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Bonde, Lars Ole: Analogy And Metapher In Music Therapy Theory ...
are used to emphasize, clarify, and embellish what is being said. Most figures of
speech simply take what is well-known and use it to depict what is less familiar.
Metaphor is a figure of speech that is used to indicate resemblance. A
Shakespeare example (from 'As You Like It'):
All the world's a stage,/And all the men and women merely players:/They have
their exits and their entrances;/And one man in his time plays many parts, The
author uses the theatre as a metaphor to construct a word picture about the
meaning of life
Simile resembles the metaphor. Whereas a metaphor is an implied resemblance, a
simile is a stated resemblance in other words, a similarity. And it uses the words
"like" or "as" in showing how one thing is similar to another. A frequently quoted
simile from the Scottish poet Robert Burns is: My love is like a red, red rose.
Personification. While the metaphor and simile have fixed and slightly differing
grammatical structures, other figures of speech are generally much freer in their
construction. Personification is the application of human qualities to something
that is not human, ex. "The walls have ears," "Money talks," and "Fear stalked the
land". Another term is anthropomorphism, from the Greek meaning "to have the
form of man." The device is oftenapplied to animals,like Mickey Mouse, Donald
Duck.
Metonymy and Synecdoche. Metonymy means using the name of one thing for
another closely related term. In the question "What would the Pentagon think of
the president's new military proposals?" the Pentagon is used instead of Department
of Defense, although it is only the building in which the department is housed.
Synecdoche means using a part to imply the whole, as in saying "There are a lot of
hard hats working on this new building." The term "hard hats" refers, of course, to
a construction crew.
Hyperbole and Understatement Hyperbole is a form of exaggeration, and
understatement is a negative exaggeration. To say, for instance (using a
metaphor), "I have a mountain of work to do" is obviously an exaggeration unless
one is a mountain climber "Adolf Hitler was not the most beloved person of the
20th century" is a remarkable piece of understatement
Alliteration and Onomatopoeia are used generally in poetry and fiction to create
sound effects in words. Alliteration is the use of the same sound, usually a
consonant, at the beginning of neighboring words in a sentence or phrase such as
"the dear, dead days beyond recall" or Shakespeare's "Full fathom five thy father
lies" from 'The Tempest'. Onomatopoeia uses words to imitate natural sounds such
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