修辞

Guide to Academic Writing 1.Simile Simile is a direct, expressed comparison between two things essentially unlike each other, but resembling each other in at least one way. It is a device both of art and explanation, comparing the unfamiliar thing (to be explained) to some familiar thing (an object, event, process, etc.) known to the reader. Writers use similes to explain things, to express emotion, and to make their writing more vivid and entertaining. Discovering fresh similes to use in your own writing also means discovering new ways to look at your subjects. Examples: The fog hung like a veil over the city. I wondered lonely as a cloud. —W. Wordsworth The news is as a dagger to her heart. All the world is like a stage. An earthquake comes like a thief in the night, without warning. 2.Metaphor Metaphor is a comparison which imaginatively identifies one thing with another dissimilar thing. Unlike a simile, metaphor asserts that one thing is another thing, not just that one is like another. That is to say, it offers figurative comparisons that are implied rather than introduced by like or as. Examples: The boy is only skin and bone. You are the backbone of the team. Religion is the opium of the people. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world. —Shelly There was a stormy discussion in the room. The sidewalks became tossing seas of umbrellas. —Stephen Crane More about simile and metaphor Similes and metaphors are often used in descriptive writing to create vivid sight and sound images, as in these two sentences: Over my head the clouds thicken, then crack and split like a roar of cannonballs tumbling down a marble staircase; their bellies open—too late to run now! —and suddenly the rain comes down. —Edward Abbey The seabirds glide down to the water—stub-winged cargo planes—land awkwardly, taxi with fluttering wings and stamping paddle feet, then dive. —Franklin Russell The first sentence above contains both a simile (“a roar like that of cannonballs”) and a metaphor (“their bellies open”) in its dramatization of a thunderstorm. The second sentence uses the metaphor of “stub-winged cargo planes”to describe the movements of the seabirds. In both cases, the figurative comparisons offer the reader a fresh and interesting way of looking at the thing being described. 1 Similes and metaphors can be used to convey ideas as well as offer striking images. Consider the simile in the first sentence below and the extended metaphor in the second: We walk through volumes of the unexpressed and like snails leave behind a faint thread excreted out of ourselves. —John Updike I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not think ing. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”—Christopher Isherwood Metaphors and similes can not only make our writing more interesting but also help us to think more carefully about our subjects. Put another way, metaphors and similes are not just pretty ornaments; they are ways of thinking. How do we begin to create metaphors and similes? For one thing, we must be ready to play with language and ideas. A comparison like the following, for example, might appear in an early draft of an essay: Laura sang like an old cat. As we revise our draft, we might try adding more details to the comparison to make it more precise and interesting: When Laura sang, she sounded like a cat sliding down a chalkboard. Be alert to the ways in which other writers use similes and metaphors in their work. Then, as you revise your own paragraphs and essays, see if you can make your descriptions more vivid and your ideas clearer by creating original similes and metaphors. 3.Metonymy 换喻,转喻 Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (such as “crown”for “royalty”). Metonymy is also the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it, such as describing someone’s clothing to characterize the individual. Examples: The power of the purse is very great. Give everyone your ear, but few your voice. Gray hair should be respected. My little sister likes reading Shakespeare. The White House asked the television networks for air time on Monday night. Whitehall prepares for a hung parliament. The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings. 4.Synecdoche 提喻法 Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it. It is considered by some to be a form of metonymy. Examples: It cost three pounds a head to eat there. The captain ordered all hands on deck. General Motors announced cutbacks. Do you have any coppers in your pocket? We must work hard to earn our bread. Brazil won the soccer match. 5.Personification Personification is a figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is given human qualities or abilities. Examples: The smiles of spring make every girl dance. Everywhere can be heard the whisper of leaves in forest in this season. The hungry flames tear up the buildings faster than anything I have see. Dawn was beginning to prowl about the sky and put out the stars. The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his fingers and Kicked the withered leaves about And thumped the branches with his hand And said he?d kill and kill and kill, And so he will and so he will. —James Stephens Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. There was no one there. 6.Alliteration 头韵 Alliteration is a figure of speech in which consonant sounds at the beginning of words are repeated. Examples: You?ll never put a better bit of butter on your knife. —advertising slogan for Country Life butter The soul selects her own society. —Emily Dickinson The daily diary of the American dream. —slogan of The Wall Street Journal A moist young moon hung above the mist of a neighboring meadow. —Vladimir Nabokov Guinness is good for you. —advertising slogan Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross. —Clement Freud What we want is Watneys. —advertising slogan for Watney?s beer 7.Overstatement (hyperbole)夸大的叙述 Overstatement, also called hyperbole, is a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement not intended to be understood literally. Examples: He has an encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese medicine. My feet are killing me. All the waters in the Pacific Ocean cannot wash the dirt off this woman. The father got extremely angry and his shouting was enough to wake the dead. My mind is so confused that I don not know the right hand from the left. Ladies and gentlemen, I?ve been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together. —Kent Brockman 8.Understatement 保守的陈述 Understatement is a figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. Examples: I am just going outside and may be some time. —Captain Lawrence Oates, Antarctic explorer, before walking out into a blizzard to face certain death, 1912 A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty. —Mark Twain I have to have this operation…It isn?t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain. There was a slight disturbance in the city yesterday. All the shops were shut. 9.Onomatopoeia[,?n?um?t?u'pi:?]