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Figurative Language Video

Added Dec 02, 2013 •

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Learn more about metaphors and other figurative devices.

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today we're going to talk about figurative and descriptive writing and it's also the super LOL Christmas special so figurative writing figurative language just refers to writing or speech that's not literal so usually news because it's trying to be imaginative or Vivid sometimes it's use because the concept seems so big and so important that it can't described using literal language and for us as readers context please indicate if you should read something literally or figuratively tell if I have the phrase sentence so he went outside the box  if it begins with something like this the puppy was excited to be a present he didn't want to miss Christmas so he went outside the box then that means that it's literal but if I have something like this Tommy had purchased his mother a scarf every Christmas and new she was bored of it so we went outside the box I know that it's figurative and it means that he's doing something creative and fun  a picture of speech is just the device prettiest is figurative language many of them compared to similar things a lot of them are subsets of metaphors and I list them over there apostrophe hyper irony metaphor oxymoron Paradox personification simile understatement over some of them already PowerPoint that's not an entire list their other things as well and then that little fox is like my dad cancer and then it's Dad's like no he doesn't mean that literally he means I'm like Santa because I make toys I have a lot of references super LOL style to Christmas movies so see which ones you can pick up on so one of the most useful and common devices a figurative language is the metaphor and I have two definitions that I find really helpful one is speaking of one thing as if it were another and another is an unlikely comparison between two things the third death in there just goes on to explain them but you take two things that don't seem similar and by comparing them show their similarities but for us when we're analyzing metaphor enough to say this is compared to that the end we should talk about what the effect of that comparison is so too useful terms are turn in vehicle the tenor in a metaphor is the thing that you want people to learn more about it's the thing being described the vehicle is what you compare it to sell vehicles going to take you somewhere and comparing it to the vehicles going to take you to some new understanding and so play my examples metaphors make writing more Vivid imaginative thought-provoking and meaningful and again sometimes help Express things that cannot really be expressed using just where are language so in the amazing last lines of The Great Gatsby at says Gatsby believed in the green light the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us it'll lose it eluded us then but that's no matter tomorrow we will run faster stretch out her arms farther and one fine morning so we beat on boats against current borne back ceaselessly into the past the green lights actually a symbol not a metaphor because it exists the end is a metaphor we're not actually in boats so the tenor is us and the way we live our lives that's what we're trying to describe and the vehicle is boats trying to go against the current and so through that comparison it suggests that despite our best efforts there horses and life that are pulling us back and preventing us from reaching the pools we have yet we try anyway and then a simpler example this little chipmunks like that golden harmonica is the Holy Grail of musical instruments I want it how does a metaphor and an illusion by comparing the harmonicats the Holy Grail it suggests the harmonica is this one perfect thing that's worth next types of metaphors a descriptive metaphor is talking about to concrete things comparison concrete to something else concrete I'm still gives us a new ID so it was a fine day the tree suede-like dancers so trees and dancers both concrete but we still are better able to imagine them on that metaphor and then an abstract metaphor which is sometimes more common explains an abstract principle by comparing it to something more concrete so that makes sense because metaphor is something we used to understand things better and Abstract principles are often more difficult to understand so in the Bible it says cup runneth over and suggested meaning is its comparing our life our happiness our well-being to a cup that's overflowing and with paw'd there's so much goodness and so much joy that it's like or cup is overflowing and then and embedded metaphor sneaks the metaphor in the toughest to catch but really, actually they just kind of part of normal language this is a verb or a noun in a non literal fashion so the darkness through itself upon the land with a sigh of relief the darkness is not just acting like a thing not just acting like Darkness throwing itself so it's like a personification totally works here so it suggests that the nights like lover or totally exhausted I'm so it helps next down the night but it doesn't say explicitly the night was exhausted lover and threw it on the ground not just kind of subtly work setting that's embedded okay simile is a type of metaphor to specialized metaphor and I'm probably going to totally freak you out when I tell you that they'll even taught a simile as a metaphor using like or as it's actually broader than a simile is a metaphor and made explicit so and if you're like hey reader I'm comparing these two things just so you know it makes it a simile so liking as are the most common ways to do that but it can also be with words like then similar to resemble appear seem so when my brother barged into the room he seems like an army more already to have it wreak havoc even though I don't use like you're at so what I said seems like  he seems to be there pretend I said that okay and then from woman lawyer like lights off teeth strong with lights files of people walks zig-zag across Starland hearing the rice so it's comparing into the up to us and you can still do the tenor and vehicle thing here so back to my story but as he was walking through the mall playing the golden harmonica I sadly and beautiful snow falling from the heavens now I can see is a fanciful chain usually in the form of an extended metaphor which means that it's going to compare things for a longtime kind of step by step or surprising analogy which is also based on comparison we'll talk about that later and the effects of that thanks for really long time but then still the same as metaphor are because I could not stop for death which is a great poem by Emily Dickinson that describes dying and a funeral procession and being buried is like this with this gentleman death or in The Scarlet Letter on Chillingworth as a leech which we were introduced to in the leech chapter but kind of continue through the store even to the point where after Dimmesdale's death he died because he was no longer feeding off him to my story  another conceit and so the greedy chipmunk courageously quested through the shopping mall in with his plastic court of justice he battled the fire breathing better she was working Christmas Eve cashier until he have the Holy Grail in hand then like a true night's he awarded his prize to the most deserving before sick bear who sang as beautifully and is sadly at snow falling from the heavens so that's a conceit because I did the Holy Grail thing earlier but now I'm taking it everything personification what's metaphor it's a figure of speech in which the author describes Concepts animals or not of an object's buying them with human attributes or emotions so in the metaphor is this thing to human and it makes the