Figure of speech

A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. A figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetorical figure or a locution.

Not all theories of meaning have a concept of "literal language" (see literal and figurative language). Under theories that do not, figure of speech is not an entirely coherent concept.

Rhetoric originated as the study of the ways in which a source text can be transformed to suit the goals of the person reusing the material. For this goal, classical rhetoric detected four fundamental operations[1] that can be used to transform a sentence or a larger portion of a text: expansion, abridgement, switching, and transferring.

Contents

The four fundamental operations

Main article: rhetorical operations

The four fundamental operations, or categories of change, governing the formation of all figures of speech are:[1]

These four operations were detected by classical rhetoricians, and still serve to encompass the various figures of speech. Originally these were called, in Latin, the four operations of quadripartita ratio. The ancient surviving text mentioning them, although not recognizing them as the four fundamental principles, is the Rhetorica ad Herennium, of unknown authorship, where they are called πλεονασμός (addition), ἔνδεια (omission), μετάθεσις (transposition) and ἐναλλαγή (permutation).[2] Quintillian then mentioned them in Institutio Oratoria.[3] Philo of Alexandria also listed them as addition (πρόσθεσις), subtraction (ἀφαίρεσις), transposition (μετάθεσις), and transmutation (ἀλλοίωσις).[4]

Examples

The figure of speech comes in many varieties. The aim is to use the language inventively to accentuate the effect of what is being said. A few examples follow:

Categories of figures of speech

Scholars of classical Western rhetoric have divided figures of speech into two main categories: schemes and tropes. Schemes (from the Greek schēma, form or shape) are figures of speech that change the ordinary or expected pattern of words. For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from the Greek tropein, to turn) change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").

During the Renaissance, scholars meticulously enumerated and classified figures of speech. Henry Peacham, for example, in his The Garden of Eloquence (1577), enumerated 184 different figures of speech. Professor Robert DiYanni, in his book "Literature - Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and the Essay" [5] wrote: "Rhetoricians have catalogued more than 250 different figures of speech, expressions or ways of using words in a nonliteral sense.".

For simplicity, this article divides the figures between schemes and tropes, but does not further sub-classify them (e.g., "Figures of Disorder"). Within each category, words are listed alphabetically. Most entries link to a page that provides greater detail and relevant examples, but a short definition is placed here for convenience. Some of those listed may be considered rhetorical devices, which are similar in many ways.

Schemes

Main article: Scheme (linguistics)

Tropes

Main article: Trope (linguistics)

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Jansen (2008), quote from the summary:

    Using these formulas, a pupil could render the same subject or theme in a myriad of ways. For the mature author, this principle offered a set of tools to rework source texts into a new creation. In short, the quadripartita ratio offered the student or author a ready-made framework, whether for changing words or the transformation of entire texts. Since it concerned relatively mechanical procedures of adaptation that for the most part could be learned, the techniques concerned could be taught at school at a relatively early age, for example inthe improvement of pupils’ own writing.

  2. ^ Book IV, 21.29, pp.303-5
  3. ^ Institutio Oratoria, Vol. I, Book I, Chapter 5, paragraphs 6 and 38-41. And also in Nook VI Chapter 3
  4. ^ Rhetorica ad Herennium
  5. ^ Second Edition, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-557112-9, pp.451