Diction

1. Diction Lecture 4

2. Using Figurative Language FIGURES OF SPEECH 1. Simile 2. Metaphor 3. Personification 4.Metonymy 5.Synecdoche 6. Euphemism 7. Irony 8. Overstatement and understatement 9. Transferred epithet 10. Oxymoron 11. Alliteration

3. Simile • Simile: it is a comparison between two distinctly different things and the comparison is indicated by the word as or like. • eg. • O my love’s like a red, red rose. • ------Robert Burns • That man can’t be trusted. He’s as slippery as an eel. • The old man’s hair is as white as snow.

4. Patterns of simile • 1. X is like Y.(X stands for the literal term/tenor, while Y stands for the figurative term/vehicle.) • My wife’s new hat is like a lighthouse. • The man walked away like a duck. • 2. X…as Y. • You can not hope to move me, as you can not expect the sun to rise in the west. • I have squandered my life as a schoolboy squanders a tip. • 3. X…(as)…as Y: • They are as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. • 4. As Y…(, ) so X…: • As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.

5. Patterns of simile • 5. X is to A what Y is to B: • The pen is to a writer what the gun is to a fighter. • 6. X…as if (as though) Y: • He talked as if he were the president of the United States. • The girl screamed as though she had seen a ghost. • 7. X is … than Y: • She is far sweeter than the flower. • 8. X surpasses Y: • In clearness, the river water surpasses the purest crystal.

6. Metaphor • Metaphor: it is the use of a word which originally denotes one thing to refer to another with a similar quality. It is also a comparison, but the comparison is implied, not expressed with the word as or like. • eg. • The picture of those poor people’s lives was carved so sharply in his heart that he could never forget it. • There was a medieval magnificence about the big dinning-hall. • The street faded into a country road with straggling houses by it.

7. Metaphor • There were a few lordly poplars before the house. • All his former joy was drowned in the embarrassment and confusion he was feeling at the moment. • He often prefaced his remarks by “I can’t help thinking…” • the charcoal fire glowed and dimmed rhythmically to the strokes of the bellows.

8. Patterns of metaphor • Full-length metaphor • 1. X (tenor) is Y (vehicle): • life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player. • ------Shakespeare • 2. Y of X: • I’ve climbed that damned ladder of politics, and every step has been rough. ------U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey • 3. X, Y (in apposition): • “you little Mexican rat,” hissed from between Danny’s lips. • 4. X or Y (as modifier): • The lovely girl has a rosy cheek.

9. Patterns of metaphor • “Compressed” metaphor: the metaphor states only one term of the comparison, leaving the other implicit. • Leaves got up in a coil and hissed, • Blindly struck at my knee and missed.

10. Patterns of metaphor • Extended metaphor: a metaphor which is developed by a number of different figurative expressions, extending perhaps over several clauses or sentences, and involving several tenors and vehicles. • All the world’s a stage, • And all the men and women merely players: • They have their exists and their entrances; • And one man in his time plays many parts. • ------Shakespeare

11. Personification • Personification is to treat a thing or an idea as if it were human or had human qualities. • Youth is hot and bold, • Age is weak and cold, • Youth is wild, and Age is tame. ------Shakespeare • The match will soon be over and defeat is staring us in the face. • This time fate was smiling to him.

12. Personification • Thunder roared and a pouring rain started. • Dusk came stealthily. • The storm was raging and an angry sea was continuously tossing their boat. • The falling leaves are dancing in the wind. • One fine day, fortune smiled on Grandfather. • The wind sobbed in the trees.

13. Metonymy • Metonymyis substituting the name of one thing for that of another with which it is closely associated. • Sword and cross in hand, the European conquerors fell upon the Americas. • When the war was over, he laid down the sword and took up the pen. • His purse would not allow him that luxury.

14. Synecdoche • When a part is substituted for the whole or the whole is substituted for a part, synecdoche is applied. • The farms were short of hands during the harvest season. • He had to earn his daily bread by doing odd jobs. • Germany beat Argentina 2 to 1 in this exciting football match. • The poor creature could no longer endure her sufferings.

15. Additional Examples • 1. Karajan had ruled his august orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he had been named conductor for life in 1955------with a brilliant ear and an iron fist. • 2. Everybody knows that John lost his shirt when that business he had invested in failed. • 3. The first night it was just a party, a lark, …the second night people’s tempers were getting short and they were pointing fingers. • 4. Her behavior when her husband is away causes the neighbors to raise their eyebrows.

16. Additional Examples • 5. “New York is the social Olympics,” as one commentator puts it. “The rest are just tryouts.” • 6. He hit the panic button when he saw the month’s figures. • 7. Earlier in the day, along with a favorite aunt and uncle and a childless neighbor couple------also called “Aunt” and “Uncle” by me since the cradle------I had partaken of our family’s traditional Sunday brunch.

17. Euphemism • Euphemismis the substitution of a mild or vague expression for a harsh or unpleasant one. • To die to pass away, to leave us; one’s heart • has stopped beating • old people senior citizens • mad emotionally disturbed • dust man sanitation worker • lavatory bathroom, men’s (women’s) room

18. Euphemism • invasion, raid military action • driving inhabitants away • or controlling them pacification • concentration camps strategic hamlets • In an open barouche… stood a stout gentleman…, two young ladies…and a lady of doubtful age, probably the aunt of the aforesaid,...

