Figurative language says one thing in terms of another. Naming a device is worth nothing on its own; saying what it does is the whole game.
| Device | What it is | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Simile | Comparison with like or as | What does the comparison import? |
| Metaphor | One thing is another | What is claimed by making it identity rather than likeness? |
| Personification | Human qualities to the non-human | What does the text want us to treat as having intent? |
| Hyperbole | Deliberate exaggeration | Whose exaggeration — the writer’s or the character’s? |
| Understatement | Deliberate flattening | Almost always ironic; what is being held back? |
| Oxymoron | Two contradictory words joined | Where a character’s mind is in two places at once |
| Paradox | A statement that contradicts itself and is true | Usually the text’s central problem, compressed |
| Allusion | A reference to another text or event | What does it borrow, and does the borrowing hold? |
| Imagery | Language aimed at the senses | Which sense, and what pattern do the images make? |
The oxymoron test case
Romeo’s early speeches are stuffed with them: “brawling love”, “loving hate”, “heavy lightness”. A weak paragraph names them. A strong one notices that they cluster while he is in love with Rosaline and largely vanish afterwards — the device is characterising a pose, not a passion.
Motifs
A motif is a repeated image or idea that accumulates meaning: light and dark, poison and medicine, hands. See Symbol and Motif for how to track one properly.
The device hunt
A paragraph listing five devices explains none of them. Take one, quote four words, and spend three sentences on what it does. That is the paragraph that earns the mark.
Curriculum connection
B2.3
identify a variety of elements of style in texts and explain how they help communicate meaning and enhance the effectiveness of the texts (e.g., determine the differences in meaning or effect when the same symbol, such as the sun or water, is used in two different poems; compare the images, symbols, and literary devices used in an Aboriginal myth and a Greek myth; explain how a mythical allusion in a piece of literature or an advertisement enhances the theme or message; determine what effects are achieved in works by two different authors, one of whom uses a variety of sentence types while the other does not)
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C2.3
use appropriate descriptive and evocative words, phrases, and expressions to make their writing clear, vivid, and interesting for their intended audience (e.g., identify concrete, specific words they can use to depict objects and events vividly and with exactness; identify long-winded expressions they can replace with more concise language)
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