Figurative Language and Sentence Structure Notes

1. Figurative Language and Sentence Structure Notes These are words you will also encounter on the APLAC exam!

2. Scheme? Trope? • Scheme-- A change in standard word order or pattern within a sentence • figures of speech that deal with word order, syntax, letters, and sounds, rather than the meaning of words • Trope-- The use of a word, phrase, or image in a way not intended by its normal signification (figurative language) • figures of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words

3. Metaphor • Implied comparison between two things alike Example: “A breeze blew through the room, blew the curtains in at one end and out the other…twisting them up towards the frosted wedding cake of a ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug…” Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

4. Simile • Explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature Example: “Ah, my, said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip and lent it as similar scarlet fire.” Hardy, The Return of the Native

5. Synecdoche • Figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole Example: The British Crown has been plagued by scandal. There is no word from the Pentagon on the new rumors from Somalia.

6. Metonymy • Substitution of some attributive of suggestive word for what is actually meant • Literally means “name changing” • METONYMY AND SYNECDOCHE ARE TYPICALLY USED INTERCHANGABLY! Example: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Churchill, 1940 “In Europe, we gave the cold shoulder to De Gualle, and now he gives the warm hand to Mao Tse-tung.” Nixon, 1960

7. Antanaclasis • Repetition of a word in two different senses Example: “Your argument is sound…nothing but sound.” Ben Franklin "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.” Vince Lombardi

8. Personification • Investing abstraction for inanimate objects Examples: “The night comes crawling in on all fours.” Lowery “O beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.” Iago in Shakespeare's Othello 3.3.165-67

9. Hyperbole • The use of exaggeration terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect Example: I slept for a million hours! “We walked along a road in Cumberland and stopped, because the sky hung so low.” Wolfe, Look Homeward Angel

10. Litotes/Understatement • Deliberate use of understatement where an affirmation is made indirectly by denying its opposite; frequently with a negative assertion Example: “It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.” -J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye Oh, he never drinks. No, not a drop. Ever. Never.

11. Meiosis/Understatement • Deliberate use of an understatement when something is referred to in terms less important than it really deserves; it describes something that is very impressive with simplicity • AGAIN, MEIOSIS AND LITOTES ARE OFTEN USED INTERCHANGABLY!! Example: “Tis but a flesh wound!” Monty Python It was just my duty, ma’am. (after he saves her life)

12. Rhetorical Question • Asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely Example: “Isn’t it interesting that this person to whom you set on your knees in your most private session at night and you pray, doesn’t even look like you?” Malcolm X

13. Irony • Use of a word/idea in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word • Dramatic • Situational • Verbal Example: Pushing that little girl into the mud was very kind, indeed!

14. Onomatopoeia • Use of words whose sounds echoes the sense Example: The snap of the bone made me cringe. She smacked him with the book!

15. Oxymoron • The yoking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory Example: “The unheard sounds came through, each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, and waiting patiently for the other voices to speak.” Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man The New Old South Church in Boston, MA

16. Paradox • An apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth Example: He who loses life, shall find it. “And yet, it was a strangely satisfying experience for an invisible man to hear the silence of the sound.” Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man

17. Euphemism • Substituting a more favorable for a pejorative or socially delicate term • Example: “I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door.” “The which?” “The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose sanctuary adjoins these premises.”

18. Schemes The PATTERN OF SENTENCES

19. Apostrophe • Turning one's speech from one audience to another. • Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses an abstraction (love or justice), to an inanimate object (a love letter or the statute of justice), or to the absent (the ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or the jury) • Example O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!Thou art the ruins of the noblest manThat ever lived in the tide of times.—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 3.1.254-257

20. Alliteration • Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words. Most often, repeated initial consonants. • Example • Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -Only this, and nothing more.‘—The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe

21. Anaphora • Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines. • Example • “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,we shall fight on the seas and oceans,we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,we shall fight on the beaches,we shall fight on the landing grounds,we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,we shall fight in the hills;we shall never surrender…” –Winston Churchill

22. Antithesis • Juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas (often, although not always, in parallel structure) • Example • "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." —Abraham Lincoln • "It can't be wrong if it feels so right" —Debbie Boone

23. Apposition • Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element. • In grammar, this is called an appositive • Example • Albert Einstein, perhaps the greatest of scientists, seemed not to have mastered the physics of hair combing. • Upset by the bad call, the crowd cheered Robbie, a hot-tempered tennis player who charged the umpire and tried to crack the poor man's skull with a racket.

24. Asyndeton • The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. • Example • If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. --John Henry Newman • In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. --Richard de Bury

25. Polysyndeton • Employing many conjunctions between clauses, often slowing the tempo or rhythm. • Example • I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.—Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."

26. Climax • Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance, often in parallel structure. • Usually involving the repetition of the last word of one clause or sentence at the beginning of the next through several clauses or sentences • Example • But we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trialhope; and hope confoundeth not, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us. —Romans 5, The New Testament

27. Parallelism • Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. • Example • parallelism of words:She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate. • parallelism of phrases:Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous. • parallelism of clauses:Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are abundant; but salmon are best.

28. Zeugma • A general term describing when one part of speech (most often the main verb, but sometimes a noun) governs two or more other parts of a sentence (often in a series). • Example • Fred excelled at sports; Harvey at eating; Ashley with boys. • Alexander conquered the world; I, Minneapolis. • Mr.Glowry held his memory in high honor, and made a punchbowl of his skull. –Thomas Love Peacock

29. What is it? • In thy youth learn some craft that in thy age thou mayest get thy living without craft. (antanaclasis) • I cleaned the entire house just because I was bored. (meiosis) • He took my hand in marriage. (metonymy/synecdoche)

30. The school decided on the schedule for next year. (synecdoche) • Not bad. (litotes) • "Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together." (hyperbole)

31. Format of Quiz • An example of each one of these terms will be provided • There will be no word bank • Some words may be on the quiz more than once, some words may not be on the quiz at all **NOTE CARDS!** THERE WILL NOT BE A QUIZ APLAC HOUR 4 2012