Figures of

Speech

In all walks of life, everything can be

expressed literally and figuratively.
So now…
What is the difference between…

Literal
and

Figurative
language?
Literal means…
• The actual, dictionary meaning of a
word; language that means what it
appears to mean

• Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor,

or embellishment

• Conforming to the most obvious

meaning of a word, phrase,
sentence, or story
In other words…

–It means exactly what it

says! Word for word.
Example One: The U.S. is a large country.
What does it mean? Exactly what it says!
Example Two: The weather is beautiful today.
What does it mean? Exactly what it says!
In other words…

–Figure it out!
There’s a deeper
meaning hidden
in the words.
Example: Fragrance always
stays in the hand that gives
the rose. -Hada Bejar
• Does it mean you have a
smelly hand? NO!
• What does it mean?
Giving to others is gracious
and the good feeling of
giving stays with you.
So…
Read between the
lines because not
everything is as it
appears.
 Ladies and gentlemen,
put your hands together as I proudly present to
you, the essential…
A kiss is a lovely trick
designed by nature to
stop speech when
words become
superfluous.

Ingrid Bergman
Introduction Authors often uses figures of speech in both
Figures of literature and poetry to enhance their
Speech writing.

Figures of speech present ordinary things in

new or unusual way.

They communicate ideas that go beyond the

words usual literal meanings

These are language devices intended to bring

to the reader or to the listener fresh reactions
to a scene or an object

Using figures of speech in language is like

sprinkling condiments over your bland food
so that it tastes better
By the end of this session, you
should be able to:

 Recognize some of
the figures of speech

 Identify figures of
speech in poems
Figures of Resemblance

Simile

Metaphor

Personification

Apostrophe

Antonomasia
Simile Comparing two unlike
things using like or as.
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

She sways like a pearl.

She hangs like a star.

His temper was as explosive as a volcano.

Patterns in Simile

Verb + like + Noun

As + Adjective + as + Noun
– Friends are like parachutes. If they
aren’t there the first time you need
them, chances are, you won’t be
needing them again.
-James A. Lovell Jr.

– Does this mean that I should jump out of an

airplane with my friend strapped to my back?
Absolutely not!

– Friends are being compared to parachutes using

the word like. (friends = parachutes)

– Friends and parachutes are dissimilar and unlike

each other, yet we have found a way to
relate and compare them.
What is the meaning
of…? • Parachutes must be there for
you the first time you need
them or you will fall to your
death. If they are not there
for you the first time you
need them, you will not need
them again. You’ll be dead!

• Friends are the same way. If

you have a crisis and need
your friend to support you,
but he doesn’t come through,
you don’t really need that
friend for help again.
Metaphor Comparison between two unlike
things that actually have
something important in common

Life is one big roller coaster ride.

The boy is a fish in the water.

He is my knight in shining armor.

– A good laugh is sunshine in a
house. -Thackeray

– Does this mean that a laugh is actually light

from the sun? Absolutely not!

– A good laugh is being compared to sunshine

by saying that it is sunshine.
(laugh = sunshine)
– A good laugh and sunshine are dissimilar and
unlike things being compared to each other.
What is the meaning
of…?
– Sunshine brings joy and happiness
to people. It brightens up a room,
a house or where ever its rays
strike.

– Laughter does the same thing. It

also brings joy and happiness to
people and brightens up a room,
a house, or where ever it is heard.
 Simile Metaphor
In the battle,
he fought He was a lion in
bravely like a the battle.
lion.
She’s a busy
She was as bee flitting
busy as a bee around the
handling office handling
several tasks at several tasks.
once.
That boy is a
That boy is as pig.
messy as a pig.
Personification
Representing an inanimate object
or an abstract idea as a person and
endowing it with human traits.

The sun stretched his golden

arms and greeted everyone
with his kind smile.

The trees were fluttering

and dancing in the breeze
• The tree bowed and
waved to me in the wind.
• Does this mean a tree actually
recognized I was there and
acknowledged me by taking a bow and
waving to me? Absolutely not!

• The tree is being given the human

characteristics or actions of waving
and bowing. The tree is being
personified. It now has character.

• Again, unlike or dissimilar things are

being compared. (tree = person)
What is the meaning of this…?

