Brief Introduction to Figures of Speech in English Stylistics

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Brief Introduction to Figures of Speech in
English Stylistics
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Part One What is Figures of Speech?

• Figures of speech (??)are ways of
  making our language figurative. When we use words
  in other than their ordinary or literal sense to
  lend force to an idea, to heighten effect, or to
  create suggestive imagery, we are said to be
  speaking or writing figuratively.

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Part Two Detailed Introduction to Figures of
Speech

• Simile
• A figure of speech in which one thing is
  liken to another, in such a way as to clarify and
  enhance an image. It is an explicit comparison
  recognizable by the use of the word like or as.
• ( A Dictionary of Literary Terms)

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• ?Comparative words like, as
• ? Functions describing shape, scenery
  expressing emotions explaining vivid
  description, making easy to understand
• creating interest.

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Task Can you figure out the simile rules in the
following sentences?

• ?Examples
• My love is like a red red rose.
• Marriage is like a beleaguered fortress those
  who are without want to get in, and those within
  want to get out.
• Men fear death, as children fear to go in the
  dark.
• What salt is to food, wit and humor are to
  conversation and literature.
• A home without love is no more than a body
  without a soul.
• A word and stone let go cannot be recalled.
• A doctor must have the heart of a lion and
• the hand of a lady.

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• Metaphor
• A figure of speech containing an implied
  comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily
  and primarily used of one thing is applied to
  another.
• (Websters New World Dictionary)

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• ?Metaphors are often easy to identify and take
  the form X is Y. Something or someone is being
  compared to something or someone else through a
  construction using the appropriate part of the
  verb to be (i.e. am, are, is, was, were, will
  be).

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• Examples
• Money is a bottomless sea, in which honor,
  conscience, and truth may be drowned.
• The boy wolfed down the food the moment he
  grabbed it.
• A policeman waved me out of the snake of traffic.
• Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed,
  and some few to be chewed and digested. ( Of
  Studies, Bacon)

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• Metonymy
• A figure of speech that consists in
  using the name of one thing for that of something
  else with which it is associated.
• (Websters New International
  Dictionary)

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• Examples
• She has the eye for the fair and the beautiful.
• What is learned in the cradle is carried to the
  grave.
• The pen is mightier than the sword.
• China won 4 golds and 5 silvers.
• This is the struggle between the kimono and the
  miniskirt.

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• Parody
• (Piece of ) writing intended to amuse by
  imitating the style of writing used by somebody
  else.
• (Oxford Advanced Learners
  Dictionary of Current English)

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• Examples
• I have no outlook, but an uplook. My place in
  society was at the bottom.
• Where there is a will, there is a lawsuit.
• A husband in hand is worth two in the bush.
• He was born with a Cadillac in his mouth.
• To lie or not to liethe doctors dilemma.

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• Personification
• A figure of speech in which a thing, quality,
• or idea is represented as a person.
• (Websters New World
  Dictionary)

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• Examples
• Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
• spreads his light wings, and in a moment
• flies.
• A lie can travel half way around the world while
  the truth is putting on its shoes.
• Australia is so kind that, just tickle her
• with a hoe, and she laughs with a
• harvest.

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• Onomatopoeia
• Combination of sounds in a word that
• imitating what the word refers to, like hiss
• or boom.

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• Examples
• Murmur, babble, swish, patter, rumble, roll,
  rustle, zip, toot, tick, tinkle, screech, bang,
  bubble, clang, crack, splash, grumble

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• Euphemism
• The use of pleasant, mild or indirect
  words or phrases in place of more accurate or
  direct ones.

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• Examples Examples Death
• Go west
• At rest
• Asleep
• Return to dust
• Run ones races

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• Hyperbole/Overstatement
• An exaggerated or extravagant statement
  used as a figure of speech
• (American Heritage
  Dictionary)
• Exaggeration for effect, not meant to be
• taken literally
• (The Websters New World
  Dictionary)
• Extravagant exaggeration
• (The Websters Ninth New Collegiate
  Dictionary)

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• Examples
• Its a crime to stay inside on such a beautiful
  day.
• The most effective water power in the world
  womens tears
• For she was beautiful - her beauty made
• the bright world dim, and everything beside
• seemed like the fleeting image of a shade.
• 
  - Shelly

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• Understatement
• Statement that expressed an idea, etc, too
  weakly.
• (Advanced Learners Dictionary)

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• Examples
• The well-known Victorian critique of Cleopatra's
  behavior "So unlike the home life of our own
  dear Queen!
• He is a man not without ambition.
• Money is a kind of tight, but I can manage.

