Transcript AP Language and Composition - Mahtomedi Senior High School

Figurative Language and
Sentence Structure Notes
These are words you will also
encounter on the APLAC exam!
Scheme? Trope?
• Scheme-- A change in standard word order or
pattern within a sentence
• figures of speech that deal with word order,
syntax, letters, and sounds, rather than the
meaning of words
• Trope-- The use of a word, phrase, or image in a
way not intended by its normal signification
(figurative language)
• figures of speech with an unexpected twist in
the meaning of words
Metaphor
• Implied comparison between two things alike
Example:
“A breeze blew through the room, blew the curtains
in at one end and out the other…twisting them up
towards the frosted wedding cake of a ceiling, and
then rippled over the wine-colored rug…”
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Simile
• Explicit comparison between two things of
unlike nature
Example:
“Ah, my, said Eustacia, with a laugh which
unclosed her lips so that the sun shone into
her mouth as into a tulip and lent it as
similar scarlet fire.” Hardy, The Return of
the Native
Synecdoche
• Figure of speech in which a part stands for
the whole
Example:
The British Crown has been plagued by
scandal.
There is no word from the Pentagon on the
new rumors from Somalia.
Metonymy
• Substitution of some attributive of suggestive
word for what is actually meant
• Literally means “name changing”
• METONYMY AND SYNECDOCHE ARE
TYPICALLY USED INTERCHANGABLY!
Example:
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and
sweat.” Churchill, 1940
“In Europe, we gave the cold shoulder to De Gualle,
and now he gives the warm hand to Mao Tsetung.” Nixon, 1960
Antanaclasis
• Repetition of a word in two different senses
Example:
“Your argument is sound…nothing but
sound.” Ben Franklin
"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will
be fired with enthusiasm.” Vince Lombardi
Personification
• Investing abstraction for inanimate objects
Examples:
“The night comes crawling in on all fours.” Lowery
“O beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.” Iago in Shakespeare's Othello
3.3.165-67
Hyperbole
• The use of exaggeration terms for the
purpose of emphasis or heightened effect
Example:
I slept for a million hours!
“We walked along a road in Cumberland and
stopped, because the sky hung so low.”
Wolfe, Look Homeward Angel
Litotes/Understatement
• Deliberate use of understatement where an
affirmation is made indirectly by denying its
opposite; frequently with a negative assertion
Example:
“It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on
the brain.” -J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Oh, he never drinks. No, not a drop. Ever. Never.
Meiosis/Understatement
• Deliberate use of an understatement when
something is referred to in terms less important
than it really deserves; it describes something that
is very impressive with simplicity
• AGAIN, MEIOSIS AND LITOTES ARE
OFTEN USED INTERCHANGABLY!!
Example:
“Tis but a flesh wound!” Monty Python
It was just my duty, ma’am. (after he saves her life)
Rhetorical Question
• Asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting
an answer but for the purpose of asserting or
denying something obliquely
Example:
“Isn’t it interesting that this person to whom you set
on your knees in your most private session at night
and you pray, doesn’t even look like you?”
Malcolm X
Irony
• Use of a word/idea in such a way as to convey a
meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the
word
• Dramatic
• Situational
• Verbal
Example:
Pushing that little girl into the mud was very kind,
indeed!
Onomatopoeia
• Use of words whose sounds echoes the
sense
Example:
The snap of the bone made me cringe.
She smacked him with the book!
Oxymoron
• The yoking of two terms which are ordinarily
contradictory
Example:
“The unheard sounds came through, each melodic
line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the
rest, said its piece, and waiting patiently for the
other voices to speak.” Ralph Ellison, The
Invisible Man
The New Old South Church in Boston, MA
Paradox
• An apparently contradictory statement that
nevertheless contains a measure of truth
Example:
He who loses life, shall find it.
“And yet, it was a strangely satisfying experience for
an invisible man to hear the silence of the sound.”
Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man
Euphemism
• Substituting a more favorable for a
pejorative or socially delicate term
• Example:
“I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next
door.”
“The which?”
“The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers
whose sanctuary adjoins these premises.”
SCHEMES
THE PATTERN OF
SENTENCES
Apostrophe
• Turning one's speech from one audience to
another.
• Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses an
abstraction (love or justice), to an inanimate object (a love
letter or the statute of justice), or to the absent (the exboyfriend/girlfriend or the jury)
• Example
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 3.1.254-257
Alliteration
• Repetition of the same letter or sound within
nearby words. Most often, repeated initial
consonants.
• Example
• Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door Only this, and nothing more.‘—The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe
Anaphora
• Repetition of the same word or group of words
at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences,
or lines.
• Example
• “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the
air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender…” –Winston Churchill
Antithesis
• Juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas
(often, although not always, in parallel structure)
• Example
• "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very
few virtues." —Abraham Lincoln
• "It can't be wrong if it feels so right" —Debbie Boone
Apposition
• Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory
or descriptive element.
• In grammar, this is called an appositive
• Example
• Albert Einstein, perhaps the greatest of scientists, seemed not to
have mastered the physics of hair combing.
• Upset by the bad call, the crowd cheered Robbie, a hot-tempered
tennis player who charged the umpire and tried to crack the poor
man's skull with a racket.
Asyndeton
• The omission of conjunctions between clauses,
often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement
effect.
• Example
• If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened,
at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is
One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed,
whose claims upon us we fear. --John Henry Newman
• In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee
things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books
come forth the laws of peace. --Richard de Bury
Polysyndeton
• Employing many conjunctions between clauses,
often slowing the tempo or rhythm.
• Example
• I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him
but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water
standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all
up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and
I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside
Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water.
—Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."
Climax
• Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or
clauses in an order of increasing importance,
often in parallel structure.
• Usually involving the repetition of the last word of
one clause or sentence at the beginning of the next
through several clauses or sentences
• Example
• But we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh
patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth
not, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the
Holy Ghost, who is given to us. —Romans 5, The New Testament
Parallelism
• Similarity of structure in a pair or series of
related words, phrases, or clauses.
• Example
• parallelism of words:
She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate.
• parallelism of phrases:
Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous.
• parallelism of clauses:
Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are abundant; but salmon
are best.
Zeugma
• A general term describing when one part of
speech (most often the main verb, but sometimes
a noun) governs two or more other parts of a
sentence (often in a series).
• Example
• Fred excelled at sports; Harvey at eating; Ashley with boys.
• Alexander conquered the world; I, Minneapolis.
• Mr. Glowry held his memory in high honor, and made a punchbowl
of his skull. –Thomas Love Peacock
What is it?
• In thy youth learn some craft that in thy age
thou mayest get thy living without craft.
(antanaclasis)
• I cleaned the entire house just because I
was bored.
(meiosis)
• He took my hand in marriage.
(metonymy/synecdoche)
• The school decided on the schedule for next year.
(synecdoche)
• Not bad.
(litotes)
• "Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Iraq,
and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole
that this is a million times worse than all of them
put together."
(hyperbole)
Format of Quiz
• An example of each one of these terms will
be provided
• There will be no word bank
• Some words may be on the quiz more than
once, some words may not be on the quiz at
all
**NOTE CARDS!**