Date: October 13-14, 2016

Topic: FIGURES OF SPEECH

Objectives:

Identify figures of speech that show comparison (simile metaphor, personification) - EN7V-
IIc-10.1.2; and
Identify figures of speech that show contrast (irony, oxymoron, paradox) - EN7V-IIg-10.1.3

Tasks:

1. Read and understand the figures of speech below.

2. Answer the given activities on a sheet of paper.

Discussion:

Although figurative language or figures of speech is used in our everyday speech and in
every kind of literature, it provides the very foundation of poetry.

Poetic images have been classified into the following figures of speech:

1. A simile is a comparison of two persons or things which are unlike in most respects. The
simile uses like or as to signal the comparison.

Examples:
 Our soldiers are as brave as lions.
 Her cheeks are red like a rose

2. A metaphor is an implied comparison between two persons or things which are unlike in
most respects. It does not use like or as.

Example:
 My brother was boiling mad
 Her voice is music to his ears

3. Metonymy is the use of one word for another which suggests it.

Example:
 The pen is mightier than the sword. (Pen refers to written words and sword to
military force.)
 Let me give you a hand. (Hand means help.)

4. Personification is the transfer of human characteristics to inanimate objects or abstract

qualities.

Example:
 Look at my car. She is a beauty, isn’t it so?
 The flowers danced in the gentle breeze.
5. Hyperbole is a statement greatly exaggerated for an aesthetic purpose.

Example:
 My grandmother is as old as the hills
 She is as heavy as an elephant!

6. A paradox is a statement that appears to be contradictory. It pairs two direct opposites as

if both could be true.

Example:
 Your enemy’s friend is your enemy
 Wise fool

7. Oxymoron is a specific kind of paradox. Most often the term is applied to successive words,
usually an adjective and a noun, that are contradictory.

Example:
 Open secret
 Seriously funny
 Liquid gas

8. In allusion, a passing reference is made to an important historical or literary figure or

event.

Example:
 “Don’t act like a Romeo in front of her.” – “Romeo” is a reference to Shakespeare’s
Romeo, a passionate lover of Juliet, in “Romeo and Juliet”
 “This place is like a Garden of Eden.” – This is a biblical allusion to the “garden of
God” in the Book of Genesis.

All these figures of speech are important, but of course merely identifying them is not
enough. One must able to recognize them and feel the force of the images they convey.
_____________________________________________________________________________
::Activity 1::

Tell what two things are compared in each of the following metaphors and similes. Is the
image effective? Why?

1. Friendship is the cementing of two minds.

- E. Chapman

2. Love is like flower: Friendship is a sheltering tree

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

3. Eternal smiles his emptiness

betray as shallow streams run
dimpling all the way.
- Edgar Allan Poe

4. He is as funny as a monkey.

5. Life is a string of many-colored beads.

::Activity 2::

I. Give what is asked for in the following items, pertaining to figures of speech used in the
given poems. (2 pts. each)

_________1. Identify the figure of speech used in the poem below.

One is amazed
By a water lily
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on a richer color
And new dimensions.

One is not amazed,

At first glance;
By a poem
Which is as tight-closed
As a tiny bud..
_________2. What figure of speech is used in the poem below?
The trees are undressing, and fling
In many places-
On the gray road, the roof, the window
Sill-

II. Using full sentences, describe the following things as if they are people. (2 pts. each)

Example: tuna fish sandwich

The soggy tuna fish sandwich drooled on the plate.

1. Morning sun
2. old chair
3. chiffon cake

III. Using the subjects below, create similes and metaphors to describe them. Use different
images for each. (2 pts. each).

Example: A falling leaf

Simile: A falling leaf is like a twirling ballerina.
Metaphor: A falling leaf is a spinning top.

1. a good basketball player

-Simile:
-Metaphor:

2. school
-Simile:
-Metaphor:

3. church
-Simile:
-Metaphor: