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SCMP Reporter

A figure of speech is the name given to the device used by writers to make their writing immediate and interesting to the reader.

You are already very familiar with the two most common figures of speech, the simile and metaphor.

We will look at some others this week. I hope that this will encourage you to try them out  yourself, as well as helping you to look out for their use in the writing that you read and have to comment upon.

Antithesis means balancing one idea against another. It is an economical and effective way of   comparing and contrasting ideas.

It is often used to balance ideas that are opposite in meaning. It was used greatly by the writer Oscar Wilde:

'To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to  lose both looks like carelessness.'

The effect here is of ironic humour.

The antithesis gives the speaker a tone of great superiority. The conscious use of antithesis shows the speaker's ability to rise above the situation, take an objective view and express it succinctly and wittily.

You can also make use of antithesis when writing a piece expressing argument or opinion:

'The government wants power; the people want democracy.'

'You want to pass your exams; you spend too much time watching television.'

Notice that the antithesis points out two desires; the implication is that they are contradictory.

The use of antithesis gives the reader the job of drawing out the conclusion for himself - that he needs to stop watching so much television if he wants to pass his exams.

Also notice that the semi-colon  is a useful piece of punctuation with which to balance the two sides of the antithesis.

Hyperbole is the deliberate use of exaggeration for emphasis:

'I feel a million times better now that you have come to see me.'

'You are late with your homework more times than there are rice grains in China.'

Hyperbole can often be quite funny. This is always useful as a writer, because if you entertain your readers and get them on your side, they will be more likely to agree with your point of view.

Onomatopoeia is a device whereby the sound of a word conveys its meaning:

'The boy splashed in the puddle.'

The verb 'splash' is onomatopoeic because it echoes the sound of the action it describes. 'Bang, crash, thud, zap, whine' are all onomatopoeic.

Poets often use a variety of devices in order to make whole lines sound onomatopoeic:

'The moan of doves in immemorial elms

And murmuring of innumerable bees'.

The repetition of similar sounds in these words captures the sound of the bees buzzing around, and   the lazy, drowsy atmosphere of the afternoon that the poet wants to convey to the reader.

Poets also make use of alliteration. This is when the first letter of a word is repeated:

'He clasps the cliff with slender claws.'

This description of a bird creates the sense of hardness and strength of the situation through the alliteration of the hard consonant 'c'. Listen to how the sibilance (sound of the letter 's') creates the sound and movement of the snake in this line:

'The snake slithered slowly down the sloping branch.'

The use of alliteration helps to create the meaning wanted by the writer and also makes the lines memorable.

They stick in our minds for longer as a result of the alliteration making the lines distinctive.

Personification gives the qualities or emotions of a human being to an inanimate or non-human  object. Sometimes the personification is obvious:

'Earth wept at the destruction of her forests.'

The Earth is an inanimate object. It cannot literally cry, and neither can it really be referred to as feminine.

However, the use of personification makes us feel sorry for the Earth as if it were a person.

We are more likely to  feel moved to stop destroying the forests as a result of thinking of Earth as a human.

Here the personification is not so obvious:

'The birds were chattering in the trees.'

Birds do not chatter, but human beings do.

The personification makes us feel as if the birds are having a conversation just like humans. As a result, it makes us feel more sympathy with them than might otherwise be the case.



Understanding figures of speech