英文常见的修辞格
常见的修辞格
Simile （明喻）
Simile is a figure of speech involving a comparison between two or more things whic h are essentially different but have at least one property or characteristic in common.
Words like as, as...as, as if, as though,( just) as... so, and like are the commonly us ed expressions to make the comparison.
In writing the writer may compare something abstract to something concrete, someth ing remote to something proximal, something unfamiliar to something familiar, and so forth.
e.g. That man can’t be trusted. He’s as slippery as an eel.
The old man’s hair is as white as snow.
Metaphor（暗喻/隐喻）
Metaphor involves a comparison between two or more unlike things which share at le ast one property or characteristic, but the comparison is not explicitly stated. Instead, it is implied or condensed.
e.g. There were a few lordly poplars（白杨树）before the house.
He often prefaced his remarks by “I can’t help thinking…”
unfamiliar★the leg of a table
Personification (拟人)
Personification is a figure of speech that gives human attribute or feelings to animals, or life and personal attributes to inanimate objects, or to ideas and abstractions. It can make the description more vivid and more impressive.
e.g. This time fate is smiling to him.
Dusk came stealthily.
Metonymy (换喻)
Metonymy involves the change of name. In other words, this figure of speech involve s the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another. The substituted nam e may be an attribute of the other thing or be closely related with it.
e.g. When the war was over, he laid down the sword and took up the pen.
His purse would not allow him that luxury.
Synecdoche（提喻）
Synecdoche, in contrast to metonymy, is a substitution of the part for the whole and the whole for the part.
e.g. The farms were short of hands during the harvest season.
Germany beat Argentina 2 to 1 in this exciting football match. Euphemism (婉言)
Euphemism is a figure of speech which involves the substitution of an agreeable or in offensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant. The t opics most likely to be substituted are illnesses, death, old age, toilet habits, poverty and unemployment, menial jobs or professions of low social standing, political and mil itary activities, and so on.
e.g. to die——to pass away; to leave us
old people——senior citizens
mad——emotionally disturbed
dustman——sanitation worker
Lavatory——bathroom; men’s/women’s room
Invasion——military action
Hyperbole (夸大、夸张)
Hyperbole is a figure of speech which involves a deliberate use of exaggeration to ac hieve emphasis.
e.g. She is dying to know what job has been assigned her.
On hearing that he had been admitted to that famous university, he whi spered to himself, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Understatement (缩小)
Understatement is just the opposite of hyperbole. It achieves emphasis by deliberately understating a fact.
e.g.It took a few dollars to build this indoor swimming pool.
“He is really strange,” his friends said when they heard he had divorced his pretty and loving wife.
Transferred epithet (移位修饰)
Transferred epithet is a figure of speech where an adjective or descriptive phrase is t ransferred from the noun it should modify to another to which it does not really appl y or belong.
e.g.She was so worried about her son that she spent several sleepless nights.
The assistant kept a respectful distance form his boss when they were walk ing in the corridor.
He said “Yes” to the question in an unthinking moment.
The old man put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
Oxymoron (矛盾修饰)
Oxymoron is a compressed paradox, involving the co-occurrence of two contrasting, c ontradictory or incongruous terms.
e.g. She read the long-awaited letter with a tearful smile.
When the news of the failure came, all his friends said that it was a vict orious defeat.
Alliteration(头韵)
A sequence of words beginning with the same sound, especially as used in poetry. e.g. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts.
The Russian danger is therefore our danger,… just as the cause of any Ru ssian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe.