Figure of Speech

Definition: A figure of speech is a rhetorical device that achieves a special effect by using words in distinctive ways.

A figure of speech is a use of a word that diverges from its normal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it such as a metaphor, simile, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity.

Types:

1. Anaphora: The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. (Contrast with epiphora and epistrophe.) “O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long?” The repetition of the “O Lord”, attempts to create a sprititual sentiment. This is anaphora. Eg: Every day, every night, in every way, I am getting better and better. My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My life is my inspiration. I want my money right, right now, all right?

2. Assonance: Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighbouring words. Eg: Men sell the wedding rings. The same vowel sound of the short vowel “-e-” repeats itself in almost all the words excluding the definite article. The words do share the same vowel sounds but start with different consonant sounds unlike alliteration that involves repetition of the same consonant sounds. More Examples: We light fire fire on the mountain.

I feel depressed and restless.

Go and mow the lawn.

3. Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it's closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it. The words we use to describe another thing is closely linked to a particular thing but not a part of it. This is metonymy. Eg: “Crown” means power or authority. This is metonymy. Calling a car ‘a wheel’ is a synecdoche, representing a whole car. This is synecdoche.

4. Alliteration: The repetition of an initial consonant sound. Eg: But a better butter makes a batter better. A big bully beats a baby boy. Both sentences are alliterative because the same first letter of words (B) occurs close together and produces alliteration in the sentence. An important point to remember here is that alliteration does not depend on letters but on sounds. So the phrase not knotty is alliterative, but cigarette chase is not.

5. Antithesis: The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

Eg: "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." - (Goethe)

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." - (Martin Luther King)

"You're easy on the eyes; Hard on the heart." - (Terri Clark)

6. Apostrophe: Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a non-existent character. A diversion of discourse from the topic at hand to addressing some person or thing, either present or absent.

Eg: "Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again . . ." - (Paul Simon,"The Sounds of Silence")

"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art" - (John Keats)

7. Hyperbole: An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect. An extravagant statement or the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect, but not to be taken literally.

Eg: I'd give my right arm for a cup of tea. My backpack weighs a ton!

8. Irony: The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. Also, a statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

Eg: He was no notorious malefactor, but he had been twice on the pillory, and once burnt in the hand

for trifling oversights. - Directions for Speech and Style

Taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich.

9. Litotes: A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite. Deliberate understatement or denial of the contrary.

Eg: "The grave's a fine a private place, But none, I think, do there embrace." - Andrew Marvell, "To His

Coy Mistress”

"for life's not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis.”

10. Metaphor: An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common. An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

Eg: I fall upon the thorns of life. - P B Shelley

The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. - Edward Fitzgerald

11. Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

Eg: “Achoo” : —used to represent the sound of a sneeze. “Meow” : -the cry of a cat.

12. Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side. A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

Eg: cold fire, honest thief, darkly lit, fearful joy.

13. Paradox: A statement that appears to contradict itself. A statement that appears to contradict itself.

Eg: “The child is father to the man.” “You always hurt the one you love.”

14. Parenthesis: A word, phrase, or sentence inserted as an aside in a sentence complete by itself.

Eg: The number of living languages (currently about 6000, by most estimates) is decreasing rapidly.

"The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation." - (William Hazlitt)

15. Personification: A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

Eg: My car was happy to be washed.

Fate frowned on his endeavors. The haughty lion surveyed his realm.

16. Pun: A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words. A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

Eg: Writing with a broken pencil is pointless.

Tigers do not eat clowns because they taste funny. Syrup is a source of sugar.

17. Simile: A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common. A stated comparison between two different things that have certain qualities in common.

Eg: "My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.“ - (W.H. Auden) Her words were as dull as a dirt.

18. Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the whole for a part ("England won the World Cup in 1966"). A figure of speech is which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.

Eg: "Robby got wheels this summer." wheels = car

". . . the hand that wrote the letter . . ." hand = person

19. Understatement: A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.

Eg: "It's just a flesh wound."

- (Black Knight, after having both of his arms cut off, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

"I am just going outside and may be some time."

(Captain Lawrence Oates, Antarctic explorer, before walking out into a blizzard to face certain

death, 1912)

"I have to have this operation. It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain."

(Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye, by J. D. Salinger).