• This simply draws the picture in our

minds that it must be an extremely
windy day for the trees branches to
‘wave’ and the trunk to bend as if it
were ‘bowing.’

• The tree is being given the human

characteristics or actions of waving
and bowing. The tree is being
personified. It now has character.
Apostrophe The addressing of a usually
absent person or usually
personified thing

“O Liberty, what things are done in thy

name.”

“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal

thoughts.”
-- Macbeth

“Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee

not and yet I see thee still.”
-- Macbeth
• “O western wind, when wilt thou
blow that the small rain down can
rain?”
• “Blue Moon, you saw me
standing alone,Without a dream
in my heart,Without a love on my
own.”
• “Death be not proud, though
some have called thee Mighty and
dreadfull, for, thou art not so,For,
those, whom thou think’st, thou
dost overthrow,Die not, poore
death, nor yet canst thou kill me.”
 Substitution of a title or an epithet for a
Antonomasia proper name. It is also used to convey an
idea taken form history, myths, legends
and the Bible.

Abraham- father of many

David and Jonathan- friends

Apollo- handsome

Cain- murderer

Portia- beauty and brains

Penelope- faithful
Mrs. Cruz is a Penelope. Her husband
has been an OFW for almost ten
almost and no one can accuse her of
even flirting with other men.

Their relationship is like that of David

and Jonathan. They are even closer
than blood brothers.

With looks like that of Apollo, can

you blame the girls for running after
you?
Figures of Sound Effects

Onomatopoeia

Alliteration

Assonance
Onomatopoeia Is a word that sounds like its meaning. It
can also be described as the use of the
word which imitates a sound such as
screech, whirr, sizzle, crunch, bang, zap,
roar, growl, click, snap, crackle and pop.

A snap of a finger.

The camera clicks

smoothly.

The wild bang of a rockstar.

• “Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff,
puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong. The
little train rumbled over the
tracks.”
• “Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! An
alarm clock clanged in the dark
and silent room.”
• “I’m getting married in the
morning!
Ding dong! the bells are gonna
chime.”
Alliteration Is the repetition of beginning consonant
sounds and frequent recurrence of the
same initial letter or sound. It is derived
from Latin’s “Latira” meaning “letters of
alphabet”

Don’t drink and drive

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers….

But a bit of better butter will make my batter

better.

Six silly swans went swimming in the sea.

Coca Cola, Mickey Mouse, Dunkin Donut, KitKat,

Spongebob Squarepants
•She sells seashells.
•Walter wondered
where Winnie was.
•Blue baby bonnets
•Nick needed new
notebooks.
•Fred fried frogs.
Assonance
The use of words that have the same very
similar vowel sound near other one.

Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is

among the oldest of living things. So old it is
that no man knows how and why the first
poems came. –Early Moon of Carl Sandburg

Describe a high-rise, Well it rises high into

the bright blue sky.

The fat cat had a snack.

Alas! It was a tough nut to crack

• “Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that
gong-tormented sea.”
• “If I bleat when I speak
it’s because I just got . . .
fleeced.”
Figures of
Emphasis

Hyperbole

Anaphora
Hyperbole
It is a major exaggeration or
overstatement. Authors use this figures of
speech to emphasize a point or a humor

I nearly died laughing.

You could have knocked me over with a

feather.

I’ve told you a million times.

My backpack weighs a ton.

• I’m so hungry I could
devour a horse!
• Does this mean I could actually eat an entire
horse or that someone can really run inside your
skull? Of course not!

• Are you tired? It’s because

you keep on running on my
mind.
• A ridiculous image is being painted in our minds
to get the significance and importance of the
point across.
What is the meaning of this…?
• The first obviously means that I
am extremely hungry but in no
way could I eat a 400 pound
horse!

• The second clearly means that

you are in love and you think
everyday about the person who
is the apple of your eye but in no
way the person you will run over
skull!
Hyperbole • Here are a few
can be humorous
funny…! hyperboles:
• “My sister uses so much makeup, she
broke a chisel trying to get it off last
night!” Johnny, Baton Rouge, LA

• “My teacher is so old, they’ve already

nailed the coffin shut.” Michelle S.,
Knoxville, TN

• “I could do this forever.” Ashley Brosseau

• “I don’t believe in courtship. Just love

me now and I will court you forever.”
 • Repetition of the same word or phrase
Anaphora at the beginning of successive clauses
or verses.
• We shall go on to the end. We shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall
depend our island.