19. Irony • Ironyis the use of words which are clearly opposite to what is meant, in order to achieve a special effect. • It was raining heavily. “what fine weather for an outing!” • A barbarous act was called civilized or cultural. • It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife. • Party maven Martha Stewart: Food in the Soviet Union is fine, if you like pork tartar. • Blessed the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.

20. Additional Examples • Historically, the desire to hoard gold at home has been primarily an occupation of the working and peasant classes, who have no faith in paper money. George Bernard Shaw defended their instincts eloquently, “You have to choose between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the member of the government,” he said, “and with due respects to these gentlemen, I advise you … to vote for gold.”

21. Additional Examples • When the court adjourned, we found Dayton’s streets swarming with strangers. Hawkers cried their wares on every corner. One shop announced: DARWIN IS RIGHT------INSIDE. (This was J.R. Darwin’s Everything to Wear Store). One entrepreneur rented a shop window to display an ape. Spectators paid to gaze at it and pondered whether they might be related. • “The poor brute cowered in a corner with his hands over his eyes,” a reporter noted,” afraid it might be true.”

22. Overstatement and Understatement • In overstatement the diction exaggerates the subject, and in understatement the words play down the magnitude or value of the subject. Overstatement is also called hyperbole. • She is dying to know what job has been assigned her. • On hearing that he had been admitted to that famous university, he whispered to himself, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.” • it took a few dollars to build this indoor swimming pool. • “He is really strange,” his friends said when they heard he had divorced his pretty and loving wife.

23. Additional Examples • 1. The two sisters are different in a thousand and one ways. • 2. There is a lethal combination of high costs and high ticket prices at work, and fundamentally, one newspaper can shut down a show. • 3. In the grain belt, new investments resulted in corn, wheat and soybeans being planted “fencecrow to fencecrow”. Farmers were geared up and going strong, but it didn’t last. With what seemed to be the snap of your fingers, grain prices started a long roller-coaster ride downward in the late 1970s. • 4. The result (of the recent local election) encouraged conservative critics who were calling for Thatcher’s scalp in the face of poll-tax protests, 8 percent unemployment, 15 percent- plus interest rates and a huge trade deficit.

24. Additional Examples • 5. He had hired physicians well as lawyers, they cried to high heavens that the world kill him to leave the genial climate of the Attic plain. • 6. If Saddam Hussein goes out of power, no tear is to be shed. • 7. Retired marine Colonel John v. Brennan contracted with the secretive arms dealer to sell Iraq $181 million worth of uniforms. According to a lawsuit filed last march, former Vice President Spiro Agnew served as an “intermediary” between the two. How much money did Agnew make in the deal? Soghnanlian, the dealer, says, “He did not go hungry.”

25. Transferred Epithet • An epithet is an adjective or descriptive phrase that serves to characterize somebody or something. A transferred epithet is one that is shifted from the noun it logically modifies to a word associated with that noun. • She was so worried about her son that she spent several sleepless nights. • In his quiet laziness he suddenly remembered that strange word. • The assistant kept a respectful distance from his boss when they were walking in the corridor. • He said “Yes” to the question in an unthinking moment. • The old man put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

26. Oxymoron • In oxymoron apparently contradictory terms are combined to produce a special effect. • The coach had to be cruel to be kind to his trainees. • When the news of the failure came, all his friends said that it was a victorious defeat. • The president was conspicuously absent on that occasion. • She read the long-awaited letter with a tearful smile.

27. Alliteration • Alliterationrefers to the appearance of the same initial consonant sound in two or more words, such as “proud as a peacock” and “blind as a bat”. Alliteration is often used in poetry to give emphasis to words that are related in meaning: • wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, • from the cradle to the grave, • Those ungrateful drones who would • Drain your sweat------nay, drink your blood? • ------Percy Bysshe Shelley

28. Alliteration • Alliteration is sometimes used in prose for the same effect------to join two or more related words. • I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. • The Russian danger is therefore our danger, …just as the cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe. • ------Winston Churchill • a speech on Hitler’s invasion • of the Soviet Union in 1941

29. Exercise:Name the figure of speech used in each of the following sentences: • 1. Her rich relatives rained birthday presents on her only son. (metaphor) • 2. Wrong ideas may harm a man just like diseases. (simile) • 3. Some words may be defaced by careless usage. (personification) • 4. The leaves are trembling in the cold wind. (personification) • 5. The storm was so angry that it wanted to destroy everything in its way. (personification) • 6. Many people bowed before Force, but eventually Force would surrender to Reason. (personification) • 7. Selfless people are like cows, which eat straw but produce milk. (simile) • 8. “What do you think of the roast duck?” “Not bad.” (understatement) • 9. His friends praised his daughter’s performances to the skies. (overstatment) • 10. His writing is clear and clean. (alliteration) • 11. His unfriendly tongue surprised her. (transferred epithet) • 12. There is fertile soil for popular music in china today. (metonymy)