igures of Speech

It is a rhetorical device that achieves a

Special effect by using words in
distinctive ways. It is also a form of
expression usd to convey meaning or
heighten effect by comparing or
identifying one thing with another that
has a meaning or connotation.
 Resemblance
shows the extent or point of similarity.

1. Simile is an expressed comparison between two

distinct or fundamentally dissimilar things, which are
strikingly alike in one way or which have certain
qualities in common.

Example : Your love is like the sun that lights up my

whole world.
2. Metaphor is a direct comparison between
two unlike things that actually have something
important in common.

Example : You are the apple of my eye.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight.

3. Personification is giving of personal attributes or

characteristics of human to inanimate objects.

Example : The leaves are dancing as the strong wind

came up.
4. Apostrophe is addressing personified objects as real,
The absent as if present or the breaking off discourse to
Address some absent person or thing,some abstract quality,
An inanimate object or a nonexistent character.

Example : Oh temptation! stay away from me!

5. Allusion is a reference to a person, event, saying,
Or thing from the bible, history, literature, mythology,
And others to put into comparison with the present scene.

Example : I wash my hands of the whole matter.

(biblical allusion)

I say I came, I saw, I conquered. (historical allusion)

A Jocasta summoned me, for I am Oedipus.

(myhtological allusion)
6. Antonomasia refers to some defining word or
phrase substituted for a person’s proper name.

Example : The Bard of Avon – William Shakespeare

Pearl of the Orient Sea – Philippines

Antonomasia also uses a proper name to convey an idea.

Achilles’ heels – flaw or weakness

Abraham – father of his people
Salome - temptation
 emphasis
presents forcefulness of expression to indicate the
importance of something.

1. Hyperbole is an exaggeration for dramatic effect.

Example : I could eat a horse.

2. Repetition is repeating words, phrases or whole

Construction in order to intensify the feeling or meaning.

Example : Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never
yield to force.
3. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase
In the beginning of several successive verbs, clauses or
sentences.
Example : a time to be born, and a time to die:
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up
what is planted…
4. Rhetorical Question is an question to which the
Speaker expects no spoken answer. Such question is asked
for effect.
Example : What will a man gain if he wins the whole world
and ruins his life?
 5. Ellipsis is the omission of words or sudden
breaking off for dramatic effect.

Example : The door opened and . . . .

6. Asyndeton is the omission of conjunctions in sentence

Construction in which they would usually be used.

Example : I came, I saw, I conquered.

The social, political,economic foundations
of the country
7. Polysyndeton is the use of multiple conjuctions
or coordinate clauses in close succession.

Example : The bad news caused him to weep and cry

and wail.
 Parallelism and contrast
Parallelism in rhetorical devices describes two or
more
phrases or clauses in a single sentence that have
identical syntactic constructions.
Contrast is a justaposition of different things.

1. Parallelism is a balance in sentence elements

of similar ideas.
Example : You like it, it likes you.
One for all, and all for one.
2. Antithesis is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas
In parallel structures or balanced phrases.

Example :He that finds his soul will lose it, and he that
loses his soul will find it.
3. Irony is the use of words to convey the opposite of
their literal meaning or a statement or situation where the
meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation
of the idea.

Example : To cry like a baby, that’s a fine way for a man

to act.
4. Oxymoron is a word or group of words that is self-
contradicting.

Example :Parting is such a sweet sorrow.

 Sound effects
Refers to the use of words to cause or produce
impression or special effect.

1. Alliteration is the recurrence of the initial consonant

sound at the beginning of the accented syllables in
words close together.

Example : Three wise old women were they, were they

who went to walk on a winter day.
2. Assonance is the recurrence, within proximate words,
of the same vowel sound that begins with different
consonant sounds.

Example : Double, double, toil and trouble,

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

3. Onomatopoeia is the naming of a thing or action

by vocal imitation
Example : With a whoosh of rockets and the thud of mortars
the attack began.
 Substitution
1. Metonymy is substituting one word for something else
With which it is associated.

Example : I spent the evening reading Shakespeare.

2. Synecdoche shows a part that represents the whole,

or a whole to represent a part, the specific for the general,
the general for the specific, or the material for the thing
made from it.
Example : The school prepares for the coming of the guests.
(whole for the part)
Call the hired hands. (part of a whole)
3. Euphemism is the substitution of an agreeable or
Inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest
Something unpleasant or offensively explicit.

Example : There is an ongoing Olympics for the

mentally challenged.
3. Transferred Epithet is the transfer of an adjective
form from noun to which it properly belongs to another
in the same group.

Example : After a hearty meal, they drank a cheerful glass.

Think of a song or part of a song that contains
atleast 8-10 FIGURES OF SPEECH