ENGLISH GRAMMAR: Figures of Speech - Devices to give force. Part 3

frieda (60)in #steemiteducation • 6 years ago (edited)

There are other so-called figures of speech, which do not necessarily contain pictures, but are devices to give force, point and variety to speech. These devices are used chiefly to make speech more forcible.

Figurative Language

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https://www.slideshare.net/joeldaldrich/figurative-language-51968625

Great writers utilize literary devices to give readers a vast understanding of their works. To captivate your reader's attention, you must have a profound understanding of literary devices. There are hundreds of literary devices in existence and this can complicate matters to some degree. It might not be possible to learn them all, but some of the most common and engaging devices that you will learn will certainly take your writing skills to a much more advanced level than you thought possible. You must learn to recognize these different devices in the works of other writers and use your skill to integrate them into your own work. Writers have been inventing and employing literary devices for as long as they have been writing. For example, we use specific words and phrases to exaggerate an assertion for dramatic impact and accent.

Introduction to Figurative language

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Devices in Figure of Speech

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The following devices are the chief ones to have effect and emphasis on speech:-

Climax: The Turning Point

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1. Climax

The climax in writing marks a change for the better or the worse in the central character's ( protagonist) affairs.
Statements are arranged in ascending order, the strongest last.
"But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hollow this ground. For my own part, I will put up with this state of things, passively, not an hour longer. I am not an unselfish person, nor an evangelical one; I have no particular pleasure in doing good; neither do I dislike doing it so much as to expect to be rewarded for it in another world. But I simply cannot paint, cannot read, nor look at minerals, nor do anything else I like, and the very light of the morning sky has become hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see signs of where I know it not, which no imagination can interpret too bitterly."

Steps to follow for reaching the climax

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Hyperbole: Uses far-fetched exaggeration

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2. Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a type of figurative speech in the English language and is obvious exaggerations. It is the use of great exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. The facts are strongly exaggerated and should not be understood literally. Sometimes hyperboles can be in the form of a simile. A simile compares two things using the words like and as.
Example: Her feet are as big as boats. (she has large feet). The dog was as big as my car. (the dog was bigger than most dogs). Rian is as tall as a giraffe. (Rian is very tall).
Example: "It seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind." "Candle in the Wind" Elton John
Example in Hamlet: "Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve into a dew" Act 1 scene ii

'Even the slight harebell raised its head
Elastic from her airy thread.'

Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
A hyperbole is a figure of speech, which uses specific words or phrases to exaggerate a statement for dramatic effect and emphasis. We also use hyperboles frequently in our day to day language.
Some examples include: “I haven’t seen you in ages”, “Something weighs a tonne” and “I am dying of shame”.

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