Figurative Sense
   HOME





Figurative Sense
The distinction between literal and figurative language exists in all natural languages; the phenomenon is studied within certain areas of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. *Literal language is the usage of words exactly according to their direct, straightforward, or conventionally accepted meanings: their denotation. *Figurative (or non-literal) language is the usage of words in addition to, or deviating beyond, their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complex meaning or achieve a heightened effect. This is done by language-users presenting words in such a way that their audience equates, compares, or associates the words with normally unrelated meanings. A common intended effect of figurative language is to elicit audience responses that are especially emotional (like excitement, shock, laughter, etc.), aesthetic, or intellectual. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, and later the Roman rhetorician Quintilian, w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Natural Language
A natural language or ordinary language is a language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change. It can take different forms, typically either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages are distinguished from constructed and formal languages such as those used to program computers or to study logic. Defining natural language Natural languages include ones that are associated with linguistic prescriptivism or language regulation. ( Nonstandard dialects can be viewed as a wild type in comparison with standard languages.) An official language with a regulating academy such as Standard French, overseen by the , is classified as a natural language (e.g. in the field of natural language processing), as its prescriptive aspects do not make it constructed enough to be a constructed language or controlled enough to be a controlled natural language. Natural language are different from: * artificial and constructed la ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Figure Of Speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or Denotation, literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into ''scheme (linguistics), schemes'', which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and ''trope (literature), tropes'', where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify. An example of a scheme is a polysyndeton: the repetition of a conjunction before every element in a list, whereas the conjunction typically would appear only before the last element, as in "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"—emphasizing the danger and number of animals more than the Prose, prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as someth ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's home in Amherst. Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence. Although Dickinson was a prolific writer, her only publications during her lifetime were one letter and 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems. The poems published then were usua ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Personification
Personification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person, often as an embodiment or incarnation. In the arts, many things are commonly personified, including: places, especially cities, National personification, countries, and continents; elements of the natural world, such as trees, the Deities and personifications of seasons, four seasons, the "four elements", the Anemoi, four cardinal winds, and the Sense, five senses; moral abstractions, especially the four cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins; the nine Muses; and Personifications of death, death. In many polytheistic early religions, deity, deities had a strong element of personification, suggested by descriptions such as "god of". In ancient Greek religion, and the related ancient Roman religion, this was perhaps especially strong, in particular among the minor deities. Many such deities, such as the or tutelary deities for major cities, survived the arrival of Christianity, now as symbolic personif ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oink (sound), ''oink'', ''meow'', ''roar'', and ''Bird vocalization, chirp'', among other sounds such as ''Beep (sound), beep'' or ''hiccup''. Onomatopoeia can differ by language: it conforms to some extent to the broader natural language, linguistic system. Hence, the sound of a clock may be expressed variously across languages: as ' in English language, English, in Spanish language, Spanish and Italian language, Italian (see photo), in Standard Chinese, Mandarin, in Japanese language, Japanese, or in Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali language, Bengali. Etymology and terminology The word ''onomatopoeia'', with rarer spelling variants like ''onomatopeia'' and ''onomatopœia'', is an English word from the Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek com ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dilys Rose
Dilys Rose is a Scottish fiction writer and poet. Born in 1954 in Glasgow, Rose studied at Edinburgh University, where she taught creative writing from 2002 until 2017. She was Director of the MSc in Creative Writing by Online Learning from 2012 to 2017. She is currently a Royal Literary Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Her third novel ''Unspeakable'' was published by Freight Books in 2017. Awards and honours Rose has won many awards, including the Canongate Prize, the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition, and a Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award; she has also been awarded a Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. Membership of the society is open to "anyon ... travel bursary and a UNESCO City of Literature exchange fellowship. Her poem 'Sailmaker's Palm' won the 2006 McCa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Extended Metaphor
An extended metaphor, also known as a conceit or sustained metaphor, is the use of a single metaphor or analogy at length in a work of literature. It differs from a mere metaphor in its length, and in having more than one single point of contact between the object described (the so-called tenor) and the comparison used to describe it (the vehicle). These implications are repeatedly emphasized, discovered, rediscovered, and progressed in new ways. History of meaning In the Renaissance, the term ''conceit'' (which is related to the word concept) indicated the idea that informed a literary work—its theme. Later, it came to stand for the extended and heightened metaphor common in Renaissance poetry, and later still it came to denote the even more elaborate metaphors of 17th century poetry. The Renaissance conceit, given its importance in Petrarch's ''Il Canzoniere'', is also referred to as Petrarchan conceit. It is a comparison in which human experiences are described in terms of a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Tertium Comparationis
''Tertium comparationis'' (Latin for "the third artof the comparison") is the quality that two things which are being compared have in common. It is the point of comparison which prompted the author of the comparison in question to liken someone or something to someone or something else in the first place. If a comparison visualizes an action, state, quality, object, or a person by means of a parallel which is drawn to a different entity, the two things which are being compared do not necessarily have to be identical. However, they must possess at least one quality in common. This common quality has traditionally been referred to as ''tertium comparationis''. The most common devices used to achieve this are metaphors and similes, especially, but by no means exclusively, in poetic language. In many cases one aspect of the comparison is implied rather than made explicit. The New Testament scholar, Adolf Jülicher, applied the concept of tertium comparationis to the parables of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Carl Sandburg
Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including '' Chicago Poems'' (1916), ''Cornhuskers'' (1918), and ''Smoke and Steel'' (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America." Life Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage at 313 East Third Street in Galesburg, Illinois, to Clara Mathilda (née Anderson) and August Sandberg, Sandburg's father's last name was originally "Danielso ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dana Gioia
Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the highly controversial and countercultural literary movements within American poetry known as New Formalism, which advocates the continued writing of poetry in rhyme and meter, and New Narrative, which advocates the telling of non-autobiographical stories. Gioia has also argued in favor of a return to the past tradition of poetry translators replicating the rhythm and verse structure of the original poem. Gioia helped renew the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the rediscovery of Weldon Kees and John Allan Wyeth. He also co-founded the annual West Chester University Poetry Conference, which has run annually since 1995. At the request of U.S. President George W. Bush, Gioia served between 2003 and 2009 as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In November 2006, ' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Understatement
Understatement is an expression of lesser strength than what the speaker or writer actually means or than what is normally expected. It is the opposite of embellishment or exaggeration, and is used for emphasis, irony, hedging, or humor. A particular form of understatement using negative syntax is called litotes. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression. Understatement may also be called underexaggeration to denote lesser enthusiasm. Understatement also merges the comic with the ironic, as in Mark Twain’s comment, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Use by the English Understatement is often used rhetorically to emphasize a point. It is a staple of humour in English-speaking cultures. For example, in ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'', an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody stump and responds, "Stings a bit." The well ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]