Make sure you are aware of these terms and can provide a definition and an example of each one.
literal language- language that is true to fact. It uses words in accordance with their actual (literal) meanings. My dog is a carnivore. I am tired.
figurative language- language that makes comparisons between unrelated things or ideas, in order to show something about a subject. In the kitchen, my dog is a tap dancer.
Types of Figurative Language:
metaphor- literally means transference in Greek. The writer transfers qualities of one thing to another thing. A metaphor has two parts: A=B; something is something else. The B part, the something else, shows how the poet feels about or sees the A part.
example: “Thumb”
The odd, friendless boy raised by four aunts.- Philip Dacey
simile- from Latin and means similar. A kind of metaphor that uses like or as to compare two things. A is like B.
example:
Thumder threatens
Like a sound that rolls around and around
In a mean dog’s throat.
Martha Sherwood
personification: From Greek, meaning ‘face’ or ‘mask’; a metaphor that gives human or physical qualities to an object, animal, or idea.
example: ”The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes.” T.S. Eliot
alliteration- the repetition of beginning sounds in a line: slippery snake, fantastic photo
onomatopoeia- words that imitate the sounds made.
buzz, crunch, whoosh, flip flop, drip drop, pitter patter, sniff,
Sometimes I feel like a robot, sometimes I just know not
what I’m doin I just blow, my head is a stove top
I just explode, the kettle gets so hot
Eminem, 8mile
Eminem is saying he doesn’t know what he is doing when he is writing his songs.
he gets angry and mad