Tone and Figurative Language

Tone and Figurative Language Tone -Sound property of your speech. Includes the lyricism, rhythm, and rhyme, musical considerations, and the oral figurative language. Figurative language - Use of words that represent other meanings. Basic elements: 1. Understatement -Used to underscore an important idea with an ironic twist. It extenuates the obvious and highlights the insignificant elements of a topic. E.g. „Churchill was a good golfer.‟ 2. Allusion

-Hints at a topic but never comes right out and says what it really is. Listeners are left to draw their own inference. E.g. A child suggesting, „The hot dogs at A&W are yummy‟, but never saying that he actually wanted to eat there.

3. Hyperbole

Opposite of understatement. Blows everything out of proportion: It turns a common cold into fatal emphysema; it transform puppy love into Romeo and Juliet. Hyperbole is overstatement.

4. Juxtaposition

-Places opposite ideas side by side to create a new truth, much like a paradox or oxymoron. E.g.: “The soldier died to preserve life.”/ “ Hand me that diet ice-cream.”

5. Metaphor or simile- Two primary forms of comparison. A metaphor is an implied comparison not using like or as. It is a figure of speech denoting an object or an idea. E.g. Defining a camel as a „desert boat‟. A simile is an implied comparison using likeor as. E.g.:‟I‟m as hungry as a bear.” 6. Personification

-Occurs if you give human characteristics to nonhumans. When the wind whispers, the trees dance in the breeze, or a car sighs with relief, you have personification.

7. Irony

- Arises when something happens that is the opposite of what you expect. Usually irony involves a twist of fate or having a plot which backfires.

8. Sound devices

-The musical variations. The basic four are:  Alliteration- repetition of initial sounds in words next to each other (e.g.‟big boys buy bread in baskets.‟)  Onomatopoeia – making words from sounds (e.g. tick-tock, clang..)

 Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds in words next to each other (e.g.: „the rare and radiant maiden‟)  Consonance – repetition of consonant sounds in words next to each other - particularly at the end of the stressed syllable (e.g.: kill, sell) 9. Poetry – Basic elements to know:  Meaning and Value  Speaker of poem  Subject  Narrative or epic  Lyrical poetry  Tone of voice  Gender – masculine (final syllable) & feminine (not final syllable) rhymes  Diction – words chosen to put into poem  Imagery  Poetry allusions –references in a poem to something or someone great or famous  Syntax –order of words to put into the poem  Theme – human motifs that contribute to the meaning (love, hate, jealousy, other emotions)