Project

in
english
submitted by:
Niña S. Cañares ESEP-IV
submitted to:
Mr. Felix Del Rosario

Figurative Language
Figurative language is a word or phrase that departs from everyday literal
language for the sake of comparison, emphasis, clarity, or freshness.

 Alliteration
The repetition of the same consonant sounds or of different vowel sounds at the
beginning of words or in stressed syllables is called alliteration.
Examples:
11 Puny puma pit their skills against zebras.
 11 Pretty Polly picked pears for preserves.

11 Handsome Harry hired hundreds of hippos for Hanukkah.

11 Billy bought baby bottles.

11 Studious students under the sunny skies.

 Anaphora
The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive
verses, clauses, or paragraphs is called anaphora.
Examples:
11 “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the
seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in
the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and
in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
(Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940)
11 “It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the
hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval
lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill-worker's son
who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who
believes that America has a place for him, too.”
(Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope," July 27, 2004)
11 “I'm not afraid to die. . . . I'm not afraid to live. I'm not afraid to fail.
I'm not afraid to succeed. I'm not afraid to fall in love. I'm not afraid to be
alone. I'm just afraid I might have to stop talking about myself for five minutes.”
(Kinky Friedman, When the Cat's Away)
11 “Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!”
(William Shakespeare, King John)
11 “We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means
necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.” (Malcolm X)

 Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed as
if present and capable of understanding is called apostrophe.
Examples:
11 “Hello darkness, my old friend
 I've come to talk with you again . . ..”(Paul Simon, "The Sounds of Silence")

11 “Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art.”(John Keats)

11 "Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of
experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my
race." (James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

11 “Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own.”(Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon")

11 “Dear Ella, Our Special First Lady of Song

You gave your best for so long.”(Kenny Burrell, "Dear Ella")

 Hyperbole
A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect.
Examples:
11 “Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I
can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put
together.”(Kent Brockman, The Simpsons)

11 “Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,

Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
Then still another thousand, then a hundred.”(Catullus)

11 “If we're going to start crucifying people for hyperbole in this society,
there's going to be a long line. If I were writing a diet book, I wouldn't say, 'It's
going to take a lot of work and it'll be a pain in the butt.' I'd say, 'Thin thighs in
30 days!'”
(Matthew Lesko. The Week, August 3, 2007)
11 “O for the gift of Rostand's Cyrano to invoke the vastness of that nose
alone as it cleaves the giant screen from east to west, bisects it from north to
south. It zigzags across our horizon like a bolt of fleshy lightning.”
(John Simon, review of Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born, 1976)
11 It is scarcely hyperbole to say that tomorrow the whole Moghul Empire is in
our power. (Robert Clive, 1st Baron of Plassey)

 Irony
The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to
their literal meaning is called irony.
Examples:
11 In 1912 the Titanic was touted as "100% unsinkable", and yet the ship sank
on its maiden voyage.

11 In 1981, while standing next to his car, President Ronald Regan was hit in
the chest by a bullet fired by John Hinkley Jr. In fact, Hinkley's bullet
completely missed President Reagan, but then ricocheted off the car's
bulletproof window, and struck President Reagan in the chest.

11 An ambulance driver rushes to the scene of an accident, only to run the

victim over, because the victim crawled into the middle of the street in the
darkness of night.

11 In an effort to restrict viewership of a morally offensive movie, the city

council bans exhibition of the movie in theatres. By banning the movie, the city
council creates such a heightened awareness of the movie, that more people
download and view pirated copies of the movie over the internet - specifically
because it was banned - than would have viewed it in the theatres to begin with.
11 “Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink” ( Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

 Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used
to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison.
Examples:
11 "Between the lower east side tenements
the sky is a snotty handkerchief."
(Marge Piercy, "The Butt of Winter")
11 "The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner."
(Cynthia Ozick, "Rosa")
11 "But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."
(William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter")
11 "Men's words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of
against them."(George Savile, Maxims of State)

11 "The rain came down in long knitting needles."

(Enid Bagnold, National Velvet)
  Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with
which it is closely associated is called metonymy.
Examples:
11 "Detroit is still hard at work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and
panda blood."(Conan O'Brien)

11 "Whitehall prepares for a hung parliament."

(The Guardian, January 1, 2009)
11 "I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn't do me
any good. All they did was make me think of Silver Wig, and I never saw her
again."
(Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep)
11 The White House asked the television networks for air time on Monday
night.

11 The Pentagon has made an announcement.

 Oxymoron
A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined.
Examples:
11 "A yawn may be defined as a silent yell."
(G.K. Chesterton)
11 "O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!"
(John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions)
11 "That building is a little bit big and pretty ugly."
(James Thurber)
11 "O brawling love! O loving hate! . . .
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this."
(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
11 the expressions "act naturally," "original copy," "found missing," "alone
together," "peace force," "definite possibility," "terribly pleased," "real phony,"
"ill health," "turn up missing," "jumbo shrimp," "alone together," "loose tights,"
 "small crowd," and "clearly misunderstood"

 Onomatopoeia
The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the
objects or actions they refer to.
Examples:
11 "Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
(Alfred Noyes, "The Highwayman")
11 "I'm getting married in the morning!
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime."
(Lerner and Loewe, "Get Me to the Church on Time," My Fair Lady)
11 "One of these days, Alice. Pow! Right in the kisser!"
(Jackie Gleason, The Honeymooners)
11 "Klunk! Klick! Every trip"
(U.K. promotion for seat belts)
11 "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is."
(slogan of Alka Seltzer, U.S.)

 Personification
The representation of an object or concept as if it were a person.
Examples:
11 "Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. There was no one there."
(proverb quoted by Christopher Moltisanti, The Sopranos)
11 "Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie."
(slogan on a package of Oreo cookies)
11 "The operation is over. On the table, the knife lies spent, on its side, the
bloody meal smear-dried upon its flanks. The knife rests."
(Richard Selzer, "The Knife")
11 "The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your
mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon
claws!"
(Homer Simpson, The Simpsons)
 11 “And like the flowers beside them chill and shiver, Will like the flowers
beside them soon be gone”(Robert Frost)

 Simile
A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase
introduced by like or as.

Examples:
11 "He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow."
(George Eliot, Adam Bede)
11 "Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you
weep."
(Carl Sandburg)
11 "My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain."
(W.H. Auden)
11 "Good coffee is like friendship: rich and warm and strong."
(slogan of Pan-American Coffee Bureau)
11 "She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat."
(James Joyce, "The Boarding House")

 Synecdoche
A figure of speech in 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.
Examples:
1. All hands on deck.
2. Give us this day our daily bread.
3. Brazil won the soccer match.
4. General Motors announced cutbacks.