拟声;声喻法 Onomatopoeia is a figure of speech in which the formation of words (such as hiss or murmur) are used to imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. Examples: Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear. —Alfred Noyes Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime. Klunk! Klick! Every trip. —U.K. promotion for seat belts The door banged shut. The whole room buzzed with excitement. The occasional booming of cannon and the tat-tat-tat-tat of the machine guns were heard. 10.Paradox 悖论,反论 Paradox is a figure of speech in which a statement appears to contradict itself. Examples: There is this quality, in things, of right way seeming wrong at first. One man?s terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. Those who have eyes apparently see little. The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot. —Henry David Thoreau If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness. —Alexander Smith Paradox of Success: the more successful a policy is in warding off some unwanted condition the less necessary it will be thought to maintain it. If a threat is successfully suppressed, people naturally wonder why we should any longer bother with it. —James Piereson Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. —C.S. Lewis 11.Oxymoron 矛盾修饰法 Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side; a compressed paradox. Examples: act naturally original copy found missing alone together peace force definite possibility terribly pleased real phony ill health turn up missing jumbo shrimp small crowd clearly misunderstood O brawling love! O loving hate! . . . heavy lightness! serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. —William Shakespeare A yawn may be defined as a silent yell. —G.K. Chesterton O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches! —John Donne That building is a little bit big and pretty ugly. —James Thurber I want to move with all deliberate haste. —said President-elect Barack Obama at his first, brief press conference after his election. 12.Irony Irony is a figure of speech in which words are used to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. It is a statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. Examples: It would be a fine thing indeed not knowing what time it was in the morning. What a noble illustration of the tender laws of his favored country! —they let the paupers go to sleep! This hard-working boy seldom reads more than an hour per week. Robbing a widow of her savings was certainly a noble act. Most of the abolitionists belong to nations that spend half their annual income on weapons of war and that honor research to perfect means of killing. Why do you come so soon? You used to come at ten o?clock, and now you come at noon. 13.Climax层进法 Climax is a figure of speech in which words or sentences of increasing weight are arranged in parallel construction, with an emphasis on the high point or culmination of a series of events or of an experience. Examples: I came, I saw, I conquered. —Julius Caesar I am the way, the truth, and the life. —St.John, The New Testament He sacrificed his business, his home, and his honor for political gain. Since hope was lost, friendship was lost, faith was lost, liberty was lost —all was lost. Nothing has been left undone to cripple their minds, debase their moral stature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind. —Lloyd Garrison Out of its vivid disorder comes order; from its rank smell rises the good aroma of courage and daring; out of its preliminary shabbiness comes the final splendor. And buried in the familiar boasts of its advance agents lies the modesty of most of its people. —E. B. White My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. 14.Anticlimax突降法 Anticlimax is a figure of speech in which there is an abrupt shift from a noble tone to a less exalted one—often for comic effect. Contrast with climax. Examples: The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. —Mark Twain In moments of crisis . . . I size up the situation in a flash, set my teeth, contract my muscles, take a firm grip on myself and, without a tremor, always do the wrong thing. —George Bernard Shaw …For God, for Country and for Yale,?the outstanding single anti-climax in the English language. —James Thurber Seldom has a city gained such world renown, and I am proud and happy to welcome you to Hiroshima, a town known throughout the world for its—Oysters. A woman who could face the very devil—or a mouse—loses her grip and goes all to pieces in front of flash of lightning. His political career ended —the mayor, the spokesman, the clerk and the idiot. 15.Anaphora[?'n?f?r?]首语重复法 Anaphora is a figure of speech in which repetition of the same word or phrase are used at the start of successive clauses. Examples: We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. —Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940 It?s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker?s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. —Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope,” July 27, 2004 I?m not afraid to die. . . . I?m not afraid to live. I?m not afraid to fail. I?m not afraid to succeed. I?m not afraid to fall in love. I?m not afraid to be alone. I?m just afraid I might have to stop talking about myself for five minutes. —Kinky Friedman 16.Antithesis对偶 Antithesis is a figure of speech in which juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses are used. Examples: Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing. —Goethe It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. —Martin Luther King, Jr. You?re easy on the eyes Hard on the heart. —Terri Clark All the joy the world contains Has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself. —Shantideva Be slow to promise and quick to perform. A light purse makes a heavy heart. Better a glorious death than a shameful life. 17.Parallelism['p?r?leliz?m]平行结构 Parallelism is a figure of speech in which similarity of structure is used in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. Examples: It is by logic we prove, but by intuition we discover. —Leonardo da Vinci Our transportation crisis will be solved by a bigger plane or a wider road, mental illness with a pill, poverty with a law, slums with a bulldozer, urban conflict with a gas, racism with a goodwill gesture. —Philip Slater Buy a bucket of chicken and have a barrel of fun. —slogan of Kentucky Fried Chicken The loss we felt was not the loss of ham but the loss of pig. —E. B. White Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. —Tom Robbins The merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the representative of the people, with exception, of course, sold his trust; while nearly all sold their honor. —Jack London No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy. —Herbert Spencer 18.Euphemism ['ju:fimiz?m]委婉(词)语 Euphemism is the substitution of an inoffensive term (such as “passed away”) for one considered offensively explicit (“died”). Examples: May I use your bathroom? It is a sign of civilization to show respect to the senior citizens. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in an armchair, peacefully gone to sleep—but for ever. —Engels Dan Foreman: Guys, I feel very terrible about what I?m about to say. But I?m afraid you?re both being let go. Lou: Let go? What does that mean? Dan Foreman: It means you?re being fired, Louie.