3.Figurative language1.3 Three examples of language features are identified using appropriate terminology, and each example is described in terms of its effect.

Range: language features could include - figures of speech, sound devices, choice of words, punctuation.

Pictures1. ImageryImagery is the general term to cover the use of words to suggest a picture, or sense experience, to the reader’s imagination.2.Direct descriptiona) Literal description. Often the poet simply describes what he sees e.g. artillery board set up…b) An image. This term is used when the poet focuses the reader’s attention or a particular detail of the scene, often with a particularly well-chosen adjective (epithet). An image can involve any of the senses e.g. i) the echoing air (line 4)

ii)The shadowed hills (line 3)iii) Summer leafage (line 9)

1. Description (imagery) by comparisonA) A simile. B) A metaphorC) Personification2. Other aids to description:A) Symbol e.g. the crossB) Allegory e.g. Pilgrim’s progress, a story which uses characters to represent ideas.C) Allusion e.g. Is this man another Hitler?D) Metonymy e.g. crown for kingE) Synecdoche (part for whole) e.g. the ship went down with all handsF) Hyperbole (exaggeration) e.g. I love you in a thousand waysG) Litotes (deliberate understatement) e.g. she’s not too badH) Paradox (seems absurd or self-contradictory) e.g. Death, thou shalt dieI) Oxymoron (a paradox which outs two opposites together) e.g. the noisy silence of the night.

a repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of

words (Tongue-Twister)She shops for shaggy

shoes.

Four frightened friends fell.

   Greg gulps great green

grapes!

Jerry jogs in June and July.

To help us remember a phase or key idea

It sounds interesting and alters the rhyme of a poem etc.

Drawing our attention to the line of a poem or passage or particular image

To slow down or speed up the pace of the text in order to create an atmosphere or mood

To place particular emphasis on a description e.g. crinkly, cragged crevices of his face makes him sound even more wrinkly than crinkled, wrinkly face

Example (underline the Alliteration) EffectDulce et decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Wilfred Owen(note the combination of b,d,g and harsh c sounds) From Urban Aboriginal

She was born with sand in her mouth,The whisper of wind in her hair;They washed her clean in warm wood ashAnd wrapped her in loving care. Jack Davis

Creates a musical effect. Can be used to highlight

imagery. Vowels can be long or short.

A short vowel is over quickly, while a long vowel takes time to say. All the vowels can be either long or short, depending on the word in which they appear. For instance, ‘I’ in sit is short, while the same letter in site is long.

Vowels can also e combined with each other to make a sound longer, as in ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain’. Repeating long or short vowels can have a significant effect on the rhythm of a poem.

Example (underline the Assonance) Effect

‘He climbed high, singing wildly,Clinging to the rock faceAlive, at last.’

Gas! GAS! Quick boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…

Wilfred Owen

The repetition of vowel sounds. It is a useful way for a poet to create or change the mood of the poem.

Black Cockatoos

A wet hissing of linen wings,screech-shaped beaks shreddingthe fine drizzle like torn silk;parrots, snub-skulled, blaringabout rain, acrobatic througha green trapeze of oblique pines,blunt heads shining like helmets.Their voices crag from coarse throatsancient as fear: they disappearas the first lightning flashes. Rod Moran

Early Autumn

The willow leaves look yellow and grey at the bottom of the pond,Bridling on black moss under the amber water,And all are traced with trembling flakes and nets.These are the polished ponds of early Autumn.

In Spring, the branch will billow with the willow’s milky thread;The same tense coolness in the air, like cancer.Those soft, bent, sore bright leaves are just as dead.What lives, intends; the dead become intenser. Harry Cummins

Comparing one thing with another.Many experiences, feelings, and ideas are difficult to express in words. Therefore we try to describe them by using comparisons, such as similes and metaphors.

We can make comparisons without "as" or "like".     Her gaze was icy.

This is a hidden comparison, and the technical name for it is a metaphor.

We distinguish between literal meanings and metaphorical meanings.     The footpath was icy. (literal meaning)     Her gaze was icy. (metaphorical meaning- figuratively- figurative language includes metaphors)     He couldn't digest anything the nurse gave him to eat. (literal meaning)     He couldn't digest anything the nurse told him. (metaphorical meaning)

We use metaphors all the time in

The whole enterprise had a fishy smell.     Your letter was buried under my papers.    

