Understanding Figurative Language
Understanding figurative language is a vital tool in critical thinking. Last time I talked about critical thinking, I was giving an overview to source standards—we need to be checking the validity to the sources we are gaining information from. I also talked about propaganda tactics. I called that the 101 for critical thinking.
I wasn’t planning on creating a whole unit on critical thinking but here I am with the next section. Figurative language is used so often in conversation, on social media, in commentary and analysis and I don’t know if we even realize what we are hearing or seeing. When I started thinking about critical thinking and asking myself how I would teach it, I realized that there are things I learned from a literary standpoint that played a role in my critical thinking toolkit.
If you liked your English classes in high school or college, you might be familiar with figurative language. If you didn’t like your English classes, you might remember some of these devices but you also might be dreading whatever is about to come next.
How does figurative language play into critical thinking? Identifying figurative language helps us understand the connections trying to me made. When we can identify figurative language we can dig deeper and get to the meaning of what is being said.
Let’s start with some basics, what is figurative language?
Figurative language refers to the use of words in a way that is different from conventional meaning. Figurative language is used to: convey complicated meanings, have colorful writing, give clarity, and bring comparison.
Figurative Language Devices:
Alliteration- the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
Alice’s apples were absolutely delicious.
Hyperbole- exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
It takes students a million years to write notes.
Idiom- a group of words (a phrase) established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words
Busy as a bee
Slipped my mind
Straw that broke the camel’s back
Metaphor- a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable
Her anger was a burning sun in the desert.
Onomatopoeia- the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.
The bees buzz angrily when their hive is disturbed.
Oxymoron- two contradictory terms used together
Free market
Virtual Reality
Terribly good
Same difference
Personification- the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human or the representation of an abstract quality in human form
The car danced around the toy mouse before pouncing on it.
Pun- a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings
What do you get from a pampered cow? Spoiled milk!
Simile- the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind using “like” or “as”
Her tears flowed like a river down her cheeks.
I hope these help you with your own critical thinking toolkits. Understanding figurative language also really helped me in understanding my Bible better too.
I don’t want to get on a soapbox right now but being a good communicator and understanding communication (and words!) is really important. I think, as a society and in the age of social media and youtube, we have forgotten that. It seems as though anybody can just start making videos and go viral. Plus, we have people who will say whatever it takes in order to get the views and the comments. Maybe we should bring back the appreciation of words and their importance.
Keep reading and keep thinking guys! Next unit will be about fallacies and arguments.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash