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Figures of speech – understanding them

August 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Figures of speech – definition

‘Figures of speech’ is a term used to describe the devices employed to add colour, decoration, and imaginative expression to linguistic use.

They distinguish figurative or imaginative language from its use in a literal manner.

Common figures of speech include the following:

alliteration, assonance, cliché, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, paradox, simile, synecdoche

These are also known as ‘rhetorical devices’.

Examples

Literal – He ran quickly down the street.

Simile – He ran like a hare down the street.

Metaphor – He hared down the street.

Use

Many people use these devices quite unconsciously as part of everyday communication.

For instance, a statement such as ‘His plan was given the thumbs down’ uses a figurative term, not a description of people waggling their thumbs. [It dates back to a Roman emperor’s decision on a gladiator’s fate.]

If we say ‘I’ve told him a thousand times!’ this is not literally true. We are using a figure of speech [hyperbole, or exaggeration] to make a point.

NB! Don’t try too hard to use figures of speech. They’ll come naturally.

Figures of speech or rhetorical devices are present in all cultures. It seems that it is in the very nature of linguistic discourse for speakers to act creatively. Indeed, it is that creativity in language use which ultimately divides language use in humans and animals.

A child begins to be creative by using various figures of speech at the very beginning of the acquisition process. Words such as ‘bang’, ‘smack’, ‘moo’, and ‘baa’ are all onomatopoeic figures of speech common to a child’s early vocabulary.

It is useful to contemplate a continuum of which the two opposites are literal and non-literal in terms of linguistic expression. We could envisage a statement of fact towards one extreme and a metaphor towards the other.

The statement of fact might be This is a wooden door.

An example of a metaphor might be The sunshine of your smile.

These two utterances comprise five words each, yet the metaphor says much more than the factual statement. Not only does it say more but it speaks of vast and abstract elements such as love, the sun, gesture, happiness, human warmth, pleasure and possibly more.

Figures of speech are often used to express abstract emotional or philosophical concepts. The figure of speech attaches the abstract concept to a material object and thus is instrumental in creating powerful and dynamic communication.

Original figures of speech are valued in both speech and in writing. We respect the ability to generate these. Politicians for instance often use figures of speech, and are variously successful with this practice.

Churchill’s image of ‘the iron curtain’ has stayed with us for over fifty years, although the phenomenon it described no longer exists. ‘The cold war’ superseded it, during which it was the threat of someone ‘pressing the button’ which was on everyone’s mind.

The ‘rhetorical question’ is a figure of speech favoured by politician and lay person alike. It is a powerful device because, although it has the appearance of being a question, it often acts as a form of persuasion or criticism.

‘Is our country in danger of becoming a hot-bed of sleaze?’ we might hear a politician ask. ‘Are we going to stand by and let these atrocities continue?’ Listening to our car radio we might mentally frame an answer to this kind of question – or at least we might be drawn into contemplating the issue.

At a more domestic level we might be asked ‘What time do you call this?’ or ‘How many times have I told you …?’ These are questions which actively discourage any answer. They are a form of rebuke which is an established ritual. As competent language users, we know them and participate in the ritual – by not answering, or responding to the ‘real’ (unstated) criticism.

Another figure of speech which spans the social spectrum is the cliché. These are often derided, and the word itself has become a pejorative term. However, the cliché is very much ‘alive and kicking’, especially in the context of football. ‘Over the moon’ about a result and ‘gutted’ to hear the news, are just two such figures of speech heard almost daily over the popular media.

The cliché proves its function by its prolific use. Perhaps it is its over-use, or its application in inappropriate contexts which may cause distaste.

Figures of speech are also known as images. This indicates their function well. The outcome of using them is that the listener or the reader receives a multi-dimensional communication. Lewis Carroll coined the term ‘portmanteau’ for words which are packed with layers of meaning. Although Carroll’s usage is slightly different from that of figures of speech, it does illustrate that we have a strong drive as language users to convey meaning colourfully and economically.

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Form – how to understand it

August 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Form – definition

Form is a term which refers to the recognisable shape of a text or a speech act.

This shape may be either physical or abstract.

