Figurative Language. Learning with language resources

Source: Day 11. 2012/04/20, J. Savio, Flickr

Life would be pretty boring if everything we ever said or heard was literal, like “The day is hot,” or “There is a lot of rain.” Often we need to use literal statements for clarity, but our language is extremely rich with figurative terms as well. For example, the statements “It feels like an oven,” and “It’s raining cats and dogs!” convey the same information as the statements in the first sentence.

Source: Five Senses, Nicki Dugan Pogue, FlickrWe use figurative language in everyday speech. Writers also use figurative language to make their messages lively, descriptive, interesting, and meaningful. In this lesson, we will focus on three ways to use figurative language:

• To create imagery
• To appeal to the senses (using sensory detail)
• To suggest mood

Understanding figurative language opens our minds to a new way of thinking. Using figurative language is like creating a whole new world of richness and meaning

Appealing to senses:

In addition to the types of figurative language you learned about in the previous section, poets often use figurative language to appeal to the five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Language that appeals to the senses also creates a greater emotional impact on the reader. Can you match the lines of poetry below to the corresponding senses?

Often, a poet makes use of special figurative language known as sound devices. These devices appeal to the sense of sound and intensify the impact of the poem. Two of these useful sound devices are alliteration and onomatopoeia. Click below to reveal examples of each from poetry.

https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/imagery-and-figurative-language-english-7-reading