Have you ever heard or said that your friend, when she broke up with her boyfriend, “crying a river” or something similar? So, have you ever heard or used a figure of speech. Inevitably, the speech figures they are present in our daily lives. The figurative sense, generally, serves to express something through comparison, exaggeration, contradiction, among other ways.
Figures of speech are classified as:
So, some figures that we will address you here on the blog are the following:
Now, let's briefly explain each of them.
A metaphor is a word picture that serves to compare terms. It is a matter of changing a word or expression for another that has the same meaning or refers to what the sender really wants to say. See details and examples in this link.
Paradox is a figure of thought aiming to establish an intentional contradiction. It's not about inconsistency. See details and examples in this link.
Hyperbole is a figure of thought that exaggerates to express the intensity of a fact. See details and other examples in this link.
Onomatopoeia is classified in figures of speech as a sound figure. It is the use of words that do not exist in the formal Portuguese language and that represent sounds. See details and examples in this link.
The antithesis is a figure of thought that consists in bringing words of opposite meanings together in the same sentence to give a contrasting tone to the utterance. See details and examples in this link.
Synesthesia is a word picture that emphasizes and blends two or more of the five human senses. See details and examples in this link.
The ellipse is a construction figure. It consists of omitting a word, without prejudice to the understanding of the sentence, which occurs through the context. See details and examples at this link.
Metonymy is classified as a picture of words and occurs when we change one term for another, treating them as synonyms, even if they are not. There needs to be a relationship between them. See details and examples in this link.
Alliteration, classified as a sound figure, consists of repeating sounds with goals, generally folkloric and artistic. Look examples.
The anaphora is a construction figure and consists in emphasizing an idea with the systematic repetition of words or expressions at the beginning of a sentence. Learn more details and see examples in this link.
A catachresis is a picture of a word that creates a new term or word to identify something that has no proper or known name. Examples in this link.
The personification or prosopopeia is classified as a thought figure. It is when we attribute to something irrational an act referring to a rational being. Details and examples in this link.
Euphemism is a thought-figure used to soften expressions. Look examples.
Pleonasm is a construction figure that consists in uttering unnecessary information with the same meaning. More details in this link.
Irony is a figure of thought in which a person expresses himself opposite to what he really wants to express. The intention must be made explicit. Details and examples in this link.
We hope you have had an overview of the speech figures. To delve into each of them, click on the links under each subhead.
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