• I came, I saw, I conquered - Julius

Caesar
• Mad world! Mad kings! Mad
composition! - King John II, William
Shakespeare
• It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness -
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Figures of Parallelism and/or
Contrast
Irony

Antithesis

Chiasmus

Paradox

Oxymoron

Euphemism
 A situation that is strange of funny
Irony because things happen in a way
that seems to be the opposite of
what you expected
Water, water everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
--Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge

Nothing is written in stone.

“Oh my God! I love your skirt, where did you

get it?” That is the ugliest skirt I’ve ever seen

“It was my mom’s in the 80’s” Vintage! So

adorable
Examples!
• “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here!
This is the War Room.”
• He is as smart as a soap dish.
• The Titanic was said to be unsinkable
but sank on its first voyage.
• “How nice!” she said, when I told her I
had to work all weekend.
• The audience knows the killer is hiding
in a closet in a scary movie but the
actors do not.
• I lost my wallet. This is my lucky day.
 Literal meaning is opposite. A rhetorical
Antithesis device in which two opposite ideas are
put together in a sentence to achieve a
contrasting effect.

This one is a small step for a man, one

giant leap for mankind.

Better to reign in hell, than serve in Heaven

--monologue of Satan in Paradise Lost of
John Milton

It was the best of times. It was the worst of

times.
-- A Tale of Two Cities of Charles Dickens
Chiasmus A verbal pattern in which the
second half of an expression is
balanced against the first but with
the parts reversed.

• “Nice to see you, to see you, nice!”

• “You forget what you want to remember,
and you remember what you want to
forget.”
• “In the end, the true test is not the
speeches a president delivers; it’s whether
the president delivers on the speeches.”
• One must eat to live, not to live to eat.
• “Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.”
Paradox • A statement that appears to
contradict itself.

• "War is peace."
• "Freedom is slavery."
• "Ignorance is strength.“
• "Some day you will be old
enough to start reading fairy
tales again.“
• The child is the father of man.
Oxymoron • A figure of speech in which
incongruous or contradictory
terms appear side by side.
• “The best cure for insomnia is to get a
lot of sleep.”
• “A yawn may be defined as a silent
yell.”

• "act naturally," "original copy,“

"found missing," "alone together,"
"peace force," "definite possibility,"
"terribly pleased," "ill health,"
"turn up missing," "jumbo shrimp,"
"alone together," “pretty ugly”
 • The substitution of an inoffensive term
Euphemism for one considered offensively explicit. It
is a mild, indirect, or vague term
substituting for a harsh, blunt, or
offensive term.

• 'A little thin on top' instead of 'going

bald'
• 'Homeless' instead of 'bum'
• 'Letting him go' instead of 'firing him'
• 'Passed away' instead of 'died‘
• Get rid of him instead of ‘kill him’
• 'Economical with the truth' instead of
'liar'
Figures of Association

Metonymy

Synecdoche
 • A FIGURE OF SPEECH in which a part
Metonymy represents a whole or a whole represents a
part. It is used when a noun is substituted for
another noun.
• The dagger of the United States sliced
Saddam Hussein’s army to pieces.
and
• I pledge my service to the crown.

• Did just a knife alone destroy Sadaam’s

armies? Absolutely not! The knife
represents a part of the whole United
States Armed Forces. (knife = U.S. Armed
Forces)

• Do I pledge my service to just a crown that

sits atop the king’s head? No! The
solitary crown represents a part of the
whole king and kingdom to whom I pledge
my service.
(crown = king and kingdom)
 Fragrance always
stays in the hand that
gives the rose. -Hada Bejar
(hand = the whole person who gives)

A part (hand) represents a whole

(person).

We study Shakespeare in our

English class

Shakespeare, the writer’s name is

used when what is meant are his
works.
Synecdoche • A figure of speech in which a part is used to
represent the whole (ABCs for alphabet) or the
whole for a part (“England won the World Cup
in 1966″).

• Wheels - a car
• The police - one
policeman
• Plastic - friends
• Coke - any cola drink
• Army - a soldier
• Give us this day our daily
bread (Taken from the Bible,
bread is only part of food.)

• I bought myself a new set of

wheel for my travel (Set of
wheel is only part of a vehicle)