Figures of Speech
ICSE Class 8 · English · Chapter 8
What this chapter covers
- What a figure of speech does
- Simile and metaphor
- Personification
- Alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia
- Hyperbole, irony and pun
- Oxymoron and antithesis
- Idiomatic expressions
- Figures of speech in context
Key definitions
Verbal irony is a statement in which the speaker says one thing but means the opposite.
Situational irony is a situation in which events turn out to be the opposite of what was expected.
Dramatic irony is a situation in a story or play in which the reader or audience knows something that a character does not.
Key points
- A figure of speech uses words away from their plain meaning to make writing vivid, forceful or memorable.
- A simile compares two unlike things openly with "like", "as" or "as if"; a metaphor says one thing is the other.
- Personification gives human qualities or actions to animals, objects or ideas.
- Alliteration repeats consonant sounds at the start of nearby words; assonance repeats vowel sounds inside nearby words; onomatopoeia uses words that imitate sounds.
- Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration for emphasis or humour, not a lie.
- Irony can be verbal (saying the opposite of what is meant), situational (the opposite of what is expected happens) or dramatic (the audience knows more than a character).
- A pun plays on two meanings of a word, or on words that sound alike.
- An oxymoron joins two opposite words in one phrase; antithesis sets contrasting ideas in balanced halves of a sentence.
- An idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate words, and its words must not be changed.
- In an answer, quote the words, name the figure and always explain its effect.
Questions answered
What is the difference between literal and figurative language?
Literal language means exactly what the words say. Figurative language uses figures of speech, so that its meaning goes beyond the plain sense of the words, often to create a picture or feeling.
Is "The sea was a restless animal" a simile or a metaphor? Give a reason.
A metaphor, because the sea is said to be an animal directly, with no "like" or "as".
Explain why "Riya sings like her elder sister" is not a simile.
Riya and her sister are the same kind of thing, two people, so the sentence is a literal comparison. A simile compares two things of different kinds.
Identify the figure of speech: "The stars winked at the lonely traveller."
Personification. The stars are given the human action of winking, which makes the night seem friendly and alive.
Name the sound device in each: (a) "The bees buzzed in the garden." (b) "Peter's pet parrot preferred peanuts." (c) "The light of the white kite rose high in the sky."
(a) Onomatopoeia ("buzzed"). (b) Alliteration (repeated "p" sound). (c) Assonance (repeated long "i" sound in "light", "white", "kite", "high", "sky").
What is the difference between hyperbole and a lie?
In hyperbole both the speaker and the listener know that the exaggeration is not meant literally; its purpose is emphasis or humour. A lie is meant to make the listener believe something untrue.
A lifeguard drowns in a swimming pool. Which kind of irony is this, and why?
Situational irony, because the outcome is the opposite of what is expected from someone whose job is to save swimmers.
Explain the pun: "The bicycle could not stand on its own because it was two tired."
"Two tired" sounds like "too tired", meaning exhausted, while it also refers to a bicycle having two tyres. The double meaning creates the joke.