Chapters 5,6,7 in Perrine's Literature
Figuratively speaking: You have been saying less than what you mean, more than what you mean, opposite of what you mean, or something other than what you mean
Figure of speech: way of saying something other than in the ordinary method
Figurative language: language that cannot be taken literally
Types of Figurative Language
- Similes and Metaphors: way to compare objects or ideas
- Personification: giving the attributes of a human being to an animal, object, concept
- Apostrophe: addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that thing were present, alive, and could reply back
- Synecdoche: the use of the part for a whole
- Metonymy: use of something clearly related for the thing actually meant
- Symbol: may be roughly defined as something that means more than what it is
*Generally speaking...image, metaphor, and symbol shade into each other and are sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another*
- Allegory: a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface
- Paradox: an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true (value of the paradox is its shock value)
: It's seeming impossibility startles the readers into attention, and, by the fact of its apparent absurdity, underscores the truth of what is being said
- Overstatement (hyperbole): is simply an exaggeration, but an exaggeration in the service of truth
- Understatement: saying less than what one means and may exist in what one says or merely in how one says it
*It is paradoxical that one can emphasize a truth either by overstating it or by understating it*
*Like a paradox, Irony has meanings that extend beyond its use merely as a figure of speech*
- Verbal Irony: saying the opposite of what one means
Satire: usually applied to literature rather than to speech and primarily implying a higher motive...ridicule with the intent of bringing about reform
Here is a great website to help with figurative language: http://www.sturgeon.k12.mo.us/elementary/numphrey/subjectpages/languagearts/figuresofspeech.html
Rhetoric is the art of communication (developed by the Greeks)
" The most important things are deliberate and deliberate orators harangue, are five in number, to wit:
ways and means, war and peace, the defense of the country, imports and exports, legislation."
- Aristotle
Rhetorical situation: context for an act of communication
- Situation in which the communication takes place
- Whoever need to communicate something will always try to analyze the rhetorical situation before beginning to compose a message. This analysis will lead to a plan
Elements of a Rhetorical Situation
- Subject: What is your topic?
- Purpose: What do you want to get out of this? Why are you engaged in this communication (entertain, reflect, inform, persuade)?
- Audience: Who exactly do you imagine will leave this communication?
- Speaker (persona): What kind of person do you want to seem like as you send this message?
Check out these websites to help with rhetoric:
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_rhet.html
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm (this one is really good)
For Arguments Sake...
- Grocery list of arguments DO NOT work
- Argument is one to accomplish the goal of persuasion (ONE way because you could "persuade" someone by holding a gun to their head)
- "Argument" is what we call the series of ideas that, when "added up", leads to an audience accepting our thesis as true
Three Types of Argument
- Logos: the logical argument
- Pathos: Appeals to the emotions
- Ethos: Appeals to ethics
Vocabulary
- Thesis: the one main point—always an opinion, not a fact—that we are seeking to prove is correct.
- Claim: an assertion—an idea that is not a simple fact. A series of claims should be used to support your thesis—they make great topic sentences!
- Warrant: an explanation of your reasoning that shows what your evidence means and how it supports your claim—warrants “tie” evidence to claims.
- Evidence: facts that show that your claims are reasonable.
- Conclusion: a statement that we ask our audience to accept as the logical and correct outcome of a chain of reasoning. (Note: Even though this is the same word that we use to describe the very end of an essay, they aren’t exactly the same thing.)
- Necessary: “needed”—necessary elements of an argument are things that can’t be ignored.
- Sufficient: “enough”—when the condition of sufficiency is met, you have done enough to make your case.
Other Types of Argument
- Cause and Effect Argument
- Argument of Analysis
- Argument of Fact
- Argument of Evaluation
- Argument of Definition
Connections:
I had encountered a majority of the types of Figurative language that Perrine mentioned in the book, but I had not encountered apostrophe. The first place I encountered it was in the poem, "The Pink Dog". However, now that I have seen what apostrophe is supposed to look like, I can think of many more examples of it. Another example of a poem that uses apostrophe is "Ode of a Grecian Urn" by John Keats. In this poem, Keats addresses some of the people shown on the urn, questioning them about their daily life.
When I was doing my outside reading on the editorial, I noticed that the author of the editorial did an excellent job with the structure. Playing on logos, William Cohan (the author) set up an easy-to-follow structure with a nice clear claim followed up with a warrant and evidence. He also had a nice introductory as well as concluding paragraph.
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