Figure of speech

1. Simile (So sánh): A comparison that reveals similarities between otherwise dissimilar
things. My love is like a red, red rose.
He seemed bright like the sun when I met him last.
You are as sweet as honey.
2. Metaphor (Ẩn dụ): a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a
word or phrase ordinarily used for one thing is applied to another.
Metaphor may be grouped according to their parts of speech:
Noun:
She was breathing fire.
The lash of his words.
A flash of hope.
Bloom of youth
Adjective: Stony heart, burning eye, smiling sun, angry sea.
Verb:
His eyes flashed angrily.
Fortune has smiled on his family.
He threw himself in the mercy of court
* Extended metaphor: expressed through a series of images all bearing some a central
point of resemblance:
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief.
* Dead metaphor: Some words and phrases were originally metaphors or similes but as
they are so often used, the metaphorical characteristic is lost.
The foot of the hill
The face of a clock.
3. Personification (Nhân cách hóa): a figure of speech which gives the qualities of a
person to be an animal an object or an idea.
The writer uses it to show something in an entirely new light, to communicate a certain
feeling or attitude towards it and to control the way a reader perceives it.
The sun glared down at me from the sky.
The ocean danced in the moonlight.
I could hear Hawaii calling my name.
4. Apostrophe (Hô ngữ): Direct address to a person (often dead or absent), an
abstraction or thing often personified.
Ex: Oh, rose, how sweet you smell and how bright you look!
5. Hyperbole (Overstatement) (Cường điệu, nói quá): an exaggerated statement not
meant to be taken
literally but made for a special effect
Ex: He has a pea-sized brain.
6. Litotes: (understatement) (Nói giảm): the expression of an affirmative by the
negative of its
contrary.
Ex: Referring big destruction to just an accident
7. Pun (Chơi chữ): The humorous use of a word or combination of words that are alike
or nearly
alike in sound so as to emphasize different meanings
Ex: “The cafeteria staff requests sidekicks stop ordering hero sandwiches.”
8. Paradox (Nói ngược): to cause surprise or arrest attention.
Ex: "If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness,"
9. Antithesis (Đối nghịch, phản đề): A striking contrast of ideas marked by the choice
and arrangement of
words in the same sentence to secure emphasis.
Ex: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom; it was
the age of foolishness.”
10. Oxymoron (Nghịch hợp): A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory
terms appear in conjunction for startling effect
Ex:
- I am busy doing nothing
- Know secret
- Orderly confusion
- Deafening silence
- Awfully nice
11. Euphemism (Nói tránh, uyển ngữ): The use of pleasant, mild, or indirect phrases in
place of more accurate or direct ones
Ex:
- The car isn't used; it's “certified pre-owned.”
- She's not sick; she's “under the weather.”
- He's not a liar; he's “creative with the truth.”
- They're not in a sexual relationship; they're “friends with benefits.”
- People don't go to prison; it's a “correctional facility.”
12. Climax (Tăng): the arrangement of a series of ideas in the order of more or less
importance
Ex:
- Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget
- Look! Up in sky; It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s superman
- If you think that is bad it gets worse
- There are three things that will endorse faith, hope, and love. But the greatest is love.
13. Synecdoche (Hoán dụ một phần): The use of a part to stand for a whole, the whole
for a part, an individual name for a whole class, the material for the thing made of that
material, the concrete for the abstract.
Example: "The captain commands one hundred sails" is a synecdoche that uses "sails" to
refer to ships—ships being the thing of which a sail is a part.
14. Metonymy (Hoán dụ toàn phần): The use of the name of one object for that of
another with which it is closely associated or of which it is a part. It is also the use of the
sign for the thing signified, the instrument for the agent, the container for what is
contained.
Example: take the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” which contains two
examples of metonymy. “Pen” and “sword” are everyday words, but when substituted for
“written words” and “military force” their meaning become much more symbolic.
15. Transferred epithet (Đặt biệt danh): a qualifying adjective is changed from the
noun it is intended to qualify to another word which is somewhat in connection with that
noun.
Example: "I had a wonderful day." The day is not in itself wonderful. The speaker had a
wonderful day. The epithet "wonderful" actually describes the kind of day the speaker
experienced.