Examples

Spoken		Written
Conversation		Menu
Sermon		Letter
Announcement		Novel
Anecdote		Article
Joke		Poster

Use

The term ‘form’ is used in linguistics and in literary criticism as a technical term.

It is used when considering the shape, the construction, or the type of speech or writing.

An awareness of form can help to produce more efficient communication.

Keeping the ‘shape’ of writing in mind helps to clarify the type of end product required.

NB! An appreciation of form is developed via practice and experience.

Form is an important part of stylistic analysis – together with audience and function.

When studying a text we first try to identify its form. What type of writing is it? (Is it a letter, an advertisement, a timetable, or a novel?)

Then we might ask ‘To whom is it addressed?’ [audience] and ‘What is it doing?’ [function].

When thinking of linguistic or literary form, it’s sometimes useful to think in terms of material shape. For instance, a table is usually a rectangular horizontal surface supported by legs at each corner. That is the form of a table.

Similarly, a piece of writing which begins with a postal address and the words ‘Dear Sir’, then ends with ‘Yours sincerely’ – is likely to be a letter. This is the form taken by most letters.

It is possible for one form to contain another or several other forms. For example, a novel may contain a letter or a poem. A sermon may contain an anecdote.

Most poems have a form, but this varies a great deal. The sonnet is in part defined by its form which is the number of lines and the rhyme scheme.

Form in speech may be signaled by recognizable phrases, tone of voice, or choice of vocabulary.

For instance, ‘The train now standing in platform ten…’ would be recognised by most people as the start of a railway announcement.

Similarly, ‘O Lord, we beseech thee to …’ would easily be identified as the start of a prayer.

If someone says ‘My grandfather always told me that …’ we know that they are probably going to offer moral advice – a piece of homespun wisdom.

Beware! The term ‘formal’ has widened in its application to mean ‘serious’ — just as ‘informal’ has also extended its meaning to encompass notions of friendliness.

For instance, the greeting ‘Hi there!’ might be described by most people as informal. However, because it is part of a recognised verbal ritual, in linguistic terms [strictly speaking] it is ‘formal’ because it has a fixed shape.

The two terms, ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ therefore need to be used accurately when applied to linguistic or literary analysis.

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Fowler’s Modern English Usage

October 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

reprint of the classic first edition

Fowler’s Modern English Usage was first published in 1926. It was an immediate commercial success, selling 60,000 copies in its first year, and it went on to become the most influential set of guidelines on grammar and the use of the English language of the twentieth century. There were later versions revised by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965 and Robert Burchfield in 1996, but this is a facsimile of Henry Fowler’s original first edition, with an introduction by the linguist David Crystal that sets it in context.

It’s reproduced photographically from the original – so the entries are arranged in two columns on the page, which was the style for books of this kind at the time. This presentation strikes me as doubly appropriate, because it captures the old-fashioned nature of the original, and it accurately reflects the slightly pedantic tone of the contents. Fowler is not unlike his great lexicological predecessor Samuel Johnson in issuing his judgements wrapped around with ironic asides, which makes for interesting reading.

David Crystal’s introductory essay explains how the book came to be published, and how Fowler was an important transition figure between the old, traditional proscriptive grammarians and the new more tolerant descriptive schools which were to follow.

Strangely enough, Fowler, whose name has become a metonym for his Dictionary, is often used by prescriptivists as an authority to support their arguments – when the fact is that his work as a whole reflects a flexible, subtle, and relativist attitude to language and the way it is used.

Fowler deals with all the classic problems in English language, such as the which/that dilemma, the split infinitive, and ending sentences with a preposition. He covers issues that are difficult even for native speakers of English (such as the who/whom issue).

The central problem is the question of usage. If enough people say different from does that make it right? Fowler was working in the days before any giant collections of real data were being used as a source of evidence to support linguistic claims. And he was using printed sources, not spoken, which today are regarded as primary.

However, it’s difficult to predict if he is going to be prescriptive or relativist on any single topic. Crystal points out that there are plenty of inconsistencies within the Dictionary. On some issues Fowler accepts widespread common usage; at others he asserts that something is right or wrong based on nothing more than his own opinion.

