Allegory is an extended metaphor through an
entire speech or passage so that objects, persons,
and actions in the Text are equated with meanings
that lie outside the Text.
It is used:
- to enlighten the hearer by answering questions
and suggesting some principles;
- for the purpose of moral instruction
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed,
which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is
the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest
among herbs, and becomes a three, so that the birds of the
air come and lodge in the branches there of.
Allusion is a reference to a fact that the writer
thinks the reader already knows. Allusions can be
made to maters of general knowledge such as
sports, to characters and incidents connected with
well-known works of literature, Bible, to
historical events and characters.
It is used:
- to characterize through analogy;
- to broaden the nominal meaning of a word or a
phrase into a generalized concept.
e.g. Out she swept like a bad fairy at the
christening.
Anaphora implies identity of the several initial
elements in some successive sentences.
It is used:
- to attract the reader’s attention to the key-word
of the utterance;
- to give rhythm to the utterance.
e.g. Perhaps you didn’t have to like people to feel
for them? Perhaps if they were merely around for
long enough you developed a fellow-feeling for
them?
Antithesis consists in putting together two
ideas that are quite opposite.
It may be used:
- to create certain rhythmic effect;
- to compare two objects or to set a contrast
between them;
- to connect words, clauses or sentences and to
unite their senses;
- to disconnect words and disunite their senses.
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe
in cause and effect.
Alliteration is the repetition of initial
consonant sound in two or more words following
each other immediately or at short intervals.
It is used:
- to emphasize certain words or a line;
- to unite words through a kind of repetition;
- to make phrases catchy (in advertisement);
- to achieve a melodic or emotional effect;
- to enhance the rhythm of the sentence;
- as a substitute for rhymes.
e.g. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable
toils, trials and tribulations of every kind whatsoever.
Anadiplosis is the repetition of the final unit of
one utterance at the beginning of the next
utterance.
It is used:
- to attract the reader’s attention to the key-word
of the utterance;
- to give rhythm to the utterance.
e.g. I was home in a sleeping world, a world as
harmless as a sleeping cat.
Anticlimax consists in adding one weaker
element to one or several strong ones, mentioned
before.
It is used:
- to produce “defeated expectancy” effect;
- to attract the reader’s attention;
- to produce humorous or satirical effect;
- to decline from a noble (pompous), impressive
tone to a less exalted one.
e.g. Not all are annoying. Some are dead.
Antonomasia is the use of a common name as
a proper name and vice versa.
It may serve:
- to characterize the bearer of the name;
- to create some humorous effect.
He is still Mr. New Broom, slightly feared.
Aposiopesis denotes intentional break in the
narrative.
It is used to convey:
- the emotional state of the speaker depriving him
of the ability to express himself in terms of
language;
- unwillingness to proceed;
- the speaker’s uncertainty as to what should be
said;
- hint, warning, promise.
He is a source of guilt and annoyance to me now,
but he was my friend, and - …
Asyndeton is deliberate omission of
conjunctions.
It is used:
- to impart dynamic force to the text;
- to produce strong rhythmic impact.
e.g. The day, water, sun, moon, night – I do not
have to purchase these things with money.
Climax (Gradation) denotes such an
arrangement of notions, expressed by words,
word combinations or sentences in which what
precedes is less significant than what follows.
It is used:
- to intensify the logical importance or emotional
(nervous) strain.
- to show the increase in the volume, quantity,
size, etc.
e.g. I am not in recession. I’m going fine. I’m
well-off. I’m almost rich.
Ellipsis means the omission of one or both
principle parts of a sentence.
It is used:
- to reproduce the direct speech of characters;
- to impart brevity, a quick tempo and emotional
tension to the narrative;
- as a means of dynamic description.
e.g. If word go out, just think what would happen.
Dogs as smart as men? A blasphemous assertion.
Assonance is the repetition of the same stressed
vowels followed by different consonants in two
or more neighboring words.
It is used:
- to enrich ornament within the line;
- as a substitute for end-rhyme;
- to give the poet more flexibility as it doesn’t so
much determine the structure or form of a poem.
e.g. Strips of tinfoil winking like people.
Chiasmus is a kind of parallelism (reverse
parallelism) in which the word order followed in
the first phrase or clause is inverted in the second.
It is used:
- to bring in some additional meaning;
- to emphasize certain parts of the utterance;
- to break the monotony of parallel constructions;
- to contribute to the rhythmical quality of the
utterance.
e.g. Few rich men own their own property. The
property owns them.
Detachment is tearing a secondary part of the
sentence away from the word is refers to, and
gaining some independence and greater degree of
significance. Detached parts are separated by
means of commas and dashes.
It is used:
- to emphasize a word or a phrase;
- to impart some additional syntactical meanings
to the word or a phrase.
e.g. She set her face and gazed under half-
dropped lids at the funeral, stoic, fate-like.
