Figurative Speech 英语修辞总结

Figures of Speech/Rhetorical Devices

I. Introduction

By figures of speech we refer here to those rhetorical devices termed tropes in classical rhetoric. Tropes have to do with the way words are made to mean other than what they would normally imply, and therefore involve deviation from the ordinary and literal meaning of words. They are ways of making our language figurative.

A knowledge of the figures, and of how they are best used will be of help to us not only in deepening our understanding of what we read, but also in appreciating more fully the finer points of a writer’s style. In the process, we might even learn to write better ourselves.

The number of figures ranged from 65 to 200 in classical times. We will only choose those that are of most universal appeal, and of the greatest practical value.

II. Simile and metaphor

1.simile:

It is a comparison between two distinctively different things and the comparison is indicated by the word as, like, as if, than. A simile is made up of three parts, the tenor, the vehicle, and the indicator of resemblance or simile marker.

A simile is a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two unlike elements having at least one quality or characteristic in common. The comparison is purely imaginative, that is, the resemblance between the two unlike things in that one particular aspect exists only in our minds, in our “inward eye” and not in the nature of the things themselves. To make the comparison, words like as, as … as, as … so, like, as if, as though, sim ilar to, to bear a resemblance to, and comparative structure, prepositional phrases, and other collocations are used to transfer the quality we associate with one to the other. Sometimes the association is between unfamiliar and familiar things, or between abstract and concrete images. The stronger the association that is felt, the greater the force of the comparison, the stronger the power of suggestion and the sharper the image produced.

1) like

a. And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning

face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school … (Shakespeare)

b. He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen for him to crow.

c. Records fell like ripe apples on a windy day.

d. Mother was short and plump and pretty. Her eyes were blue, and her

brown hair was like a bird’s smooth wings …

e. Habit may be likened to a cable; every day we weave a thread, and soon

we cannot break it.

2) as

a. Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark: and as that natural fear

in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

b. As the lion is king of beasts, so is the eagle king of birds.

3) as if, as though

a. She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leaped into her throat at the

boy’s words.

b. He was a beautiful horse that looked as though he had come out of a

painting by Velasquez.

4) what

a. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

b. What salt is to food, that wit and humour are to conversation and

literature.

5) than

a. He has no more idea of money than a cow.

b. A home without love is no more than a body without a soul.

6) and

a. A word and a stone let go cannot be recalled.

b. Love and cough cannot be hid.

7) with

a. With the quickness of a long cat,she climbed up into the nest of

cool-bladed foliage.

2.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 between two distinctively different things, but the comparison is implied, not expressed with the word as or like. Metaphor is also called Condensed Simile. Metaphors are used not only after verb to be, and not only nouns can be used metaphorically, adjectives, adverbs, verbs can also be used metaphorically.

1) n.