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• Parallelism
• The arrangement of a number of related
• ideas of the same importance in a number
• of parallel or balanced structures forms
• a integrated whole, in order to intensify
• emotion and to emphasize the authors point.

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• Examples
• An Englishman thinks seated
• a Frenchman, standing
• an American, pacing
• an Irishman, afterward.
• Read not to contradict and confuse nor to
  believe and take for granted nor to find talk
  and discourse but to weigh and consider.

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• Contrast
• A difference between two or more people or
  things that you can see clearly when they are
  compared or put close together the fact of
  comparing two or more things in order to show the
  differences between them.

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• Examples
• Men always want to be a womans first love women
  have more subtle instinct what they like is to
  be a mans last romance.
• Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us
  never fear to negotiate.

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• Antithesis
• Contrast of ideas marked by the choice and
  arrangement of words.

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• Examples
• Knowledge make humble, ignorance make proud.
• Life can only be understood backwards, but it
  must be lived forwards.
• The life of the wolf is the death of the lamb.

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• Oxymoron
• The yoking together of two expressions
  which are incompatible, so that in combination
  they have no conceivable literal reference to
  reality.

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• Examples
• It (New York) has the poorest millionaires, the
  littlest great men, the haughtiest beggars, the
  plainest beauties, the lowest skyscrapers, the
  dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw.

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• Pun
• An amusing use of a word or phrase that has
  two meanings, or words with the same sound but
  different meanings.

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• Examples
• To England will I steal, and there Ill steal.
• We must hang together, or we shall all hang
  separately.

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• Zeugma
• A figure of speech in which a single
  word, usually a verb or adjective, is
  syntactically related to two or more words, with
  only one of which it seems logically connected.
• (Websters New World Dictionary of
  the American Language)

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• Examples
• She opened the door and her heart to the
• homeless boy.
• She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief.

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• Allusion
• An allusion is a figure of speech that
  makes a reference to, or representation of,
  people, places, events, literary work, myths, or
  works of art, either directly or by implication.

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• Examples
• The heel of Achilles
• - small but weak or vulnerable point, eg. In
  sbs character
• Tower of Babel
• - tower built to reach heaven

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• Irony
• A method of humorous or subtle sarcastic
  expression in which the intended meaning of the
  words used is the direct opposite of their usual
  sense.
• (Websters New World Dictionary)

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• Examples
• We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can
  get to heaven, but we dont let them into our
  country.
• Her capacity for family affection is
  extraordinary when her third husband died, her
  hair turned quite gold from grief.

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• Transferred Epithet
• A figure of speech in which an epithet
  (or adjective) grammatically qualifies a noun
  other than the person or thing it is actually
  describing.

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• Examples
• a dizzy height
• a sleepless bed
• a icy look
• the happy energy
• After an unthinking moment, she put her pen into
  her mouth.

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• Climax
• A rhetorical series of ideas, images, etc.
• arranged progressively so that the most
• forceful is last.

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• Examples
• He who loses wealth loses much he who loses a
  friend loses more but he who loses courage loses
  all.
• Some books are to be tasted, others to be
  swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
  digested.

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• Anticlimax
• A rhetorical series of ideas, images, etc.
• arranged progressively so that the most
• forceful is in front.

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• Examples
• This city- Hiroshima- is noted for its-oysters.
• The duties of a soldier are to protect his
• country and peel potatoes.

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• Alliteration
• Occurrence of the same letter or sound
• at the beginning of two or more words
• in succession.

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• Examples
• Next to health, heart, home, happiness for mobile
  Americans depends upon the automobile.
• Pride and prejudice

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