The salesman was a

They are frequently found in poetry:     My love is like a red, red rose     That's newly sprung in June:     My love is like the melodie      That's sweetly played in tune.

Metaphors

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,An elephant, a ponderous house,A melon strolling on two tendrils.O red freuit, ivory, fine timbers!This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.Money’s new- minted in this fat purse.I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

Sylvia Plath.

Example (underline the Metaphor) EffectIt’s not like you to say sorryI was waiting on a different storyThis time I’m mistakenFor handing you a heart worth breakingAnd I’ve been wrong, I’ve been down,To the bottom of every bottleIt’s the words in my headScream are we having fun yet? Yeah yeahAre we having fun yet [3x]Nickelback- How you remind meWilliam Wordsworth – Poems I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay,

An aspect of metaphor is personification (Latin persona: "character", "person").

In personification, the non-human is identified with the human or given human characteristics.     Cricket has been good to me.     Life dealt him a heavy blow.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee     Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,     For, those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,     Die not, poor death [...]John Donne: Holy Sonnets, X

It also appears in children's books.     "There are the trees," said the Beaver. "They're always listening. Most of them are on our side, but there are trees that would betray us to her; you know who I mean."

C. S. Lewis: The Lion,

the Witch and the Wardrobe

Brings things alive Makes the poem more

vivid, more appealing to our senses.

Personification has given a character to the subjects in each of these poems.

Example (underline the Personification) EffectLiving Alone

The morning, carsdrum the road. Sunlightprowls on the carpet.The radio licks at you ear. John FoulcherRhythms18

The sea’s white teethNibble the cliff;The cliff is a man unafraid.

She eats his strengthLittle by little,His might will be lostIn her depths Charles Reznikoff

An extended comparison is called an analogy.

These are frequently used in academic writing to assist understanding or used to explain something that you are talking about by drawing on the listeners prior knowledge so that they can understand what you are talking about.

For example, the relationships between different European languages are very often described in terms of a family tree, with many languages descending from the ancestral language, Indo-European. In this analogy, languages are born and die like people; they have offspring (usually daughters) and close and distant relations.

To explain a complex idea or statement by comparing it to another, familiar idea of statement.

Draws on our prior knowledge to help us understand

Helps create a mental picture of what he/she is talking about.

Example (underline the Analogy) EffectJane Brimblecombe A poem

To write a poemis to go hunting;capturing a partof a person or an hourin a cage of words.Robert Francis - Glass

Words of a poem should be glassBut glass so simple-subtle its shapeIs nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.Embossed glass hides the poem or its absence.

Words should be looked through, should be windows.The best word were invisible.The poem is the thing the poet thinks.

If the impossible were not,And if the glass, only the glass,Could be removed, the poem would remain.

A brief figurative or symbolic reference within a literary text to a familiar person, place, event, or thing outside the text.  It is also a process of alluding.Act of Alluding - the act of making an indirect reference to somebody or something.

 a. He was a Hercules of a man.strong, take on anything

b. Amanda is a real Cinderella.              works a lot around the house, cooking and cleaning

c. Shaun is a Sleeping Beauty.sleepy, can sleep through anything, hard to wake up

Example (underline the Allusion) EffectStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost"Christy didn't like to spend money. She was no Scrooge, but she seldom purchased anything except the bare necessities".

Placing the reader in the setting

Making the characters more realistic

The writer expressing themselves in a language they are familiar with.

Creating vivid images and effects

Colloquialisms can include words (such as "gonna" or "grouty"), phrases (such as "ain't nothin'" and "dead as a doornail"), or sometimes even an entire aphorism ("There's more than one way to skin a cat"). Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. Colloquialisms are often used primarily within a limited geographical area.In some areas, overuse of colloquialisms by native speakers is regarded as a sign of substandard ability with the language. However, in the mouth of a non-native speaker, they are sometimes taken as signaling unusual facility with the language as they may be more difficult for non-native speakers to understand.

Slang Jargon Idiom

From The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County By Mark TwainThere was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of   '49—or maybe it was the spring of   '50—I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him—any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dogfight, h! ! e'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp meeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddlebug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddlebug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him—he would bet on anything—the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked ho! ! w she was, and he said she was considerable better—thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy—and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."