It should be said that the Dictionary is not merely a listing of words and their definitions, as in the normal sense of the term. It’s a compendium of how terms are used grammatically, the problems they pose, and the cultural baggage that surrounds them. A typical entry which captures both his stern sense of what is right and his ironic attitude in trying to correct it is as follows:

aggravate, aggravation. 1. The use of these in the sense of annoy, vex, annoyance, vexation, should be left to the uneducated. It is for the most part a feminine or childish colloquialism, but obtrudes occasionally into the newspapers. To aggravate has properly only one meaning—to make (an evil) worse or more serious. The right & the wrong use are shown in: (right) A premature initiative would be calculated rather to a. than to simplify the situation; (wrong) The reopening of the contest by fresh measures that would a. their opponents is the last thing that is desired in Ministerial circles. It is in the participle (and a very stupid, tiresome, aggravating man he is) that the vulgarism is commonest.

You can probably find copies of the first edition Fowler in the few remaining second hand bookshops – but it’s nice to have this reprint to put it back into general circulation again.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

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David Crystal (ed) Fowler’s Modern English Usage: The Classic First Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.784, ISBN: 0199535345

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Full stops – how to use them

September 6, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Full stops – definition

Full stops are punctuation marks indicating a strong pause.

Full stops are used most commonly at the end of complete sentences – like this one.

Examples

This is a short sentence. This is another.
It happened suddenly in 1996.
There are two reasons for this (in my opinion).

Use

The full stop is the strongest mark of punctuation. It is sometimes called the ‘period’.

The stop is also used following many abbreviations.

NB! A full stop is not necessary if the sentence ends with a question or an exclamation mark. Got that?

Full stops are commonly placed after abbreviations:

ibid. – No. 1 – ff. – e.g. – etc.

The stop is normally placed inside quotation marks but outside brackets:

“What joy we had that particular day.”

Profits declined (despite increased sales).

However, if the quotation is part of another statement, the full stop goes outside the quote marks:

Mrs Higginbottam whispered “They’re coming”.

If the parenthesis is a complete sentence, the full stop stays inside the brackets:

There was an earthquake in Osaka. (Another had occurred in Tokyo the year previously.)

No full stop is required if a sentence ends with a question mark or an exclamation, or a title or abbreviation which contains its own punctuation:

Is this question really necessary?
What a mess!
He is the editor of Which?
She gave her address as ‘The Manor, Wilts.’

Full stops are not required after titles, headings, or sub-headings:

The Turn of the Screw
Industrial Policy Report
Introduction

The stop is not necessary following common titles which are shortened forms of a word (technically, ‘contractions’):

Dr – [Doctor]
Mr – [Mister]
St – [Street]
Mme – [Madame]

Full stops are not necessary after the capital letters used as abbreviations for titles of organisations and countries:

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation
UNO – United Nations Organisation
USA – United States of America

They are not used where the initials of a standard work of reference are used as an abbreviated title:

OED – Oxford English Dictionary
DNB – Dictionary of National Biography
PMLA – Papers of the Modern Languages Association

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Function – how to understand it

September 6, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Function – definition

Function is the term used to express the purpose of a text or of a speech act.

This function can be determined by the writer or by the reader.

Examples

Texts or spoken pieces might fall into one of the following broad categories:

WRITING

persuasion an advertisement

information a train timetable

entertainment a short story

instruction how to build a wardrobe

SPEECH

persuasion a sermon

information a radio weather forcast

entertainment a joke

instruction how to get from A to B

Use

The term ‘function’ is used as a technical term in linguistics and in literary criticism.

An awareness of function helps to produce efficient writing and speaking.

An awareness of function also results in efficient reading and listening.

NB! Function is one of the three important features of communication. The other two are audience and form.

The four general functions possess certain stylistic features or attributes:

Instruction the imperative mode and direct address
[Stir the mixture]

Persuasion emotive vocabulary
[beautiful, duty, militant, heart]

Information factual data
[time, locations, measurements]

Entertainment often breaks rules of grammar, spelling, pronunciation

Awareness of these in the production of speech or writing leads to effective communication and an appropriate style.

For instance, if we buy a product such as a chicken casserole from a supermarket we may be more interested in what’s in it than how to cook it. We may be interested in both these elements, but we certainly wouldn’t want them mixed together.

