Republic of the Philippines

CARCAR CITY COLLEGE

Luanluan Street, Poblacion I, Carcar City, Cebu
Tel # 487-0063/487-9077
carcarcitycollege.edu.ph

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN AGRICULTURE

Subject : ENGLISH PROFICIENCY MODULE NO. 05

Class Schedule : BSA 1A: - 4:00 – 5:30 (MW)

BSA 1B: - 7:30 – 9:00 (TTH)
BSA 1C: - 7:30 – 9:00 (MW))
BSA 1D: - 1:00 – 2:30 (MW)

Week 10: Topics : FIGURATIVE LANGUAGES (IDIOMATIC EXPRESSION

AND FIGURES OF SPECH

Objectives : At the end of this topic, students must have:

a. interpreted the phrase or idioms through an effective meaning;
b. distinguished various kinds of figures of speech; and
c. used idiomatic expressions appropriately in communication.

A blessed day to everyone! How are you today? Before the proper discussion of our
lesson, please I would like you to make a silent invocation to our heavenly Father God, the Son and
the Holy Spirit. For being a Christian, it is our obligation to praise and glorify His name in everything
that we do in our pilgrimage here on earth. [we have to dedicate few minutes of silence].

I. ACTIVITY :

Direction : Visualize this image, do you have an idea of what is this all about?
Can you share it to the class?
1. ABSTRACTION :

Figurative language is a way of expressing oneself that does not use a word’s strict or realistic
meaning. Common in comparisons and exaggerations, figurative language is usually used to add creative
flourish to written or spoken language or explain a complicated.

Figurative languages uses figures of speech to be more effective, persuasive, and impactful.

Figures of speech such as metaphors, similes and allusions go beyond the literal meanings of the words to
give readers new insights. On the other hand, alliterations, imageries or onomatopoeias are figurative
devices that appeal to the senses of the readers.
Figurative language can appear in multiple forms with the use of different literary and rhetorical devices.
According to Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia, the definition of figurative languages has five different
forms:

1. Understatement or Emphasis
2. Relationship or Resemblance
3. Figures of Sound
4. Errors and
5. Verbal Games

Types of Figurative Language

The term figurative language cover a wide range of literary devices and techniques, a few of which
include:

- Simile
- Metaphor
- Personification
- Onomatopoeia
- Oxymoron
- Hyperbole
- Allusion
- Idiom
- Imagery
- Symbolism
- Alliteration
- Assonance
- Consonance
- Metonymy
- Synecdoche
- Irony
- Sarcasm
- Litotes
- Pun
- Tautology
- Understatement

SHORT EXAMPLES of FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

Similes
1. His friend is as black as coal
2. He has learned gymnastics, and is as agile as a monkey
3. When attacked in his home, he will fight like a caged tiger.
4. Can you dance like a monkey?
5. Even when he was told everything, he was acting like a donkey.
Metaphor
1. My friend is a Shakespeare when in English class.
2. He was roaring lion in anger, though now he is silent.
3. They seem like jackals when running in fear.
4. Kisses are roses in the spring.
5. This world is a sea of anonymous faces.

Images
1. The house stood half-demolished and abandoned.
2. He left with his hunted and spell-bound face.
3. He did not like the odorless and colorless shape water.
4. His friend was looking at spooky glissando twangs.
5. Zigzag fissures in the land made him look for snakes.

Assonance
1. The light on the site did not let him see the light.
2. He heard the sound of the fire, like wire striking the air.
3. This artificial stream is going to flow to the downtown of the down.
4. Please set the kite right.
5. Might of the fright seems greater than the actual fear.

Consonance
1. He lets the pink ball fall with a tall man
2. They have not learned how to catch the cat.
3. Get a seat with a treat in our local hall.
4. Calling the cow an ox is like putting a cart before the horse.
5. He saw the pink kite floating past the tall trees.

Paradox
1. He is dying with his untrustworthy belief.
2. Sharply blunt razor cannot do anything for you.
3. Kindly cruel treatment made him flabbergasted.
4. Please, watch with close eyes and you will see he heaven.
5. Creatively dull person cannot do anything in his life.

Metonymy
1. The Pentagon is located in Washington in the United States.
2. The Hollywood is a home of English movies.
3. 10 Downing Street is located in London.
4. Buckingham Palace is world’s oldest symbol of democracy.
5. The White House.

Synecdoche
1. He does not know hoe to behave with the special people.
2. He is looking at his own grey hair and his agility.
3. They saw fleet of fifty.
4. At this time, he owns nine head of cattle.
5. The new generation is addicted to the use of plastic money.

Examples of Figurative Languages from Literature

Example #1: The Base Stealer (By Robert Francis)

Simile
Poised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tight-rope water,

Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball,

 Or a kid skipping a rope, come on, come on!...

Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,

He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,

The similes and word choice of this poem makes this a masterpiece. The poet uses similes between the
lines to depict his scattered thoughts before taking action, and makes comparison as “like a tight-rope”,
“like a dropped a ball”, and “hovers like an ecstatic bird”.
Example #2: I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings (By Maya Angelou)
Metaphor
But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill...
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The entire poem is rich with metaphor as a bird in a cage represents a group of people who are oppressed
and cannot get freedom. The cage represents physical barriers, fear, addiction, or society: while the song
of the bird represents true self yearning for something greater in life.

Example #3: She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms (By Emily Dickinson)
Personification
She sweeps with many-colored Brooms
And leaves the Shreds behind
Oh Housewife in the Evening West
Comeback, and dust the Pond!
Dickinson uses personification of a housewife to describe the sunset in the very first line of this poem.
She is using a sweeping housewife who does her daily work, likewise the rays of the setting sun sweep
away beneath the horizon.