Example (underline the Colloquialism) EffectI'm an educated fool with my knee on my mindGot my 10 in my hand and a gleam in my eyeI'm a loped out gangsta set trippin bangerAnd my homies is down so gonna rouse my anger ... foolDeath aint nothing but a heart beat awayI'm living life do or die, what can I sayI'm 23 never will I live to see 24The way things is going I don't know Gangsta’s Paradise- CoolioFleur Adcock RicheyMy great-grandfather Richey Brooks Began in mud: at Moneymore;‘a place of mud and nothing else’ he called it (not the way it looks, but what lies under those green hills?)Emigrated in ’74; Ended in Drury: mud again – Slipped in the duck-run at nighty-three(wouldn’t give up keeping poultry, always had to farm something).

Hyperbole is exaggeration for dramatic effect. The common example is a parent telling a teenager, “I’ve told you a million times to clean your room!” We know the parent is unlikely to have issued the order one million time, but the parent is trying to express frustration. Hyperbole is used in daily speech, so realistic characters will resort to hyperbole sometimes. It is important to avoid overuse of hyperbole, even though it is a prominent part of daily interactions.

Hyperbole makes exaggerated comparisons for effect.  Sometimes these can be very funny.  They are often used in fairy tales and tall tales to make the story interesting.

A deliberate exaggeration which is used to emphasize a feeling or produce a humorous effect e.g. I could eat a horse

The pavement was so hot our feet fried.                He was so tall his head touched the clouds.

Our teacher gives us one trillion homework assignments every night!

The boy felt like he had a million dollars!

Diamond’s wet shoes weigh a ton

Example (underline the Hyperbole) EffectAndrew Marvell employed hyperbole throughout To His Coy Mistress:

An hundred years should go to praiseThine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;Two hundred to adore each breast;But thirty thousand to the rest …

Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet

Take all day—and sometimes two—

To get to school?

—John Ciardi, "Speed Adjustments"

It is like colloquialism and helps place the reader in the story or poems Can often be used to aid in rhythm and rhyming Can be used to create an image in a simple, understandable way.

Example:            “The pen is mightier than the sword.” 

What is meant by this statement is that speech is stronger than fighting with weapons.  The pen is a power of literature (writing) and the sword is a military power (wounding).

 Example:              Another example of metonymy is one that is used quite often in everyday language.  Someone may say, “John is parked out back and may not start.” But what the person really meant to say is that John’s car is parked out back and the car may have trouble starting.

 Example:            Another example would be, “He was an avid reader of Chaucer.” The poems of the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer are meant.

Metonymy is when a word represents a group. Over time, we shorten phrases to single words. Instead of saying, “the British soldiers in red coats are coming,” the warning became, “The Redcoats are coming!” Slang is often “metonymy” — especially racial slurs. “Okie” is metonymy, representing the poor migrants from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. Sadly, there are many examples of negative metonymy. “Yankee go home!” the mob shouted. 

Example (underline the Metonymy) EffectDelmore Schwartz - For The One Who Would Take Man's Life In His Hands Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword,Threw it down, became a lamb.Swift spat upon the species, butTook two women to his heart.Samson who was strong as deathPaid his strength to kiss a slut.Othello that stiff warriorWas broken by a woman's heart.Troy burned for a sea-tax, also forPossession of a charming whore.What do all examples show?What must the finished murderer know?

You cannot sit on bayonets,Nor can you eat among the dead.When all are killed, you are alone,A vacuum comes where hate has fed.Murder's fruit is silent stone,The gun increases poverty.With what do these examples shine?The soldier turned to girls and wine.Love is the tact of every good,The only warmth, the only peace.

a formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions

The clucking chickens were running after the farmers.

When the sound of the word imitates or suggests the meaning or noise of the action described. Writers use sound words to help the reader experience what is happening by recalling the sound that something makes and thereby improving the reader’s ability to understand what is being described e.g. the BUZZ of a chainsaw.

The buzzing butterflies flew all around us.

The loud bang frightened me.

The popcorn went zip, zap, and pop.

We found the squeaky mouse in the reading tree.

The barking dog was chasing the croaking frog.

Example (underline the Onomatopoeia) EffectThe MagpiesWhen Tom and Elizabeth took the farmThe bracken made their bed,And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodleThe magpies said.

Tom's hand was strong to the ploughElizabeth's lips were red,And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodleThe magpies said.

Year in year out they workedWhile the pines grew overhead,And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodleThe magpies said.

But all the beautiful crops soon wentTo the mortgage-man instead,And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodleThe magpies said.

Elizabeth is dead now (it's years ago)Old Tom went light in the head:And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodleThe magpies said.

