had as many wrinkles as __.

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Simile and MetaphorDirections Read each
statement. If the sentence contains a simile,
write S, if it contains a metaphor, write M.

• The soldiers crawled like snakes through the
  enemy lines.
• For secrets are edged tools, and must be kept
  from children and from fools.
• No man is an island, entire of itself.
• If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a
  tree, it had better not come at all.
• His friend has become a thorn in his side.
• Mr. Gladstone speaks to me as if I was a public
  meeting.
• A dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a
  measured speech.
• Some books are to be tasted, others to be
  swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
  digested.
• Their learning is like bread in a besieged gown,
  every man gets a little, but no man gets a full
  meal.
• The fog comes in on little cat feet.

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PersonificationDirections Read each of the
following statements. If it contains a
personification, write Y if it does not contain
one, write N.

• Little ghosts of wind whispered secrets in the
  tree tops.
• A large bottle of wine had been dropped and
  broken.
• The racing car strained impatiently at the
  starting line.
• The company is worried about the drop in
  business.
• Philosophy is the lumber of the schools.
• Nature, with equal mind, sees all her sons at
  play.
• I am, out of the ladies company, like a fish out
  of water.
• Spring is coming home with her world-wandering
  feet.
• A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil
  can throw at a man.
• The river looked at him with a thousand eyes.

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Hyperbole Direction Some of the following
sentences are examples of hyperbole, but others
could be literally true. Write Y for hyperbole
and N for non-hyperbole.

• I have had millions of interruptions this
  morning.
• There are millions of stars in the Milky Way.
• It has taken ages for the river to carve out this
  canyon.
• It took me ages to finish this book.
• A runaway lorry has crashed into a pillar and
  brought down the roof.
• His amusing performance brought the house down.
• Ive been beating my brains out all day over that
  report, and I still cant find a way to make my
  suggestions politely.
• The climber fell from the cliff and dashed his
  brains out on the rocks below.
• Several people were burnt to death in the fire.
• I m sick to death of your everlasting chatter.
  Do be quiet.

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UnderstatementDirections The following
statements and quotations are either hyperbole or
understatement. Write H for hyperbole or U for
understatement.

• The elephant is a fairly sizable animal.
• The mountains touch the sky.
• It is not very courteous to poison a guest.
• Men have been known to lie.
• My sore throats are always worse than anyones.
• London is a village of some size.
• There is food enough for an army on his table.
• He found it inconvenient to be poor.
• A thousand apologies for the interruption.
• The whale that wanders round pole is not a table
  fish.

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Homework

• Read Chapter 4 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Do newspaper reading
• Begin out-of-class reading preparing for reading
  report.