Figures of Speech and Language Vices: Comprehensive Guide
Figures of Speech and Language Vices
Figures of Sound
Alliteration
Repetition of initial consonant sounds. Example: Waiting, still, stuck in the stone of the port.
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds. Example: I am a mulatto born in the broad sense of the democratic coast.
Paronomasia
Using words with similar sounds but different meanings. Example: I that step, and I think.
Figures of Construction
Ellipse
Omission of a term easily understood from context. Example: In the room, only four or five guests. (Omission of “there were”)
Zeugma
Ellipse of a previously mentioned term. Example: He prefers film, I, theater. (Omission of “prefer”)
Polysyndeton
Repetition of conjunctions. Example: And under the rhythmic waves and under the clouds and winds and under bridges and under the sarcasm and in the slime and vomit under the…
Hyperbaton (U)
Changing the natural order of words. Example: From everything a little. My fear. Your disgust.
Syllepsis
Agreement with the implied meaning, not the grammatical form.
- By gender: His Excellency is concerned.
- By number: The Lusiads glorified our literature.
- By person: What I find inexplicable is that the Brazilians persist in eating that little green and soft thing that melts in your mouth.
Anacoluthon
A loose term in the sentence, often due to a change in syntactic construction. Example: Life, I don’t really know if it’s worth something.
Pleonasm
Redundancy to reinforce a message. Example: And laugh my laughter and shed my tears.
Anaphora
Repetition of a word at the beginning of verses or phrases. Example: Love is a fire that burns without being seen; It’s a wound that hurts and does not feel; It is a joy unhappy; It’s pain without hurting.
Figures of Thought
Antithesis
Juxtaposition of contrasting terms. Example: The gardens have life and death.
Irony
Using a term with the opposite of its usual meaning for humorous or critical effect. Example: The excellent Dona Inacia was a master in the art of tormenting children.
Understatement
Replacing an expression with a less sharp one. Example: He enriched by illicit means. (Instead of “he stole”)
Hyperbole
Exaggeration for emphasis. Example: I’m dying of thirst. (Instead of “I’m very thirsty”)
Personification (Prosopopoeia)
Attributing human qualities to inanimate objects. Example: The garden looked at the children without saying anything.
Climax/Gradation
Presenting ideas in ascending (climax) or descending (anticlimactic) order. Example: A wounded heart desires, throbbing, pounding, bursting.
Apostrophe
Emphatic address to someone or something personified. Example: Lord God of bastards! Tell me, Lord God!
Figures of Words
Metaphor
Using a term with a different meaning based on similarity. Example: My thought is an underground river.
Metonymy
Transposition of meaning based on a logical relationship, not similarity. Example: I had no roof that housed me. (Roof instead of home)
Catachresis
Using a term figuratively due to the lack of a specific term. Example: The foot of the table was broken.
Periphrasis
Replacing a name with a descriptive expression. Example: The four lads from Liverpool (Instead of “The Beatles”)
Synesthesia
Merging sensations perceived by different organs. Example: The harsh light of dawn invaded my room.
Language Vices
Barbarism
Incorrect spelling or pronunciation. Examples: immunotherapy (instead of “research”); prototype (instead of “prototype”)
Solecism
Deviation from syntactic norms. Example: They are two months that he does not appear. (Instead of “It has been two months since he appeared.”)
Ambiguity (Amphibology)
Constructing a sentence with more than one meaning. Example: The guard stopped the suspect at his home. (Whose home?)
Cacophony
Unpleasant sound produced by the combination of words. Example: I paid five thousand reais each.
Redundancy
Unnecessary repetition of an idea. Example: The morning breeze of the morning left him satisfied.
Neologism
Creation of unnecessary words. Example: According to Mário Prata, if “teenager” is one that is between childhood and adulthood, “envelhescente” is one that is between adulthood and old age.
Archaism
Use of obsolete words. Example: Your grace allows me to talk? (Instead of “you”)
Echo
Repetition of words ending with the same sound. Example: The boy happily repeats in his mind.
By Marina Cabral
Specializes in Portuguese Language and Literature
Team Brazil School