Example #4: The Raven (By Edgar Allen Poe)

Alliteration
Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary;
rare and radiant maiden;
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain…
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Poe uses alliteration by repeating the /w/ sound to emphasize the weariness of the narrator, and then /r/
and /s/ sounds in the second and third line respectively. In the last two lines, the /d/ sound highlights the
narrator’s hopelessness.

Example #5: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (By Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Symbolism
Ah! well a-day1 what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
In these lines, the Albatross symbolizes a big mistake, or a burden of sin, just like the cross on which
Christ was crucified. Therefore, all people on the ship agreed to slay that bird.

Example #6: The Bluest Eyes (By Toni Morrison)

Personification, Consonance, and Simile
She ran down the street, the green knee socks making her legs look like wild dandelion of stems that
had somehow lost their heads. Their weight of her remark stunned us.

This excerpt use different devices that make language figurative. There is a good use of simile, “legs look
like wild dandelion.” and personification, “lost their heads” and use of consonance in “stunned us”
where the /s/ is a consonant sound.

Example #7: The Week of Diana (By Maya Angelou)

Metaphor, Consonance, Personification
“The dark lantern of world sadness has cast its shadow upon the land.
We stumble into misery on leaden feet.”

In just these two lines, Maya Angelou has used a metaphor of the dark lantern, consonance of the /s/
sounds, and personification of misery.

Example #8: The Negro speaks of River (By Langston Hughes)

Consonance, Simile
“I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

This prince of the Harlem Renaissance has beautifully used a different type of consonance with the /l/
sound and a simile of “my soul”.

Example #9: Musée des Beaux Arts (By W.H. Auden)

Personification, Consonance
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy W.H. Auden life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

W.H Auden has used a personification of the “dreadful martyrdom”, and consonances of “some untidy
spot”, with the /s/ sound, and “dogs go on with their doggy life” with the /d/ and /g/ sounds.

Function of Figurative Language

The primary function of figurative language is to force readers to imagine what a writer wants to express.
Figurative language is not meant to convey literal meanings, and often it compares one concept with
another in order to make the first concept easier to understand, However, it links the two ideas or
concepts with the goal of influencing the audience, to understand the link even if it not exist.

Poets and prose writers use their technique to bring out emotions and help their readers form images in
their minds. Thus, figurative language is a useful way of conveying an idea that readers cannot
understand otherwise, due to its complex and abstract nature. In addition, it helps in analyzing a literary
text.

English idioms, proverbs, and expressions are an important part of everyday English. They come
up all the time in both written and spoken English.

Idiomatic expressions are a type of informal language that have a meaning different from the
meaning of the words in the expression.

100+ Idiomatic Expressions: The Ultimate Guide to Learning Them

 Idiomatic expressions are groups of words with an established meaning unrelated to the meanings
of the individual words. Sometimes called an expression, an idiom can be very colorful and make a
picture in our minds.

Some Common Idiomatic expressions:

He let the cat out of the bag (accidentally told a secret)
She got off Scott-free (escaped without punishment)
He flew off the handle (went crazy)

We love idiomatic expressions and idiomatic phrases in English , don’t we? From an English language-
learner’s point of view, they are the ‘icing on the cake’ much like phrasal verbs and adjectives. But how
do we remember what they mean and how to use them?

We can memorize a few, and try to use them as often as we can (probably too often), but how do we
manage an idiom that we are meeting for the first time?

I’m going to show you how you can easily understand more than 100 English idioms, used in both
American English and British English, even the first time you hear them.
Firstly, you need to know that idioms and phrases are everywhere in English: anything that doesn’t have a
literal, physical is an idiom. Let’s look at some idiom examples:
 I find his excuses hardtop swallow, he’s lying.
 The police have been digging around in his accounts looking for evidence of fraud.
 He’s a really bright spark, so I think he’ll do well at school.
SEVEN WAYSTO MAKE ENGLISH IDIOMS AND PHRASES EASIER TO UNDERSTAND:
1. Listen to context.
2. Check to see if you understood.
3. Be honest when you don’t understand.
4. Never translate idioms.
5. Listen to how native speakers use idioms.
6. Take notes.
7. Tolerate your mistakes.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FIGURES OF SPEECH
In general the purpose of Figures of Speech is to lend texture and color to your writing.
III. ASSESSMENT:
Direction: Distinguish the following common figures of speech using this column.

FIGURES OF SPEECH DIFFERENTIATION

A. Metaphor
 B. Simile
C. Allusion
D. Alliteration
E. Oxymoron
F. Metonymy
G. Synecdoche
H. Idiom
I. Personification
J. Onomatopoeia
K. Imagery
L. Symbolism
M. Assonance
N. Consonance
O. Pun
P. Hyperbole
Q. Irony
R. Sarcasm
S. Litotes

IV. APPLICATION:
Direction: Write twenty five idiomatic expressions and use those appropriately in the
sentence and submit during our F12Fclass.

Good job! You successfully accomplished your 5th module. Keep up the good work!

References:
 Borjars, et al. (2019). Introducing English Grammar, Routledge, London
 Ranford, A. (2016). Analysing English Sentences, Cambridge Univ. Press, U.K.
Prepared by:

GILNA D. CAVAN, MAED.ET

Instructor

Checked by:

ALMA A. MAULIT, MA-ENG

Program Head, GEC

Approved:

LEOARDO E. LACOSTALES, PhD.

Dean for Academic Affairs