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Today’s lesson covers a very simple form of figurative language. An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like its meaning.
Examples would include words such as boom, bang, crunch, clatter, crackle, hiss, and buzz. Comic books and comic strips have made use of enough onomatopoeia it has become rather cliche. Who hasn’t seen a panel of a superhero punching a villain with a big “pow” written out in colorful bubble letters?
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Alliteration is one of the less obvious forms of figurative language. It is much more about impact rather than the image produced, so it can be easy to overlook.
What exactly is alliteration? Alliterative text uses the repetition of initial consonant sounds for effect, which is to say, the author uses words that start with the same letter, or same consonant sound, in a row to make a phrase stand out. Tongue twisters are almost always alliterative. Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Imagery is one of the more common and overarching forms of figurative language found in literature. It is utilized in virtually all forms of prose and poetry, and it is at the core of one of the most often given bits of writing advice: show, don’t tell.
What exactly is imagery? You may guess it is language meant to create a picture, and it is. However, it goes beyond that. Imagery is language that evokes the senses in order to better describe a scene or a character’s experience. Most often, this is talking about the “big five” senses: sight, taste, touch, smell, and sound. Today’s lesson is on another common form of figurative language, the hyperbole, and a literary device that is its polar opposite, understatement. The use of either one can add humor, impact, and variety to a literary work. Authors who master the use of both develop powerful tools to add interest to their work.
We will take a look at personification today as we continue our study of figurative language. What exactly is personification? Personification is defined as the application of human characteristics upon something nonhuman. This can be showing an inanimate object, concept, event, or animal through the use of human qualities or characteristics.  Disney's Beauty and the Beast is a prime example of personification. Because of its prevalence in cartoons, fables, and other children’s media, personification and its subsets are often some of the easiest forms of figurative language for many to understand. After all, how many of us grew up watching Disney films where a clock and a candlestick held conversations and argued with a teapot or the main characters were talking animals?
Two of the most basic forms of figurative language are similes and metaphors. Both are embraced by poets around the globe and throughout time. Many of the examples in today's lesson are pulled from poetry, but you can find similes and metaphors used quite often in prose as well. I am writing about them together because they are both means of comparing one thing to another in order to better illustrate an idea. However, one major difference sets them apart.
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A. B. England is a novelist, all around geek, avid crafter, and the home-schooling mother of two.
She is an autistic creator with a love of mythology, fantasy, and all flavors of science fiction. SubscribeCategories
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Work QueYekara Series Book 2 Prewriting/Outlining 20% The Icarus Project Rough Draft Progress 77384 / 75000 Myth & Science Collection Planning Stages 38% Supers Collection
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