"Yes, he ate a dog on this", "and time is running", "the whole city has gathered here" … We are so used to such phrases in oral and written speech that we do not even notice the figures of speech used here and trails. Moreover, many people are not even aware of their existence. Meanwhile, tropes and figures of speech occupy such an important and strong place in our lives that it would be quite difficult to imagine even an ordinary everyday conversation without them…
Figures of speech are all the syntactic and lexical means we use that are needed to give the text brightness and expressiveness.
Syntactic figures include those figures of speech that use manipulations with words, sentences and punctuation marks:
- inversion (violation of the classical word order). "The doorman passed by with an arrow";
- antithesis (speech turnover using opposition). "I had a black scarf, and my sister Masha had a white one";
- zeugma (the use of elements among homogeneous members that stand out from the general row according tomeaning). "He took three weeks of rest and a ticket to Menton";
- anaphora and epiphora (the technique of repeating the same structures at the beginning or end of several sentences in a row). "The sun is shining in that valley. Happiness awaits in that valley", "The forest is not the same! - The bush is not the same! - The thrush is not the same!";
- gradation (arrangement of elements in ascending or descending order of their importance). "I came, I saw, I conquered!";
- ellipsis (omission of a sentence member, which is implied in the context). "From the station, he's right here" (missing verb);
- rhetorical questions, appeals and exclamations. "Is there any sense in our life?", "Come, spring, come here as soon as possible!";
- parceling (breaking the sentence into parts, each of which is made out as a separate sentence). "And so. I returned home. There. Where I was. Young."
Lexical figures of speech include those that use "play" with the semantic meanings of words: words that are similar/opposite in meaning). "Red, scarlet, purple colors", "Is he cheerful or sad?";
- hyperbole and litote (artistic exaggeration / understatement). "The whole world froze in anticipation", "Adorable Spitz, no more than a thimble";
- occasionalisms (words first introduced by the author). "Press a picture to me";
- metaphor (hidden comparison based on giving one object the properties of another). "A bee from a wax cell flies for tribute in the field";
- an oxymoron (combinationwords that are mutually exclusive). "Young grandmother, who are you?";
- personification (giving an inanimate object the qualities of a living one). "Winter came, and the forest fell asleep to wake up only with the spring sun";
- paraphrase (replacing the word itself with a value judgment or description). "I'm returning to my favorite city on the Neva";
- an epithet (figurative definition). "His future is either empty or dark."
Figures of speech illustrate the richness of the Russian language and help not only to express one's individual attitude to the subject, but also to show it from a new perspective. They give the text liveliness and spontaneity, and also help to identify the author's point of view. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to recognize and use speech figures, because without them our language can become dry and soulless.
