英语修辞简介

Some Common Forms of Figures of Speech

宋德文（讲义）

Figures of speech are ways of making our language figurative. When we use words in other than their ordinary or literal sense to lend force to an idea, to heighten effect, or to create suggestive imagery, we are said to be speaking or writing figuratively. Now we are going to talk about some common forms of figures of speech.

原文作者在文章中使用修辞手法，是为了使语言更加形象生动，鲜明突出；或者使语言更加整齐匀称，音调铿锵，以便更深入地阐明事件的意义或刻画人物的性格。因此，译文中若不能正确表现原文的修辞格，就不能准确地表达作者的思想和文风，就不符合“忠实、通顺”的翻译标准。

修辞(figures of speech / rhetorical devices / rhetoric) 大体分为三类：

音韵修辞格(phonological rhetorical devices)

词义修辞格(semantic rhetorical devices)

句法修辞格(syntactical rhetorical devices)

（一）音韵修辞格(phonological rhetorical devices)

1. Alliteration: (头韵) It has to do with the sound rather than the sense of words for effect. It is a device that repeats the same sound at frequent intervals(间隔) and since the sound repeated is usually the initial consonant sound, it is also called "front rhyme". For instance, the fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free.

头韵与拟声修辞方式能使语言具有音韵美，可增加口头或书面表达的实际音感，给人以声情并茂的美感。

Alliteration就是在一个词组或一个诗行中，有两个以上彼此靠近的词，其开头的音节（或其他重读音节）具有同样的字母或声音.

Peter Piper picked a peck of picking pepper.（alliteration）

Clear as crystal 水晶般的清莹

Now or never 机不可失，时不再来

Safe and sound 安然无恙

To many parents, the three Gs--- gays, guns and gangs ---have replaced the three Rs as benchmarks of schools life.

Spare the rod, and spoil the child.

China 's cities, after decades of bolted doors and barred windows, are suddenly being opened to sweeping changes.

No mill , no meal .

No song , no supper .

No cross , no crown .

Sea , sun, sand, seclusion ---and Spain .

海滨，阳光，沙滩，有静--- 更有西班牙风情。

book name or title

Pride and Prejudice 傲慢与偏见

Sense and sensibility 理智与情感

2. Onomatopoeia: (拟声)It is a device that uses words which imitate the sounds made by an object (animate or inanimate), or which are associated with or suggestive (提示的) of some action or movement.

Onomatopoeia是模仿事物发出的声响的修辞手法，与汉语的拟声辞格完全相同。恰当地运用它可以使语言更加形象生动。

在英美文学终，拟声词的应用非常广泛：

如：摹仿金属声的有：clash, clank, ting, tinkle, clang, jangle, ding-dong, tick-tack, etc.

摹仿水等液体声的有：splash, bubble, sizz, sizzle, splish-splosh, drip-drop, etc.

摹仿各种动物叫声有：neigh, baa, moo, miao, screech, hiss, cook-a-doodle-do, etc.

摹仿人的各种声音有：giggle, chuckle, shriek, snort, sneeze, snigger, smack, whisper, grunt, grumble, mumble, sputter, murmur, chatter, gurgle, whoop, etc.

3. Assonance (元韵) Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar vowel, especially in stressed syllables, in a sequence of nearby words, such as “child of silence”.

是在一句话或在一个诗行中间，有两个或更多的词具有相同的元音。

沁园春－雪

北国风光，千里冰封，万里雪飘。

望长城内外，维余茫茫；大河上下，顿失滔滔。

山舞银蛇，原驰蜡象，欲与天公试比高。

Snow

To the tune of Spring Beaming in Garden

What a scene is in the north found!

A thousand li of the earth is ice-clad aground,

Ten thousand li of the sky is snow-bound.

Behold! At both sides of the Great Wall

An expense of whiteness conquers all

In the yellow river, up and down,

The surging waves are gone!

Like sliver snakes the mountains dance,

Like wax elephants the highlands bounce,

All try to be higher than heaven even once!

（二）词义修辞格(semantic rhetorical devices)

词义修辞格主要借助语义的联想和语言的变化等特点创造出来的修辞手法。它们主要包括simile, metaphor, allusion, metonymy, transferred epithet, personification, hyperbole, irony, euphemism, pun, oxymoron, zeugma etc.

1. Simile：(明喻) It is a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two unlike elements having at least one quality or characteristic in common. To make the comparison, words like as, as...as, as if and like are used to transfer the quality we associate with one to the other.

Simile与汉语的明喻基本相同，用某一事物或情境来比拟另一个事物或情境。其本体和喻体均同时出现在句中，在形式上是相对应的。英语simile 的比喻词一般是like, as （……as）等, 汉语明喻的比喻词通常是好象、仿佛等。例如：