abstractions and objects appear more Vivid wraps standing there more relatable because you know we're human and everything so the super LOL is personification because I have Chipmunks red foxes and everything Chevrolet ad saying the road isn't built that can make it breathe hard is personifying the car everything is he human and in I wandered lonely as a cloud when Wordsworth describes the Sea of yellow daffodils is tossing their heads and sprightly dance personification because dancing like humans metonymy is a fun one you probably haven't heard of it yet it's from the Greek meaning changed label or substitute name figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted with another object that's closely associated with it and the substituted term usually has morphine appeals process so for instance if a news report says that the White House declared something rather than the it's replacing the president with the White House something that's closely related to it and it serves a variety of rhetorical purpose write the president is a human that people have opinions on right Republicans and Democrats will see him differently hemmer hurt whereas the White House that is the structure of the executive branch so perhaps in the White House rather than the president reduces the sort of I'm five partisan opinions and you not to us as a country and then as you like it when Shakespeare says doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to the be kind of funny doublet and hose represents men because that's what they were Define mise Associated things instead of saying man off to peer craziest he's helping us imagine it if I say of all the suits at the bank the pig was the greediest in meanest by calling the pig a suit I'm dehumanizing him right suit suits represents corporate they are kind of constraining they're rich and it makes him those things rather than nice humanized pig that he should be he is very closely related to metonymy is I suppose a subset I don't know but it's the same thing but we're part of something is used to represent football or on occasion of the whole of something represents the part I'm so so so not live by bread alone red is representing the whole of all the different options for food and perhaps all the different options ideas that you need Grace from God and faith and when Shakespeare says that the boys name the fat bird song is unpleasing to the married ear he really needs the whole married man and so this dog saying will you lend me hands representing the whole some Compassion or something like that all hands on deck on ships same thing lend me your ears but then the pigs like no and he get Angry Eyes like symbol on like a metaphor actually exist so the symbol represents itself and something else so it's best concrete that's their this present in the text present in the story present in the room but then it represents something else to sew in a Scarlet Letter the rose growing outside the prison I represented hope a sweet moral Blossom connections with pearl nature being compassionate when humanity is not all of those things but is it was also a rose bush there when this little puppies like these chains represent a suit pig is scared three types of symbols just like there were three types of metaphors they're very common they're pretty Universal Don symbolizing hope Errol symbolizing loving tree symbolize knowledge conventional symbols have I'm headed out with this meaning by group so religious symbols like was the cross or Star of David the flag eagle small crossbones literary symbols are sometimes conventional I'm in the sense that they become like a motif in a bunch of different literary works but either way they're given meaning by their text so a conventional literary symbol are the woods of course until then I will give you all my now is descriptive language is similar to a metaphor something that you're unfamiliar with by associating it with something you're familiar with so it's more about an explanation or logic then about kind of this big I'm emotional impact comparison so usually it'll start with like you recognize this is like this play with that will then it's also like that in this way so it's more logo space  I'm so when Sydney J Harris says people are more like them sausages he then uses that to create an argument the job of teaching is not to stuff them and steal them up to help them open stop so he's using it to make an argument lots of stuff happens  and then I penguins like I love my life and family and Christmas now a character is exactly what it sounds like you're familiar with the caricatures there's one  Jay Leno David Letterman Jay Leno ends its exaggerating his chin and Britain characters caricatures do the same thing they exaggerate sample from A Christmas Carol Scrooge part in sharpest lint from which no still at ever struck out generous fire secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster the cold within him froze his old features nipped his pointed nose tripled his Steven his gate made his eyes red his thin lips blue and spoke out sruly and his grading voice of Frosty run was on his head and on his eyebrows and on his wire each and he carried his own low temp Charlie sat with him he iced his office in the dog days and thought one two three a Christmas so especially xanthous it's the cold he's not complex character there he's just this cold horrible man and he's like Jay Leno and then he's like okay and imagery imagery includes the sensory details or figurative language used to the tribe represent abstractions and imagery can be related to all five senses it's not just site and can not always but can represent more than one thing so imagery and symbolism can work together and or metaphors imagery like the saw one that we were at the simile the term can apply to the total of all images in the work or just one piece similar to diction right you can use diction or the overall diction choices and your job is to pay attention to how an author so why food that imagery what does it make us feel how does it make us you two seem so at the end of The Giver when it says and all at once you could see lights and you recognize them now he knew they were shining through the windows of the rooms and they were the red blue and yellow lights that twinkle from trees and places for families created and kept memories where they celebrated love using the imagery of Lights warm especially that their lights through the window so it's a war perhaps excluded from that affect anesthesia is actually a medical condition I'm some people when you like two senses or intertwine so some people if they see you like a number to Yellow pencil will taste of flavor in their mouth so this visual cue gives them a taste so it's one type of sensory stimulus folks the subjective experience of another for once people say certain words those who have synesthesia might think of a specific color and see that color so a medical condition kind of interesting but in literature synesthesia refers to the practice of associating two or more different sensory senses in the same image sew in Hot Chili Peppers song title Taste the Pain painted tactile tasters taste I don't know what that is and then another Emily Dickinson poem I heard a fly buzz when I died she describes the buzzing of the fly as blue uncertain stumbling Buzz so she's using this visual to talk about an auditory thing the buzz and of course that's going to affect how we as the reader receive at the fact that it's blue makes it kind of somber kind of sad and then cat sleeping right there to the visions of sugarplums dancing in so it has insight  these are all the other Christmas pictures so that's the end of our presentation where is rhetoric

Uploaded by Melissa Rhoades-Rudder '01.

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Figurative Language Video

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