A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use to produce a rhetorical effect.[1] Figures of speech are traditionally classified into schemes, which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and 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 prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as something it clearly is not, as a way to illustrate by comparison, as in "All the world's a stage."
addition (adiectio), also called repetition/expansion/superabundance
omission (detractio), also called subtraction/abridgement/lack
transposition (transmutatio), also called transferring
permutation (immutatio), also called switching/interchange/substitution/transmutation
These categories are often still used. The earliest known text listing them, though not explicitly as a system, is the Rhetorica ad Herennium, of unknown authorship, where they are called πλεονασμός (pleonasmos—addition), ἔνδεια (endeia—omission), μετάθεσις (metathesis—transposition) andἐναλλαγή (enallage—permutation).[3] Quintillian then mentioned them in Institutio Oratoria.[4]Philo of Alexandria also listed them as addition (πρόσθεσις—prosthesis), subtraction (ἀφαίρεσις—afairesis), transposition (μετάθεσις—metathesis), and transmutation (ἀλλοίωσις—alloiosis).[5]
Examples
The cartoon is a pun on the word Jamaica, whose pronunciation [dʒəˈmeɪkə] is a homonym to the clipped form of "Did you make her?"
Figures of speech come in many varieties.[6] The aim is to use the language inventively to accentuate the effect of what is being said. A few examples follow:
"Round and round the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran" is an example of alliteration, where the consonant r is used repeatedly. "Sister Suzy‘s sewing socks for soldiers" is a particular form of alliteration called sibilance, repeating an s sound. Both are commonly used in poetry.
"She would run up the stairs and then a new set of curtains" is a variety of zeugma called a syllepsis. Run up can refer either to a quick ascent or to manufacture. The effect is enhanced by the momentary suggestion, through a pun, that she might be climbing the curtains. The ellipsis or omission of the second use of the verb makes the reader think harder about what is being said.
"Painful pride" is an oxymoron, where two contradictory ideas are placed in the same sentence.
"An Einstein" is an example of synecdoche, as it uses a particular name to represent a class of people: geniuses.
"I had butterflies in my stomach" is a metaphor, referring to a nervous feeling as if there were flying insects in one's stomach.
To say "it was like having some butterflies in my stomach" is a simile, because it uses the word like, which a metaphor does not.
To say "It was like having a butterfly farm in my stomach", "It felt like a butterfly farm in my stomach", or "I was so nervous that I had a butterfly farm in my stomach" could be a hyperbole, because it is exaggerated.
"That filthy place was really dirty" is an example of tautology, as there are the two words ('filthy' and 'dirty') having almost the same meaning and are repeated so as to make the text more emphatic.
Scholars of classical Western rhetoric have divided figures of speech into two main categories: schemes and tropes. Schemes (from the Greek schēma, 'form or shape') are figures of speech that change the ordinary or expected pattern of words. For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").
During the Renaissance, scholars meticulously enumerated and classified figures of speech. Henry Peacham, for example, in his The Garden of Eloquence (1577), enumerated 184 different figures of speech. Professor Robert DiYanni, in his book Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and the Essay[7] wrote: "Rhetoricians have catalogued more than 250 different figures of speech, expressions or ways of using words in a nonliteral sense."
For simplicity, this article divides the figures between schemes and tropes, but does not further sub-classify them (e.g., "Figures of Disorder"). Within each category, words are listed alphabetically. Most entries link to a page that provides greater detail and relevant examples, but a short definition is placed here for convenience. Some of those listed may be considered rhetorical devices, which are similar in many ways.
Schemes
Schemes are words or phrases whose syntax, sequence, or pattern occurs in a manner that varies from an ordinary usage.
Accumulatio: accumulating arguments in a concise forceful manner.
Alliteration: the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
Example: "She sells sea shells by the sea shore".
Anadiplosis: repetition of a word at the end of a clause and then at the beginning of its succeeding clause.
Anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
Hypallage: a transferred epithet from a conventional choice of wording.[8]
Hyperbaton: two ordinary associated words are detached.[9][10] The term is also used more generally for any figure of speech that transposes natural word order.[10]
Hypozeuxis: every clause having its own independent subject and predicate.
Hysteron proteron: the inversion of the usual temporal or causal order between two elements.
Isocolon: use of parallel structures of the same length in successive clauses.
Internal rhyme: using two or more rhyming words in the same sentence.
Litotes: an understatement achieved by negating the opposite statement, such as "not too bad" for "very good", or "she is not a beauty queen" for "she is ugly", yielding an ironical effect.
Merism: referring to a whole by enumerating some of its parts.
Onomatopoeia: word that imitates a real sound (e.g. tick-tock or boom).
Paradiastole: repetition of the disjunctive pair "neither" and "nor".
Parallelism: the use of similar structures in two or more clauses.
Paraprosdokian: an utterance that uses the same word with two different meanings, creating a pun.
Paroemion: alliteration in which every word in a sentence or phrase begins with the same letter.
Polyptoton: repetition of words derived from the same root.
Symploce: simultaneous use of anaphora and epistrophe: the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning and the end of successive clauses.
Synchysis: words that are intentionally scattered to create perplexment.
Synecdoche: referring to a part by its whole or vice versa.
Synonymia: use of two or more synonyms in the same clause or sentence.
Tautology: redundancy due to superfluous qualification; saying the same thing twice.
Tmesis: insertions of content within a compound word.
Tricolon diminuens: combination of three elements, each decreasing in size.
Tricolon crescens: combination of three elements, each increasing in size.
Zeugma: the using of one verb for two or more actions.
Tropes
Tropes are words or phrases whose contextual meaning differs from the manner or sense in which they are ordinarily used.
Accismus: expressing the want of something by denying it.[11]
Adynaton: an extreme form of hyperbole (exaggeration). It the opposite of understatement.
Allegory: a metaphoric narrative in which the literal elements indirectly reveal a parallel story of symbolic or abstract significance.[12][13][14]
Allusion: covert reference to another work of literature or art.
Anacoenosis: posing a question to an audience, often with the implication that it shares a common interest with the speaker.
Analogy: a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Anapodoton: leaving a common known saying unfinished.
Antanaclasis: a form of pun in which a word is repeated in two different senses.[15]
Anthimeria: a substitution of one part of speech for another, such as noun for a verb and vice versa.[16]
Anthropomorphism: ascribing human characteristics to something that is not human, such as an animal or a god (see zoomorphism).
Rhetorical question: asking a question as a way of asserting something. Asking a question that already has the answer hidden in it, or asking a question not to get an answer, but to assert something (or to create a poetic effect).
Syllepsis: the use of a word in its figurative and literal sense at the same time or a single word used in relation to two other parts of a sentence although the word grammatically or logically applies to only one.
Synecdoche: form of metonymy, referring to a part by its whole, or a whole by its part.
Synesthesia: description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another.
Tautology: superfluous repetition of the same sense in different words Example: The children gathered in a round circle
Zeugma: use of a single verb to describe two or more actions.
Zoomorphism: applying animal characteristics to humans or gods.
Using these formulas, a pupil could render the same subject or theme in a myriad of ways. For the mature author, this principle offered a set of tools to rework source texts into a new creation. In short, the quadripartita ratio offered the student or author a ready-made framework, whether for changing words or the transformation of entire texts. Since it concerned relatively mechanical procedures of adaptation that for the most part could be learned, the techniques concerned could be taught at school at a relatively early age, for example in the improvement of pupils' own writing.
^Shipley, Joseph T. (1943). "Trope". Dictionary of World Literature: Criticism, Forms, Technique. Philosophical Library. p. 595. Archived from the original on 2016-03-10.
Kennedy, X.J. et al. 2006. The Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms: Vocabulary for the Informed Reader. Pearson, Longman. New York. ISBN0-321-33194-X.
