1. IAS English Literature
Figurative Language
IAS English Literature

2. What is figurative language?
When a writer uses literal language, he or she is simply stating the facts as they are.
Figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation.
To speak figuratively is to not mean what you saying but to imply something else.

3. Types of figurative langauge
Today, we will focus on four types of figurative language
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Hyperbole

4. Simile – What is it?
Simile is a figure of speech where two unlike things are compared, generally by using the word like or as.
‘Lennie was as a strong as a bull.’

5. Simile - Effects
Similes attract the attention and appeals directly to the senses of listeners or readers encouraging their imagination to comprehend what is being communicated.
Makes it easier for the readers to understand the subject matter of a literary text.
Like metaphors, similes also offer variety in our ways of thinking and offers new perspectives of viewing the world.

6. Metaphor – What is it?
Metaphor is a figure of speech where two unlike things are compared, without using the word like or as. A metaphor very often uses the verb 'to be’. ‘The assignment was a breeze.’

7. Metaphor - Effect
It is stronger than a simile because it does more than just compare.
It attracts the attention and appeals directly to the senses of listeners or readers encouraging their imagination to comprehend what is being communicated.
It makes it easier for the readers to understand the subject matter of a literary text.
It offers variety in our ways of thinking and offers new perspectives of viewing the world.

8. Personification – What is it?
Personification is when a writer gives non-human things, human qualities or traits.
‘The flowers danced in the gentle breeze.’

9. Personification - Effects
It adds vividness to expressions as we always look at the world from a human perspective.
It brings inanimate things to life, so that their nature and movements are understood in a better way.
It is easier for us to relate to something that is human or that possesses human traits.

10. Hyperbole – What is it? Hyperbole is a form of exaggeration.
- “I am so hungry I could eat a horse!”

11. Hyperbole - Effects
Can communicate ideas, emotions, and images in a more efficient way than through plain language.
Can add humor and drama to a text
Can help to characterise the speaker as being overly- dramatic, tense, insane, or outlandish
Can help to build context and deliver the author’s intended message more effectively

12. Hyperbole - Effects
- Can make common human feelings remarkable and intense to such an extent that they do not remain ordinary.
Can develop contrasts: when one thing is described with an over-statement and the other thing is presented normally, a striking contrast is developed.
Can be employed to catch the reader’s attention.

13. Activity Read The Furthest Distance I have Travelled on p. 64
Discuss with a partner the effect of Flynn’s use of figurative langauge in this poem.
What meaning does she convey here?

14. Homework
Pick any two poems we have looked at so far and compare and contrast their use of figurative langauge.
(Be sure to look at the effects they intend to have and the meaning they intend to convey by using figurative language. )
Write one page.
DUE for next Tuesday, 22nd.