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The Basics: Figurative Language Great Tools To Spice Up Your Writing!

Figurative Language ~ great tools to spice up your writing! provides examples of 8 common types of figurative language: alliteration, assonance, hyperbole, idiom, metaphor, onomatopoeia, personification, and simile. Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds, assonance repetition of vowel sounds, hyperbole exaggeration, idiom expressions unique to a language, metaphor comparing two unlike things, onomatopoeia imitating sounds, personification giving human traits to non-human things, and simile comparing two things using "like" or "as". The document aims to familiarize readers with these figurative language techniques and their definitions through examples from literature.

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SaraAnn Keshane
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85 views

The Basics: Figurative Language Great Tools To Spice Up Your Writing!

Figurative Language ~ great tools to spice up your writing! provides examples of 8 common types of figurative language: alliteration, assonance, hyperbole, idiom, metaphor, onomatopoeia, personification, and simile. Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds, assonance repetition of vowel sounds, hyperbole exaggeration, idiom expressions unique to a language, metaphor comparing two unlike things, onomatopoeia imitating sounds, personification giving human traits to non-human things, and simile comparing two things using "like" or "as". The document aims to familiarize readers with these figurative language techniques and their definitions through examples from literature.

Uploaded by

SaraAnn Keshane
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Figurative Language 

~ great tools to spice up your writing! 


THE BASICS         

Have you ever had a book that you just could not put down? Well more than likely
that book was filled with figurative language. Figurative Language is a wonderful
way to spice up your writing. The writer can use a variety of types of figurative
language in an attempt to make their words jump off the pages and captivate their
reader. Below are 8 types of figurative language. I'm sure you will recognize most
of them from various pieces of work that you have read over the years.

These are 8 types of Figurative Language with Examples.

1. Alliteration: is the repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of words.


Examples:  
Sweet smell of success!
Now or never.
Alliteration is fun to say and enjoyable to hear. Without knowing it, you probably
use alliteration to call attention to certain words. Many familiar phrases and
expressions use alliteration. These include "down in the dumps," "hale and
hearty," and "turn the tables." Tongue twisters rely on alliteration.: "rubber baby
buggy bumpers..

2. Assonance: is the repetition of a vowel sound within words. Writers sometimes


repeat vowel sounds to reinforce the meaning of the words. It also helps to create
moods. Here, the long o sounds mysterious.
Example: Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living
things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came.

3. Hyperbole: is exaggeration. It puts a picture into the "reader" mind. Hyperbole


is frequently used in humorous writing.
Example: You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Hyperbole is used for emphasis or humorous effect. With hyperbole, an author
makes a point by overstatingting it. 
Examples:
At three weeks, Paul Bunyan got his family into a bit of trouble kicking around his
little tootsies and knocking down something like four miles of standing timber.
The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight as the skin of onion and her
eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two picks
—Flannery O’Connor, "Parker’s Back"

4. Idiom: An idiom or idiomatic expression refers to a construction or expression


in one language that cannot be matched or directly translated word-for-word in
another language. For instance, the English expression, "She has a bee in her
bonnet," meaning "she is obsessed," cannot be literally translated into another
language word for word. It's a non-literal idiomatic expression, akin to "She is
green with envy." 
Example: A piece of cake is an expression that doesn't really have anything to do
with eating, but rather refers to how easy some task might be.

5. Metaphor:  A metaphor is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that


have something in common. The comparison is made without the use
of like or as. In the following example, the sun is compared to a flower. 
I think the sun is a flower, 
That blooms for just one hour.
("All Summer in a Day"}

6. Onomatopoeia: The use of words to imitate sounds is called


onomatopoeia. Bang, pop, hiss, and sizzle are examples.
 Example: Bang, went the starter gun to begin the race.

7. Personification: is giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or


characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas).
Example: “A smiling moon, shone down upon the little town at Christmas.”

8. Simile: comparing two things using ‘like’ or ‘as’.


Example: He eats like a pig.
                She ran as fast as the wind. 

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