22种修辞汇总(新)

Rhetorical Devices (Figures of Speech)

A rhetorical device is a technique used in language to convey ideas and messages in a persuasive way. 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. 修辞格(figures of speech)是提高语言表达效果的语言艺术。它能使语言生动形象、具体活泼，给人以美的享受。

1. Simile （明喻）is a figure of speech involving a comparison between two or more things, which are essentially different but have at least one property or characteristic in common. Words like as, as...as, as if, as though, as…so, and like are the commonly used expressions to make the comparison.

E.g. Justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a might stream.

It is something like improving the food in the prison while the people remain securely incarcerated behind bars.

That scoundrel is as sly as an eel.

To get a word from him was like pulling teeth.

The first time I read a book, it is to me as if I had gained a new friend.

He had given me the impression of absolute rigidity,as though he had swallowed a poker.

一些常用句型也使用了明喻的修辞手法：

(1)What句型：Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

阅读之于思想，如同锻炼之于身体

What sculpture is tot a block of marble, education is to the soul.

教育之于心灵，犹雕刻之于大理石。

(2)Than 句型：A home without love is no more than a body without a soul.

没有爱的家无异于一具没有灵魂的躯体。

He had no more idea of money than a cow.

他对金钱象牛对金钱一样，一无所知。

A student can no more obtain knowledge without studying than

farmer can get harvest without plowing.

学生不学习不能获得知识，正如农民不耕种不能得到收获一样。

(3)And 句型：这是一种特殊的明喻句，常见于英语谚语。其中的作用相当于，

不可以理解为“和”、“与”等义。

A word and a stone let go cannot be recalled.

说出的话犹如抛出的石，是收不回的。

Words and feathers are tossed by the wind.

言语如同羽毛，风刮到处飘。

Truth and roses have thorns about them.

真理如玫瑰，全身都带刺。

2. Metaphor（暗喻）is also a figure of speech involving a comparison between two or more things, which share at least one property or characteristic, but the comparison is not explicitly stated.

E.g. Psychological freedom is the most powerful weapon…

…the long night of physical slavery

All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

The boy wolfed down（狼吞虎咽般地吃）the food the moment he grabbed it.

The mountainous（山一般的巨浪）waves swallowed up the ship.

3. Antithesis（平行对照）is a figure of speech where contrasting words or ideas are deliberately arranged in balanced structural forms to achieve emphasis.

E.g. The mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.

Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

Marry in hasty, repent in leisure. (匆匆结婚，时时悔恨)

To err is human, to forgive divine. (失误人皆有之，而宽恕乃超人之举)

One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

Work has a bitter root but sweet fruit.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way…

—Charles Dickens: A tale of Two Cities 4. Parallel structure (parallelism)（平行结构）: In parallel construction it is necessary to balance word for word (noun with noun, verb with verb, adjective with adjective, etc.),phrase with phrase, clause with clause, sentence with sentence.

E.g. An Englishman thinks seated; a Frenchman, standing; an American, pacing; an

Irishman, afterward. (单词平行)

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.（短语平行）

The world listens. The world watches. The world waits to see what we will do.（句子平行）

They vanish from a world where they were of no consequences, where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistake and failure and a foolishness; where they left no sign that they had existed. （从句平行）

5. Chiasmus （交错配列）: a rhetorical device that consists of two balanced statements, the second of which reverses the order of the words in the first, with or without a repetition .

E.g. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality…