WHAT ARE THE FIGURES OF SPEECH?
A figure of speech is a deviation from the ordinary use of words in order to increase their effectiveness. Basically, it is a figurative language that may consist of a single word or phrase. It may be a simile, a metaphor or personification to convey the meaning other than the literal meaning.
TYPES OF FIGURES OF SPEECH
The figures of speech list is over a hundred but some commonly used types are given along with examples.
1. SIMILE
In simile two unlike things are explicitly compared. For example, “She is like a fairy”. A simile is introduced by words such as like, so, as etc
2. METAPHOR
It is an informal or implied simile in which words like, as, so are omitted. For example,
“He is like a lion (Simile) “and “He is a lion (metaphor)”. In the following examples, metaphors are underlined.
• She is a star of our family.
• The childhood of the world; the anger of the tempest; the deceitfulness of the riches: wine is a mocker.
• She is now in the sunset of her days.
3. PERSONIFICATION
Personification is an attribution of personal nature, intelligence or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions. For example, in some phrases we use, the furious storm, the thirsty ground, and the pitiless cold. Some other examples are:
•Little sorrows sit and weep. (Boccaccio)
•the dish ran away with the spoon. (Blake)
4. APOSTROPHE
It is a direct address to some inanimate thing or some abstract idea as if it were living person or some absent person as if it were present. Example, “Boy’s mother loved him very much.”
5. HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole is a statement made emphatic by overstatement. For example, “Virtues as the sands of the shore.”
6. EUPHEMISM
By using the euphemism, we speak in agreeable and favorable terms of some person, object or event which is ordinarily considered unpleasant and disagreeable. For example,
• He is telling us a fairy tale. (a lie)
• He has fallen asleep. (he is dead)
7. IRONY OR SARCASM
In this mode of speech, the real meanings of the words used are different from the intended meanings. For example, the child of cobbler has no shoe.
8. PUN
This consists of a play on the various meanings of a word. Its effect is often ludicrous. For example,
• Is life worth living? It depends upon the liver.
• Obviously, the constitution is against prostitution and congress is against progress. (con means against and pro means for)
9. OXYMORON
It is a figure of speech which combines two seemingly contradictory or incongruous words for sharp emphasis or effect. For example,
• “darkness visible” (Milton);
• “make haste slowly” (Suetonius)
• “loving hate” (Romeo and Juliet)
10. INTERROGATION
This is a rhetorical mode of affirming or denying something more strongly than could be done in ordinary language. Examples,
• Who is here so base that would be a bondman?
• Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?
• Who is here so vile that will not love his country? (Shakespeare)
11. ALLITERATION
The repetition of the same letter or syllable at the beginning of two or more words is called alliteration. For example,
• By apt Alliteration’s artful a
• Glittering through the gloomy g
• The furrow follows f
12. ONOMATOPOEIA
The formation of a word whose sound is made to suggest or echo the sense as in cuckoo, bang, growl, hiss.
• The moan of doves in immemorial elms and murmur of innumerable bees.
• Rend with the tremendous sound your ears asunder with guns, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder.