The farm's still there. Mortgage corporationsCouldn't give it away.And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodleThe magpies say.

Magpies- Denis GloverJames K. Baxter The axe-blade

Watching my father sharpen a notched axe-bladeOn the lurching grindstone

Worked by a treadle, I liked the whirr that it madeAnd the way the steel shone

Star-bright when gouts of water playedOn the grit, no guessing from the edge’s groan

How year by year the lurching world would abradeNerve, heart, mind, flesh, bone.

conjoining contradictory terms

My sister is perfectly wrong!

I like to wear long shorts.

My friend had a sad smile.

We love jumbo shrimp!

We made an educated guess, if we were not sure about an answer.

My friend is awfully nice.

A humorous effect Sometimes colloquial

Example (underline the Oxymoron) EffectDonald Justice - Poem

This poem is not addressed to you.You may come into it briefly,But no one will find you here, no one.You will have changed before the poem will.

Even while you sit there, unmovable,You have begun to vanish. And it does no matter.The poem will go on without you.It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.

It is not sad, really, only empty.Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why.It prefers to remember nothing.Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

Your type of beauty has no place here.Night is the sky over this poem.

It is too black for stars.And do not look for any illumination.

You neither can nor should understand what it means.Listen, it comes with out guitar,Neither in rags nor any purple fashion.And there is nothing in it to comfort you.

Close your eyes, yawn. It will be over soon.You will forge the poem, but not beforeIt has forgotten you. And it does not matter.It has been most beautiful in its erasures.

O bleached mirrors! Oceans of the drowned!Nor is one silence equal to another.And it does not matter what you think.This poem is not addressed to you.

In everyday language, we describe things by comparing them with other things.

She was as brave as a

These comparisons are straightforward and are sometimes called open comparisons. The words "as" or "like" tell us comparisons are being made. The technical name for these comparisons is similes.      Her gaze was like ice.

A phrase that compares two things, using ‘like’ or ‘as’. A simile works by suggesting the two things have characteristics that are similar. Similes are sued by writers and poets to help us picture in our minds what they are writing about. Similes add colour and vitality to writing.

He was as silly as a headless chook.

 His face felt like sandpaper.

She addressed the children like a sergeant-major.

Example (underline the Similes) EffectFlint Christina Rossetti An emerald is as green as grass,A ruby red as blood;A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant stone,To catch the world's desire;An opal holds a fiery spark;But a flint holds a fire.

From Bon Jovi’s In These Arms

You want commitment

Take a look into these eyes

They burn with a fire, just for you now

Until the end of time

I would do anything

I’d beg, I’d steal, I’d die

To have you in these arms tonight

Baby I want you like the roses

Want the rain

You know I need you

Like a poet needs the pain

I would give anything

My blood my love my life

; . , :

Some poems have no punctuation

For the past half a century, visual poets have increased the visual aspect of their work while reducing the verbal aspect, all while still claiming these works were poems.

A mark of punctuation invites the reader to pause. The pause, or silence, obviously affects the movement or flow of the lines. By running on line straight onto the next (run-on line or enjambment) or by pausing in the middle of a line (caesura), the poet can vary the rhythm of his poem. If there was a pause at the end of every line (end-stopped line), the poem would seem become rhythmically dull.

What can you say about the punctuation in this poem? EffectJames K. Baxter The axe-blade Watching my father sharpen a notched axe-bladeOn the lurching grindstone

Worked by a treadle, I liked the whirr that it madeAnd the way the steel shone

Star-bright when gouts of water playedOn the grit, no guessing from the edge’s groan

How year by year the lurching world would abradeNerve, heart, mind, flesh, bone.

Fleur Adcock RicheyMy great-grandfather Richey Brooks Began in mud: at Moneymore;‘a place of mud and nothing else’ he called it (not the way it looks, but what lies under those green hills?)Emigrated in ’74; Ended in Drury: mud again – Slipped in the duck-run at nighty-three(wouldn’t give up keeping poultry,

always had to farm something).Caught pneumonia; died saying‘Do you remember Martha Hamilton of the Oritor Road?’ – still courting the same girl in his mind. And she lived after him, fierce widow, in their daughter’s house; watched the plumtree- the gnarled, sappy branches, the yellow fruit. Ways of living and dying.

When words or phrases are repeated in a line or poem.

Where words and/or phrases are repeated for emphasis or special effect e.g. It was cold that night, very, very cold.