Food manufacturers for this reason present the list of ingredients [information] separately from how to prepare the dish [instructions]. This simple example shows the concept of function working efficiently.

If we receive a phone call from a close relative who comes to visit more often than we would like, we immediately try to ascertain the purpose [function] of the call. Is it –

an attempt to fix up the next visit? [persuade]
to tell us the possible dates? [inform]
to explain how their vegetables should be cooked? [instruct]
to tell us that the cat has learned to swim? [entertain]

In this example, the person who phones to arrange the visit may have every interest in obscuring the function of the call. As a recipient however, we are very interested in finding out what it is. Such is the crucial nature of function.

The National Curriculum for the teaching of English in Schools now states the importance of making children aware of the function of all the varied pieces they read and write.

Examining boards for A level English will only accept written work which has an authentic function. That is, it should be as close as possible to an example which could be used in real life.

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Grammar – how to understand it

September 6, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Grammar – definition

The term ‘grammar’ refers to the structure of language.

This can be applied to a whole language or to any smaller unit of that language.

Grammatical study is often a systematic account of the rules of sentence structure, syntax, and semantics.

Examples

The study of grammar in any language focuses on:

tense concerning time sequence

person reference to people or things

syntax how parts relate to each other

A grammatical study of the following brief statement focuses on the same issues:

The cats drank the milk

The cats Subject – third person plural

drank Verb – past tense

the milk Object – third person singular

Notice that the statement follows normal English syntax (word-order)

Subject — Verb — Object

Use

An awareness of grammar or the structure of language can result in more efficient writing and speaking.

An understanding of the mechanics or workings of language is far more useful and more easily acquired than memorising technical terms.

You can understand the mechanics of language by studying utterances and their:

audience — form — function

The study of grammar in any language focuses on:

tense John ran up the stairs
[past tense of the verb]

person Joanna approached him
[third person singular]

syntax The dog bit the man
[subject – verb – object]

NB! Most people are not conscious of grammatical rules — but they use them quite naturally when speaking.

It is useful to be able to distinguish between the more grammatical items in a statement and those which have a mainly lexical function.

The grammatical items are the working parts of the statement, whilst the lexical items carry content or meaning.

There is no absolute distinction between grammatical and lexical items. However, it is possible to think of a continuum, with lexis at one end and grammar at the other.

For instance, the items in in the following statement can be seen as lexical, grammatical, and a combination of both:

‘Dorothy likes to come to our house every Tuesday and have tea with us.’

lexical Dorothy, house, Tuesday, tea

grammatical to, and, with

The terms ‘our’, ‘every’, and ‘have’ are between these two categories because they perform both a lexical and a grammatical function.

The study of English grammar study has developed over hundreds of years. The objective has generally been to find a set of rules which accurately and comprehensively define, describe, and explain the workings of the language.

In the past, grammar study was very prescriptive. Rules were laid down as to how English must be used. Many of these prescriptive rules were based on the rules of the Latin language which historically had strong religious and cultural ties with English.

Latin was regarded as the perfect language and as such was used as a model for English. However, it was a blueprint which didn’t fit, and the struggle to make it fit has left us with such prescriptive rules as ‘Never end a sentence with a preposition’.

In the past, the study of grammar was thought to be a series of rules and regulations:

Rules for writing good English
Learning to analyse sentences grammatically

The most significant development this century has been the move towards a descriptive and functional approach to understanding of the workings of English. That is to say, the emphasis currently is on observing how the language is actually operating in practice. Changes are charted and variations noted, with a neutral attitude.

A language is best seen as a living organism which is constantly in the process of evolution. The nature of its changes reflect and affect its users. As Latin has been a dead language for hundreds of years, its imposition on English is at best interesting and at worst ludicrous.

Every language has a basic structure. This is composed of its essential grammatical features, which are its working parts. It also has more superficial features such as its vocabulary, which changes and develops in accordance with cultural and social phenomena.

A good example of this can be seen in the recently acquired technological terms associated with the advent of the computer. The terms ‘hard disk’, ‘floppy drive’, ‘Web site’, ‘Internet’, ‘mouse’, and ‘downloading’ simply didn’t exist thirty years ago. Indeed, the World Wide Web – for many people the centre of the Internet – was only invented as recently as 1993.

Noam Chomsky perhaps made the most significant impact on the study of grammar by his Innateness Theory, which is now universally accepted as basically valid.

The Innateness theory of grammar is based on the notion that humans are genetically programmed to acquire language. The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a function which equips us for speech, just as other genetic features equip us for walking or breathing.

The prerequisite for language acquisition is what Chomsky calls comprehensible imput – which is hearing people around us use language.

Thousands of different languages exist, and the developing child acquires the language of its own culture. The vocabulary and content has to be learnt, but the fundamental grammatical workings are innate.

Evidence of this LAD at work can be observed in the so-called mistakes which young children make. These are utterances such as ‘I comed home’ or ‘I wented over there’ or ‘those two sheeps’ and ‘those three mouses’.

What is happening here should be celebrated as evidence of the child’s capacity for grammatical analysis. That is, the rule has been learned but over-applied.

The expression ‘I comed’ is evidence that the child has internalised the rule for forming the past tense, which is – add ‘—ed’.

‘Sheeps’ and ‘mouses’ show that the rule for forming a plural has been learnt — add ‘—s’.

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Grammar checkers for essay writing

August 23, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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1. Grammar checkers will help you to avoid some of the most common stylistic pitfalls. These include over-long sentences, cloudy grammar, unrelated clauses, bad punctuation, and dangling participles [which can be very painful].

2. These programs are generally designed to encourage clear, plain prose. This is a good model to follow for most forms of writing. Be prepared to split up over-long sentences or to simplify the syntax of chained clauses.

3. Most checkers give you the option to adjust settings for different types of writing. For instance, they will allow you to select a formal style, in which any mistakes in conventional grammar are corrected. Alternatively, you might choose an informal style as acceptable [not a good idea]. You could even choose to accept more jargon if you were writing for a specialist readership.

4. For academic writing, you should choose a formal writing style. This will throw up queries on anything which is shaky or unorthodox. It will also put a limit of something like twenty or thirty words on sentence length.

5. The checker will present alternate choices of words for what it regards as ‘mistakes’. Do not blindly accept them. The near-synonyms offered may be drawn from different contexts. If necessary, take the trouble to look up the meanings of these words in a dictionary.

6. Some grammar-checkers incorporate spelling-checkers. Use these in the same way – with a combination of patience and scepticism.

7. Grammar-checkers are a fairly recent development. They are not yet very sophisticated. Moreover, grammar and syntax are subtle and complex matters. It is not always possible for a machine to make sensitive distinctions between linguistic usages which represent tasteful or even accurate discrimination.

8. It has to be said that they are also notoriously unpopular, because they seem to be throwing up ‘mistakes’ in your work. But if you can overcome your irritation, you are very likely to improve the clarity of your writing by using one.

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Grammar for Teachers

July 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

essential guide to how English language works

The UK government’s latest policy on English teaching insists that it should be presented ‘across the curriculum’. What this means is that teachers of subjects other than English have to focus the language of their practice as part of normal classroom teaching and learning. This can leave teachers of chemistry, home economics, and physical education feeling rather exposed where formal grammar is concerned. John Seely’s latest book to the rescue! It is aimed at teachers in primary and secondary schools, and will also be useful for those preparing to teach modern foreign languages and English as an additional or foreign language.

And he’s well qualified for the job of explaining complex issues. His previous books include Words, The A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation, Effective Writing and Speaking, and Writing Reports.

These are all very popular books which introduce linguistic facets of everyday life in a straightforward manner. This one follows the same pattern. He explains how sentences are built up from subject, verb, and object (Elephants like grass) but puts his emphasis on recognising clause patterns. Then comes an explanation of different types of noun (proper, countable, uncountable) adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and all the other common parts of speech.

In keeping with all the normal rigour of language studies, nothing is examined beyond the length of a single sentence, and his explanations are all as simple and clear as possible. Despite this, there’s still quite a lot of grammatical jargon to take on board (clause elements, prepositional phrases, and modal auxiliaries).

A lot of what he offers is a common sense approach to explaining the categories of grammar – that is, what function a word is performing in any given statement. For instance, work can be a verb or a noun, depending on the context in which it is being used.

The book is in three parts. The first offers basic definitions and explanations; the second goes into more detail; and the third is a big glossary which explains all the technical terms used throughout the book. It also includes other terms that may be be particularly useful for teachers of modern foreign languages. There’s also an appendix explaining what’s required of teachers implementing the literacy strategy in primary schools.

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John Seely, Grammar for Teachers, Oxpecker Press, 2007, pp.172, ISBN: 095534512X

Grammar in essays

August 23, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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1. Grammar in essays (and elsewhere) is the system of rules which govern the formal use of written language. You should follow these conventions as closely as possible. In writing, poor grammar creates a bad effect.

2. Don’t try to remember lots of grammatical ‘rules’ (many of which are anyway not absolute). Instead, you should simply take care with your choice of vocabulary, your construction of sentences, and the use of simple syntax.

3. You can usually improve your grammar by writing in short, clear sentences. These should follow the syntax of a normal statement in English:

Subject — Verb — Object

The man — was — very tall

4. Double check the following guidance notes. They will help you to create a clear and trouble-free style.

Checklist

Avoid a casual or a chatty tone
Avoid very long sentences
Develop a simple and clear style
Be consistent in use of tenses
Check for full case agreement in your sentences
Punctuate your writing clearly and simply
Take special care with the apostrophe
Be careful with the semicolon and the colon
Re-write and edit your work
Eliminate anything vague or over-complex
Use a spelling-checker and a grammar-checker

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Grammatical tense in essays

August 25, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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1. The grammatical tense in which an essay is written should be chosen according to academic conventions. If your subject is connected with an earlier historical period, then the past tense will probably be suitable. If it is contemporary, then the present tense might be preferred.

2. When dealing with a literary text, the easiest manner of discussing its events and characters is to use the present rather than the past tense. The present tense is less cumbersome to deal with, and you are less likely to become grammatically confused when dealing with topics from different points in the chronology of events.

3. The following example illustrates a perfectly acceptable manner of presenting an argument in an essay on Charles Dickens’s novel, Great Expectations:

When Pip leaves Joe and the forge to enjoy his newfound expectations in London, he feels a momentary twinge of doubt as he notices that …

4. The present tense is a ‘neutral’ mode of discussion from which you can easily move back momentarily into the past and even forward into the future tense when necessary:

When Pip leaves Joe and the forge … whereas earlier he had been closer to him, just as he will later become again when they are reconciled following the novel’s denouement …

5. This may seem slightly odd at first, because most fictional narratives are themselves written in the past tense. The logic of this procedure however is that your essay is dealing with a text that will never change. Pip will always leave the forge, just as he and Joe will always be reconciled.

6. Essays dealing with history or political issues of the past are normally and most logically written in the past tense:

Within six weeks of the revolution Cossack armies and other ‘white’ forces were already mustering in south-eastern Russia; the Ukraine, egged on by French and British promises, was in a state of all but open hostilities against the Soviet power; the Germans, in spite of the armistice, were a standing threat in the west.

E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923: Volume One, London: Penguin: 1984, p.167

7. Some people try to give a sense of vividness or urgency to their writing by casting their narratives in what’s called the ‘dramatic present’ tense. The result is often modish and posturing. This should be avoided in academic writing.

Within six weeks of the revolution Cossack armies and other ‘white’ forces are already mustering in south-eastern Russia; the Ukraine, egged on by French and British promises, is in a state of all but open hostilities against the Soviet power; the Germans, in spite of the armistice, are a standing threat in the west.

8. When writing scientific reports, the past tense is generally to be preferred. ‘The solubility of potassium dichromate in chloroform was measured’. However, when the item at issue is a fact or a constant, it may be spoken of in the present tense because it will not change: ‘The dipole moment of hydrogen chloride is 1.05 Debye’.

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Figures of speech – definition

Examples

Use

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Form – definition

Examples

Use

reprint of the classic first edition

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Full stops – definition

Examples

Use

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Function – definition

Examples

Use

free pages from our English Language software program

Grammar – definition

Examples

Use

sample from HTML program and PDF book

essential guide to how English language works

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