Learn the secrets of powerful language!
Sounds of Words
• alliteration – repeating the beginning consonant sounds in words
• assonance – repeating similar sounds, especially vowel sounds
• consonance – repeating similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.
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Choice of Words
• hyperbole – exaggerating for effect; e.g. tons of money
• irony – saying the opposite of what is meant
• litotes – understating for effect; e.g. no small victory; not a bad idea
• metaphor – comparing things not alike through implication
• personification – giving human qualities to nonhuman things
• synecdoche – using part of something to stand for the whole thing
• simile – comparing things not alike by using the word ‘like’ or ‘as’
• vocabulary – using precise nouns and verbs to describe scenes/emotions
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Arrangement of Words
• repetition – repeating sounds, words or phrases for effect
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Analyze a story that uses powerful language:
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shadows on the Wall. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1980.
Figures of speech |
Quotes [page #] |
Alliteration& Consonance | “…A story of guilt and goodness of remorse and retribution.” [p.49] |
Alliteration& Consonance | “… Woman had put a hex on her husband.” [p.49] |
Repetition | “With gray cap, gray hair, and long gray coat…” [p.21] |
Assonance, Personification&
Simile |
“…As though every word that was uttered punctured the air and fractured the bones as well.” [p.56] |
Assonance, Personification &
Consonance |
“They watched the police car around the bend and disappear.” [p.120] |
Sense: Sight | “Against the brightness of the flame, his hand looked almost blue.” [p.7] |
Personification | “…The disease that stalked his future…” [p.97] |
Metaphor | “…Blurred behind the blanket of rain.” [p98] |
Simile | “The dread was like poison in his system.” [p.101] |
Hyperbole& Metaphor | “Her skin, etched with hundreds of tiny lines, pulled tightly over her face…” [p.113] |
Simile | “His forehead felt damp, as if he had been bathed in cold sweat.” [p.88] |
Metaphor & Personification | “’When you feed tomorrow, it eats the joy of today.’” [p.156] |
Parallel Structure | “’I learned some Romany words, ate gypsy stew, and slept out under the stars’” [p.35] |
Powerful Verbs | “…Clucking over Dan…” [p.15], “…Deep lines etched his face.” [p.62], “…it preened itself once or twice…” [p.112] |
Litotes & Short Sentences | “…Chance of a meteorite falling on you? Almost none?“ [p.63] |
Short Sentences | “’Trashed?’” [p.42], “Go. Go now…” [p.102], “Without a cure? A face in the water. It must be madness. What else?” [p.67] |
Litotes | “’ Out ‘aving a bit of a ride with Joe, eh?’” |
Senses: Hearing, Alliteration, Assonance, & Sight | “…A tall clock in one corner chimed nine times.” [p.20] |
Simile | “It was as though the room was dividing in half.” [p.60] |
Irony | “…And reached for Dan’s hand. ‘He will take a long trip,’ she joked… ‘He will go to America some day.’” (by Ann in grade eight) |