Emphatic construction “It is he…who”
is turning the simple sentence into a complex one.
e.g. It was only then’that I realized it was she I
had seen on the lawn that day at professor
Something’s party.
Emphatic construction with “do” reveals
a certain degree of logical and emotional
emphasis.
e.g. Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
Irony is using a word in a sense that is opposite
of its usual meaning, There is always a contrast
between the notion named and the notion meant.
Irony is used:
- to intensify the evaluative meaning of the
utterance
- to produce humorous effect;
- to express very subtle, almost imperceptible
nuances of meaning;
- to show irritation, displeasure, pity, regret, etc.
e.g. A nice sense of humour – like a morgue
attendant.
Metaphor is transference of names based on
similarity between two objects.
It may serve:
- as an image-creative device;
- to characterize or describe objects or people;
- to impart some expressive or emotive force to
utterance.
e.g. A man who cannot wonder is but a pair of
spectacles behind which there are no eyes.
Metonymy is based on contiguity of objects or
phenomena having common grounds of existence in
reality.
It is used:
- to build up imagery;
- to show a property or an essential quality of the
concept;
- to impart any special force to linguistic expression.
e.g. For several days he took an hour after his work to
make inquiry talking with him some examples of his
pen and inks b) Material instead of the thing made of:
The marble spoke.
Enumeration is built up by means of the
repetition of homogeneous syntactical units.
Heterogeneous enumeration is used:
- to give the insight into the mind of the observer who
pays attention to the variety of miscellaneous objects:
- for the purpose disorderly and therefore striking
description;
- to arrest reader’s attention, making him decipher the
massage,
e.g. She had lived through and noticed a certain
amount of history. A war, a welfare state the rise of
meritocracy, European unity, little England…
Litotes is expressing an idea by means of
negating the opposite idea.
e.g. Mary was in a state of mind to rejoice in a
connection with the Bertram family, and to be not
displeased with her brother’s marrying a little
beneath him.
Meiosis is the opposite of Hyperbole. It is
weakening, reducing the real characteristics of the
object of speech.
It is used:
- to understate normal qualities of the objects;
- to show the speaker’s intentional modesty.
e.g. The pennies were saved by bulldozing the
grocer.
Onomatopoeia is using speech sounds to
imitate the sound of what is being described –
nature, people, things, animals etc.
It is used:
- to bring out the full flavour of words, their
expressive and emotive connotations;
- to make the acoustic picture of reality;
- to make the sound of the utterance an echo of its
sense.
Epiphora is the repetition of the same unit at
the end of two or more successive clauses or
sentences.
It is used:
- to attract the reader’s attention to the key-word
of the utterance;
- to give rhythm to the utterance.
e.g. World is evil
life is evil
all is evil
f I ride the horse of hate
with it’s evil hooded eye turning world to evil.
Euphemism is a word that replaces another
word of similar but stronger meaning.
It is used:
- to soften an otherwise coarse or unpleasant idea,
to produce mild effect;
- to avoid any kind of discrimination (agism,
sexism, etc.
e.g. I was thinking an unmentionable thing about
your mother.
Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement.
It is used:
- to exaggerate quantity or quality;
- to serve expressive and emotive purposes;
- to produce some humorous effect.
e.g. She wore a hat with a crown the size of a
whisky glass and a brim you could have wrapped
the week’s laundry in.
The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build
a garage on.
Oxymoron is an attribute or an adverbial
combination of two contradictory or incongruous
words.
It is used:
- to bring out new shades of meaning by putting
together semantically contradictory words;
- to emphasize the emotive meaning;
- to show the author’s subjective individual
perception of the object.
e.g. I am a deeply religious unbeliever.
Awfully good. Terribly nice. Pretty dirty, etc.
Epithet is a word or a group of words giving an
expressive characterization of the object
described.
It is used:
- to show individual attitude of the speaker
towards the person or thing described.
e.g. Trite: blood-thirsty thoughts, dead silence.
Elephantine body, the tiny box of the kitchen.
Graphon is intentional violation of the spelling of
a word\ word combination used to reflect its authentic
pronunciation.
It is used:
- to characterize the speaker as a person of a certain
locality, breeding, education and even social standing
- to show the speaker’s inability to pronounce words
according to the Standard ( intoxication, lisp,
stammer, etc.)
- to reproduce the emphatic pronunciation of words.
e.g. Thith thtuff thtics in my mouth’, complained the
rat. It’th worth than caramel candy.
Inversion consists in unusual arrangement of
words for the purpose of making one of them
more emphatic.
e.g. Of my country and of my family I have little
to say.
The Ark was more than just a single ship?
Paradox is an assertion seemingly opposed to
common sense, but that may yet have some truth
in it.
It is used:
- to produce the “defeated expectancy” effect;
- to produce humorous or satirical effect.
e.g. It takes a lifetime to become young.
