Figurative Language

(and all that flowery stuff)

Figurative Language

• Communicates ideas beyond the literal meanings of the words

• May not be literally true, BUT

• Stimulates vivid pictures or concepts in the mind of the reader

• Appeals to the senses

• Appears in poetry and prose as well as in spoken language

• Includes specific figures of speech

Alliteration Assonance

Simile Metaphor

Hyperbole Onomatopoeia

Personification

Figures of Speech

Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds.

• Alliteration is used to:

– Emphasize certain words

– create mood

– underscore meaning

– enhance rhythm

Example:

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers

Assonance: the repetition of a vowel sound within non-rhyming words.

• Assonance is used:– in poetry and prose– to give work a musical quality– to unify stanzas and passages

•Example: long i sounds in the following lines from the Paul Simon song “Sounds of Silence”

…my words like silent raindrops fell…”

Simile: a stated comparison between two things that are actually unlike but that

have something in common.

• Simile:– Expresses the comparison clearly by the

use of the word like or as.

Examples: the girl is quick as a cat, the man hopped like a kangaroo, his shadow is black as an umbrella.

Metaphor: a stated comparison of two unlike things in order to show something in common. (without the use of like or as)

• Examples: – When they watch TV, my son and his friends

are vegetables.

(This metaphor compares a person approaching the cold of death to a tree enduring the cold of winter.)

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold...

Hyperbole: an exaggeration or overstatement

• Hyperbole is the overstating or stretching the truth for literary effect.

Examples:

•My feet are killing me.

•My dad had a cow when he saw my grades.

Onomatopoeia: the use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning. • Onomatopoeia is used to imitate sound in

order to give the reader a more vivid image.

Examples: crash, bang, buzz, twang

“Old McDonald had a farm… OINK, CHEEP, MOO “

Personification: a literary device in which the author elevates an animal, object, or idea to the level of a human such that it takes on the characteristics of a human personality.

• Example:

– The rock stubbornly refused to move.

– Death waits for me.

Conclusion: Figurative Language creates a sense of

hidden meaning.

You will find it in almost every poem, short story, and novel. Look for it today!