Since literature makes use of effective and affective language. It is proper for the literature teacher to master the various types of figurative language.
However, it is not enough that he can identify them, he must be able to explain and justify their use whether in prose or poetry, even in everyday, casual discourse. In literature, the suggestive power of words give the writer the opportunity to create the nuances, the connotations, the texture, emotions, the tone color ang the overtones imbedded in figurative language.
Types of Figures of Speech
The following are the most commonly accepted and often used figures of speecs its literature – oral and written.
1. Simile –A stated
comparison between two unlike things or persons that have something in common
using “like” or “As”.
Ex.Her smile is as mysterious as Mona Lisa’s.
2. Metaphor – an implied comparisomn between two person or thins that are unlike in most respects the words like or as are left out.
3. Personification – ging human quality to inanimate objects or abstract things.
Ex. The flowers dance in the garden.
4. Metonymy – consists in the naming of a thing by one of its attributes.
Ex. The crown prefers taxes from the underlings to support his expenses.
5. Synecdoche –
substituting a part for a whole, an individual for a class or a material for
the things.
Ex.many squatters dream of roofs over their heads.
6. Hyperbole – An exaggeration used for artistic effect.
Ex. Thanks a million.
7. Litotese – A
deliberate understantement used to affirm by negating its opposite.
Ex. Edgar Allan Poe is no mean writer.
8. Irony – the use of a word to signify the opposite of its literal meaning.
There are three types of irony:
(a) Irony of situation, when the result differs from what is expected;
(b)
Verbal irony, which is actually veiled sarcasm; and © dramatic irony, the author’s intended meaning differs from the characters expectation.
Ex. You’re so beautiful; you look like a Christmas tree!
9. Oxymoron – Putting together in one statement two contradictory terms.
Ex. The sound of silence is indeed, deafening.
10. Periphasis – The substitution of a descriptive phrase for a name or Vice -versa.
Ex. The sleeping Giant has broken ties with its neighbors.
11. Apostrophe – An address to (a) dead person as though he were alive; (b) an
Absent person as thought he were present, © an inanimate object as though it were animate.
Ex. Ninoy, you’re not alone!
12. Climax – The arrangement of words or idead according to their degree of importance; thus, the last set appears most valuable.
Ex.” I came, I saw, I conquered.” (Julius Caesar)
13. Anti-Climax – A real apparent or ludicrous decrease in the importance or impressiveness of what is said. Opposed to climax.
Ex. He lost his shoelace, his house charred to ashes, his wife
even Abandoned him.
14. Anti-Thesis – Equating or
balancing two opposing ideas.
Ex. There is a time to sow and there is a time to reap.
15. Parallelism or Juxtaposition – Placing two comparable ideas side by side.
Ex. “Yea! Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. Thy rod and thy stuff thy comfort me.”
16. Pun – A play on words with humorous, witty effects.
Ex. House’s everything for all Filipinos.
17. Paradox – A seemingly, contradictoty but true example.
Ex. There is a grief in happiness.
The following rhetorical devise should not be mistaken for figures of speech.
Actually they help analyze one color or the toal qualities inherent in vowel and consonant combination. In other words, tone color reinforces sense with sound.
1. Alliteration – The use of repetition of a succession of initial consonant sounds.
Ex. She sells sea shells on the seashore.
2. Assonance – Resemblance in sound; specifically in prosody correspondence of the accented vowels, but not of the consonants.
Ex. “Alone, alone, all, all
alone
Alone on a wide, wide sea
And never a sould took pity on
My sould in agony.”
--Coleridge
3. Anaphora – Repeating a
word or phrase in the beginning of several successive verses, clauses or
sentences.
Ex. “Love is real, real is love.
Love is wanting, to be loved.
Love is searching, searching love”.
4. Onomatopoeia – Imitation of sounds to produce the desired effect.
Ex. The rain drops in the
roof.
The cat meows in the dark.
5. Allusion – A literari
device which is unimplied or indirect reference to biblical, litereray or
historical characters or events.