Parallelism consists in similarity of the syntactical Parenthesis is a qualifying explanatory word or
structure of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.
Parallelism may be complete, which consists in
repetition of identical syntactical structures.
It is used:
- to convey the idea of semantic equality of the
sentence parts;
- to produce some emotive impact on the reader;
- to emphasize the diversity or contrast of ideas (in
combination with antithesis);
- to produce some rhythmic effect.
e.g. Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is
the richness of self.
Periphrasis is a stylistic device, which is used
to replace the name of an object by description of
its most specific features.
It is used:
- to bring out and intensify some features or
properties of the given object;
- to achieve a more elegant manner of expression
(18-19 century);
- to avoid monotonous repetition.
e.g. The hospital was crowded with the surgically
interesting products of the fighting in Africa.
Polysyndeton is deliberate repetition of
connectives before each component part, when it is
generally not expected.
It serves:
- to introduce strong rhythmic effect;
- to strengthen the idea of equal logical importance of
connected;
- components, to emphasize the simultaneity of
actions or close connection of properties enumerated,
or to promote a high flown tonality of narrative.
e.g. They come running to clean and cut, and pack,
and cook, and can the fish.
Simile is an imaginative comparison that shows
partial identity of two objects belonging to two
different classes.
Simile is used:
- to characterize the given objects or phenomena;
- to create an image;
- to bring out unexpected, striking similarities of
different objects.
e.g. I felt like an amputated leg.
phrase, which interrupts a syntactic construction
without effecting it.
It is used:
- to create the second plan of the background to
the narrative;
- to make some part of a sentence more
conspicuous.
e.g. His mouth was set grimly, and a nerve was
twitching in his jaw – he had every right to be
furious – but in his eyes all I could see was a sort
of dreamy sadness.
Personification is a kind of metaphor. It is
representation of inanimate objects or abstract
ideas as leaving beings. The abstract ideas are
often capitalized and can be substituted by the
pronouns “he” or “she”
It is used:
- as an image-creating device;
- to characterize or describe objects or people;
- to impart some expressive or emotive force to
the utterance.
e.g. When sorrows come, they come, they come
not single spies but in battalions.
Pun is play of words based on polysemy or
homonymy. In other words, pun is based on the
interplay of word or word combination that sound
the same.
Pun is used:
- to produce humorous effect;
- to make the two meanings more conspicuous or
set a contrast between them.
e.g. Her real name is Marples. I call her Marbles
for a joke. If ever moves or retires. I’ll be able to
say I’ve lost my Marbles.
Repetition is recurrence of the same element
(word or phrase) within the sentence.
It is used:
- for emphasis or for a special affect (e.g.
intensifying the duration of the process);
- to attract the reader’s attention to the key-word
of the utterance;
-to give rhythm to the utterance.
e.g. Afterwards I thought I might have heard the
swish of a sap. Maybe you always think that –
afterwards.
Rhetorical question implies asking question
not to gain information, but to assert more
emphatically the obvious answer to what is asked.
No answer is expected by the speaker.
It is used:
- to express some additional shade of meaning
(doubt, assertion, suggestion);
- to enhance the emotional charge of the
utterance.
e.g. Who said you should be happy? Do your
work.
Syntactic tautology implies firstly recurrence of Symbolism. A word functions as a symbol
the noun subject in the form of the corresponding
personal pronoun. Secondly it is repetition of the
sentence by means of the pronominal subject and an
auxiliary or modal verb, representing the predicate.
It is used:
- to make the noun subject of the sentence more
prominent;
- to reproduce the peculiarities of colloquial speech or
the speech of uneducated people.
e.g. That Willie Sawyer he don’t know how to
have any fun at all.
Synesthesia is a description of a sensory
experience as if it were perceived through another
sense. For example, describing a painter’s colours
– a visual experience – in auditory terms – as
clashing or loud. The following lines from
William Blake’s poem, London, use synesthesia
to describe an auditory phenomenon – a soldier’s
sigh – in visual terms: “And the hapless soldier’s
sigh\ Runs in blood down palace walls.”
Synecdoche is a kind of metonymy. This term
denotes using the name of part to denote the
whole or vice versa.
It is used:
- to show a property or an essential quality of the
concept;
- to impart any special force to linguistic
expression.
e.g. He was a shy man, unable to look me in the
eye.
when it is used to indicate not only its usual
referent, but also something quite different. Some
symbols have traditional associations. For
example, the word flag refers not only to a cloth
banner, but it also symbolized the country that
flies it. Other conventional symbols include a
circle – perfection; the sun – power or reason;
greenery – youth; winter – old age.
Writers can also create their own associations
between unlike things, establishing personal
symbols.
Zeugma consists in combining unequal
semantically heterogeneous or even incompatible
words or phrases.
It is used:
- to produce humorous effect;
- to make the two meanings more conspicuous.
e.g. He lost his hat and his temper.
She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief.