Understanding Figurative Language
To make language clearer, more interesting, and more striking, all of us use expressions which are not literally true. We make comparisons in speaking and writing. Figurative language - language that compares - paints a picture for the reader. Figurative language can be confusing if it is understood literally. The ability to recognize and interpret or explain figurative language may help us fully understand a writer’s point. Look at the following examples taken from Reading Passage A:
1. For what, I sometimes wonder; so that she can struggle to breathe through most of her life feeling half her strength, and then die of self-poisoning, as her grandfather did? (Para. 7, Reading Passage A, Unit 5)
2. There is a quotation from a battered women's shelter that I especially like: "Peace on earth begins at home." (Para. 8, Reading Passage A, Unit 5)
3. Smoking is a form of self-battering that also batters those who must sit by, occasionally joke or complain, and helplessly watch. (Para. 8, Reading Passage A, Unit 5)
Here in all three examples, smoking is compared to a form of self-poisoning and self-destroying, thus making the evil effects of smoking cigarettes more alarming.
There are many different ways of using figurative language. Listed here are just a few of them:
a) Similes (明喻, 直喻), figurative expressions which directly compare one thing to another by using the words as or like.
b) Metaphors (暗喻), in which comparisons are only implied, without using as, like and the like.
c) Personification (拟人), figurative expressions which compare non-human things to humans.
Understanding Figurative Language
The particular reading skill introduced in this unit is understanding figurative language. To make language clearer, more interesting, and more striking, all of us use expressions which are not literally true. We make comparisons in speaking and writing. Figurative language - language that compares - paints a picture for the reader. Figurative language can be confusing if it is understood literally. The ability to recognize and interpret or: explain figurative language may help us fully understand a writer’s point.
Look at the following examples taken from Reading Passage.
There are many different ways of using figurative language. Listed here are just a few of them:
a) Similes (明喻, 直喻). These are figurative expressions which directly compare one thing to another by using the words as or like. Look at the following example taken from Reading Passage A:
The tobacco industry, coupled with Hollywood movies in which both male and female heroes smoked like chimneys ... (Para. 3, Reading Passage A, Unit 5)
In this sentence, “... smoked like chimney” means “... smoked heavily and continuously”, but the comparison between the two makes the idea clearer and more imaginative.
b) Metaphors (暗喻), in which comparisons are only implied or: suggested, without using as, like and the like. Take another example from Reading Passage A:
The tobacco industry ... completely won over people like my father, who were hopelessly hooked by cigarettes. (Para. 3, Reading Passage A, Unit 5)
In this sentence, the idea of people relying on smoking is expressed as that of people being hooked by cigarettes. ‘Hook’ is commonly used in relation to fishing and just as fish are hooked and cannot get away so are cigarette smokers. This implied, parallel image makes the thought more striking and powerful.
c) Personification (拟人), figurative expressions which compare non-human things to humans. For example:
My father died from “the poor man’s friend,” pneumonia, one hard winter when his lung illnesses had left him low. (Para. 5, Reading Passage A, Unit 5)
In this sentence, pneumonia, a disease often visited upon poor people, is compared to “the poor man’s friend” and we can feel the power of language easily.