Literary Language – The Author’s Tool Bag

Figurative Language, Imagery & Sensory Language

TEKS 7.8a

Content Objective: Students analyze how the author uses language to appeal to the senses, create imagery, and suggest mood.

IMAGERY – an author’s use of sensory language to help readers form mental pictures about the text

SENSORY LANGUAGE - words that appeal to one or more of the 5 senses and cause readers to use their own sensory experiences to understand the text

Example: Almost anyone who has seen a dead varmint in the road can relate to the phrase, road kill.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, a.k.a. FIGURES OF SPEECH – phrasesthat are not intended to be taken literally. Figurative language has meaning beyond a literal meaning and is used as a creative tool to help readers understand, or, get the picture.

EXAMPLES OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

ANALOGY – a way of explaining something that may be unfamiliar, by using familiar relationships.

Example: (hot is to cold) as (day is to night) Each set of words has the same relationship.

Analogies may be written like this - hot:cold::day:night, OR like this – hot/\cold
day/\ night

HYPERBOLE - Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration to make a point.
Example: The ice cube was so big you could skate across it.

IDIOM – Idioms are commonly accepted sayings or phrases that have a figurative meaning, usually very different from the literal meaning of the words.
Example: Hold your horses.

METAPHOR - A metaphor is the comparison of two unlike things as though they are alike using words that are not meant to be taken literally. Metaphors imply that the two things are the same with the use of terms like is, was, are, and were.
Example: His eyes are a deep blue sea of wonder.

OXYMORON - combines two contradictory terms
Example: "And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." -Alfred Tennyson; climb down

PERSONIFICATION – figurative language in which non-human subjects or abstractions are represented as having human traits, abilities or qualities.
Example: The trees whispered in the wind.

PUN - A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words

Example: I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it.

SIMILE - A simile is a comparison of two unlike things or ideas. The words like and as will often be used to make the comparison. Words like similar to, or resembles, may also be used.
Example: The young man was as clever as a fox.

cbeard-updated 1/3/2013