The Highwayman a poem by Alfred Noyes 

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor, And the highwayman came ridingRiding ridingThe highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door. 

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin; He'd a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin. They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh! And he rode with a jeweled twinkleHis rapier hilt a-twinkleHis pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky. 

Example (underline the repetition) EffectThe Beatle’s- Yesterday

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

Now it looks as though they’re here to stayOh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be,

There’s a shadow hanging over me.Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

 Why she had to go I don’t know she wouldn’t say.I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.Now I need a place to hide away.Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Mm mm mm mm mm.

SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER  When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry "Weep! weep! weep! weep!" So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said, "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

An expression that plays on different meanings of the same word or phrase.

Gravity, it's always putting everyone down.

If a priest is called a white collar worker, then a nun would be a creature of habit.

Using deodorant is no sweat. The riot at Macy's was called a shopping maul.

It may draw attention to an idea or create a humorous effecte.g. Mercutio, mortally wounded, says : “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.”

?

?Shall I compare thee to a

summers day Sonnet 18 

William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

Rhetorical questions are used to involve the audience and make them consider the idea proposed e.g. Do students hate doing homework?

Example (underline the Rhetorical questions) EffectRAINDROP FEELINGS

I wonder if they like being raindrops?I suppose they doThey always have friends around themThey never travel aloneSome people save them to wash their hairThey make trees grow---Tierra Jones

The Star Spangled Bannerby Francis Scott Key

Oh! say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, 

A question which is designed to make a vivid suggestion rather than demand an answer. The speaker is inviting the agreement of the audience. If the answer is not immediately obvious to the audience it will be provided by the questioner directly after the question.

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? 

Choice of words- Writers can sometimes use odd or unusual choices of words for different effects. For example, in An Angel at my Table Janet Frame wrote a poem as a young girl. She had an argument with her sister about which word was appropriate for the poem (Janet had written about something “touching” the sky, which was an unusual way to word the phrase, so her sister argued that it was meant to be “tint the sky”. Janet’s words, of course, despite being unusual, sounded the best).

Basically diction refers to the poet's choice of words. Poets are sensitive to the subtle shades of meanings of words and to the possible double meanings of words.

The writer creates or expresses their own distinct style.

Create different visual images or effects

Diction or Word Choice: Is the language colloquial, formal, simple, unusual?

What general term would you use to describe the author's choice of words--artificial an stilted, highly ornate, Latinate, archaic, abstract, conversational or colloquial, rhetorical sentimental, intensely emotional, trite, etc."

Does the author rely heavily on unusual words? Why?

Does he rely heavily on simple colloquial language? Why?

What words seem significant--connotative or suggestive of figurative meaning? How are these words related to their context?

Does the poet's desire to present musical effects (meter or rhyme) influence his choice of words? If this influence is heavy, is the quality of the poem marred?

Does the author's time or environment have anything to do with the language he uses? Do any of the words he uses have different meanings today?

Can you substitute words of your own for some used by the author? Which are better? Why? Does the experiment help you understand the difference between poetic diction an ordinary diction?

Lend me your ears. - give me your attentionFifty head - 50 head of cattle

The house was built by 40 hands. - it was built by 20 people1.  Look at my wheels.2.  Let’s count noses.3.  All hands on deck.4.  He legged to town.

5.  She knew her ABC’s.

Synecdoche - a whole is represented by naming one of its parts or vice

versa.

The Hand That Signed The PaperThe hand that signed the paper

felled a city;Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,The finger joints are cramped with chalk;A goose's quill has put an end to murderThat put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,And famine grew, and locusts came;Great is the hand that holds dominion overMan by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not softenThe crusted wound nor pat the brow;A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;Hands have no tears to flow.

Advertising Language

Alliteration - recurrence for effect of same letter or sound in several words or phrase.

Cliches - hackneyed phrase or opinion.

Colloquial language - belonging or proper to ordinary or familiar conversation, not formal or literary.

Comparatives - adjectives.

Compound words - made up of two words.

Emotive language - to excite or arouse feeling.

Exclamations - exclaiming.

Hyperbole - statement exaggerated for special effect.

Imperatives - of mood expressing command; peremptory.

Jargon - words or expressions used by particular group or profession.

Metaphors - a word picture, you say something is something else or speak as though it is something else.

Neologisms - newly- coined word.

Puns - humorous use of word to suggest different meanings, or of words of same sound with different meanings.

Rhetorical questions - asked not for information but to produce effect.