常见英语修辞手法

常见英文修辞手法（Figures of Speech）

英文的修辞手法种类繁多，功能多样，但总体说来，采用修辞手法，目的是为了使表达生动、形象，有感染力，给人以美感，即实现许渊冲先生所指的的语言的三美：“音美、形美和意美”。

1. figures of comparison: simile, metaphor. (resemblance of two identities) Simile: a figure involves an expressed comparison, always introduced by “like”, “as”or “as if”.

e.g.:

a. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. (Alice Walker: Everyday Use for Your Grandmama)

b. Maggie‟s hand is as limp as a fish. (Alice Walker: Everyday Use for Your Grandmama)

Metaphor: the substitution of one thing for another because of the resemblance between them. It is an implied comparison without “as” or “like”. Nouns, verbs and adjectives can be used metaphorically.

e.g.:

a. Little donkeys with harmoniously tinkling bells thread their way among the throngs of people entering and leaving the bazaar. (The Middle Eastern Bazaar)

b. The dye-market, the pottery-market and the carpenters‟ market lie elsewhere in the maze of the vaulted streets which honeycomb this bazaar. (The Middle Eastern Bazaar)

c. Darrow walked slowly round the baking court. (The Trial that Rocked the World)

d. H. L. Mencken wrote sulphurous dispatches sitting in his pants with a fan blowing on him…(The Trial that Rocked the World)

2. Personification: a figure that endows objects, animals, ideas, or abstractions with human form, character, or sensibility.

1）TO inanimate objects（把无生命的物体拟人化）e.g.:

a. The thirsty soil drank in the rain.

b. The mist, like love, plays upon the heart of the hills and brings out surprises of beauty.

2) to inanimate living organisms (把有生物拟人化) e.g.

a. He (the Fox) muttered as he retreated: “Well! What does it matter! The Grapes are sour!”….

( Aesop’s Fables)

b. Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.

And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.

(Tagore: Stray Birds)

3) To inanimate concepts or ideas (把抽象概念拟人化) e.g.:

a. Wrong cannot afford defeat but Right can. (谬误经不起失败，但真理却不怕失败)

(Tagore: Stray Birds)

b. These little thoughts are the rustle of leaves; they have their whisper of joy in my mind.

(这些微思，是绿叶的簌簌之声呀；他们在我的心里，愉快地微语着。)

(Tagore: Stray Birds) 郑振铎译c. In November, a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side the ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores. (O. Henry: The Last Leaves )

3. Metonymy: the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another with which it is closely associated

1) To substitute sb./ sth. with instrument; e.g.:

a.The pen is mightier than the sword.

b.He is too fond of the bottle. /The baby was brought up on the bottle.

c.The pot has boiled over.

2) to substitute sb./ sth. with its own typical features; e.g.:

a.The blue eyes walked into the office.

b.Led on the gray-hair’d wisdom of the east.

c.His aunt wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old hart

so; and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave,for it was no use for her to try any more. ( Tom Sawyer)

3) other forms

a.On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living

thinker ceased to think.

b.Do you like Beethoven?

c.The captain had fallen in possession of a complete Shakespeare.

d.Washington has reacted cautiously to the latest peace proposals.

4. Synecdoche (: the naming of a part to mean the whole, or the whole to the part, as in “hands”for “men who do manual labor.

1) Part for the whole

a.Many hands make light work. 人多好办事。

b.Two heads are better than one.

2)The whole for the part

a.T he world knows his worth.

b.The football match was a close contest. In the end, England won.

c.This fox goes very well with your cap.

3) Material for the product

a.The little girl’s piggy bank is full of nickels.

b.He is preparing a paper on World population for our next meeting.

5. Euphemism （委婉语）: the substitution of an offensive expression for one that may be disagreeable, a taboo, etc. e.g.: