Coursera Flashcards
(20 cards)
Image
Anything you can literally touch, taste, see, hear or smell.
Abstraction
Those things for which we have symbols but no image.
(A clock for “time”, A heart for “love”, A mirror for “beauty”, A timeline for “life” )
Conceit
A metaphor that unfolds across multiple lines or paragraphs in a text
- To help the reader make a new, insightful connection between two different entities that might not have seemed related.
Metaphor
Metaphor is a comparison between two things simultaneously. It’s use is to create the possibility that these two things that seem to be dissimilar, actually have something in common.
Love is a battlefield.
Silas is a couch potato.
If you don’t take them at face value, the result is a much more powerful description of people or events than you’d get with phrases like “love is difficult” or “Silas sits around a lot.”
Simile
Simile is a kind of comparison, similar to a metaphor, but it uses ‘like’ or ‘as’ to emphasize the similarity. We’re ultimately saying that it’s only similar, NOT the same.
I know that definition like the back of my hand.
Those two are as different as night and day.
Non sequitur
Non sequitur means responses or follow-up statements that are not related to the previous statement or question.
A: What do you want to eat for dinner tonight?
B: Did you know that Minnie Mouse’s first name is Mavis?
Synecdoche
Synecdoche uses a part of a thing to stand in for the whole thing.
Hit the road = leave
Regular or decaf? = regular or decaf coffee
Hand in marriage = marriage proposal
All hands on deck = everyone must be available
Press the flesh = greet people
Order! = order in the court
Faces in the crowd, where faces mean people
Mouths to feed, where mouths mean hungry people
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another word that it is closely associated with.
Dish as a substitute for a whole plate of food.
Hand as a substitute for assistance.
Tongue as a substitute for language.
Oval Office as a substitute for the current presidential administration.
Personification
Personification is when we give human qualities or expressions or experiences to nonhuman things.
- She sat down at the tired, overworked desk.
- Coming home from the lake empty-handed, I figured the fish colluded to avoid me.
- The child’s stare begged me to take him out for ice cream even though I’d already said no.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is an intentional exaggeration of the truth, used to emphasize the importance of something or to create a comic effect.
My backpack “weighs a ton.”
Figure of speech
A literary device in which language is used in an unusual or “figured” way, to produce a stylish effect.
Oxymoron
Oxymoron is a pairing of contradictory words in order to express new or complex meanings.
parting is such sweet sorrow
Figurative language
Using words in a way that deviates from their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complex meaning or a heightened effect.
Literal Language
Using words according to their direct, straightforward, or conventionally acceptedmeaning
Rhyme
When parts of words are sonically identical
Perfect Rhyme / True Rhyme
Book, Snook, Crook
Slant Rhyme
When the sounds of vowels OR consonants IN CERTAIN WORDS are identical
Snook
Snake
K sound at the end both sound alike, but a sound and o sound are different
Consonance
The repetition of similar sounds, especially consonants
Butterfly, Bacon, Bistro, Beginning
Assonance
The repetition of VOWEL sounds
Snake, Ace of spades, Kale, Crayon, Stapler
Alliteration
Repetition of specific similar sounds but at the beginning of the words
She Sells Sea Shells on the Sea Shore
