英语中修辞方法

By figures of speech we refer to those rhetorical devices termed tropes in classical rhetoric. Tropes have to do with the way words are made to mean other than what they would normally imply, and therefore involve deviation from the ordinary and literal meaning of words. They are ways of making our language figurative.

1．Simile(明喻)

Simile develops out of the Latin word \"similis\" meaning \"like\". A simile is a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two unlike elements having at least one quality or characteristic in common. The comparison is purely imaginative. To make the comparison, words like as, as...so, and like are used to transfer the quality we associate with one to the other.

[ Simile(明喻)一词源于拉丁语，意思是：象、如 … 一样。明喻直接比较两个或两个以上不同的人或事物，英语中常用的喻词是like和as。明喻比较的不同的人和事物之间必须至少有一个共同点，而所进行的比较纯属想象。]

1. I was interrupted in my meditations by a noise like the Scotch express going under a bridge. It was Honoria Glossop laughing. ---by P.G. Wodehouse 一阵犹如直快火车在桥下隆隆驶过的响声打断了我的思路。原来是格洛思蒲在笑。

2. He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. --- by George Eliot 这个人就像一只骄傲自负的公鸡，以为太阳升起是为了听它啼鸣。

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3. One blinks before the dirty houses as one blinks before a man with his face shot away. --- H.L.Mencken 人们看到这所肮脏的房子，就像看到一个脸被子弹崩掉的人一样，惊愕不已。

4. Mary and her mother are as like as two peas. 玛丽和她母亲长得酷似。

2．Metaphor(隐喻)

A metaphor, like a simile, also makes a comparison between two unlike elements, but unlike a simile, this comparison is implied rather than stated. A metaphor is in a sense a condensed simile, differing from the latter only in form and artistry. Let's compare:

[ Metaphor(隐喻)和明喻一样，也是两个不同事物之间的比较，但它有别于明喻，这种比较是隐含的，非陈述的。隐喻是一种浓缩的明喻，只是形式和表现手法不一样。]

Let's compare:

Jim was as cunning as a fox. ( simile )

Jim was a fox. ( metaphor )

The world is like a stage. ( simile )

The world is a stage. ( metaphor )

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Let's look at more examples:

1. They wanted to get into the fun before the whole thing turned belly up.

它们要在这场战争结束之前也过一下打仗的瘾。

[analysis] For description, a dead fish which would be belly up implies the end of the thing. In translation, the implied rhetorical meaning is given instead of the literary meaning of the original.

2.Malone accused Bryan of calling for a duel to the death between science and religion....Then the court broke into a storm of applause that passed that for Bryan. The crowd seemed to feel that their champion had not scorched the infidels with the hot breath of his oratory as he should have.------John Scopes

马隆呼吁学术自由，指责布赖恩挑起科学与宗教之间的殊死斗争。......听众们似乎觉得他们的雄辨家布赖恩并没有能象往日那样以其三寸不料之舌击败马隆那些异教徒们。

[analysis] The write uses the words \"duel\" and \"storm\" and \"scorched\" to mean metaphorically \"the dead struggle between science and religionhe idealistic support of the mass and the unreasonable resentment of them against reasonable ideas. \"决斗\"，\"暴风雨\"和\"烧焦\"

3. His eyes came out of his head like a prawn's, and once more his moustache foamed up against his breakwater of a nose.-----by Mr. Woodhouse 他那两只对虾

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眼在头上凸出来，鼻孔中喷出的热气把胡须吹得飘来飘去。

4. Of all the arts, tragedy is the proudest, the most triumphant; for it builds its shining citadel in the very center of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; from its impregnable watch-towers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts are all revealed.------Bertrand Russell 悲剧是艺术之巅，是艺术的骄傲，因为悲剧把自己辉煌的城堡建造在敌人心脏地区的峰项上，在坚不可摧的敌人的防区扎起营房、设下火药库、排好队列并且造起炮楼。

5. Knowledge began to increase as soon as the thoughts of one individual could be communicated to another by means of speech. Then knowledge began to be accumulated according to a systematic plan. The trickle became a stream; the stream has now become a torrent.-----by G. N. M. Tyrell 语言一旦成为人们交流思想的工具，知识就开始增加，随后就是知识的系统化积累。点点滴滴的知识汇成潺潺涓流，涓涓溪流又汇成汪洋大海，取之不尽、用之不绝。

6.The hall way was zebra-striped with darkness and moonlight.---Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 月光射进回廊，在黑暗中投下条条光影。

3．Metonymy(换喻)

Originating from Greek, metonymy means \"a change of name\of one thing for another related to it, as \"the Bench\" for the magistrates or judges sitting in court, \"a silk \" for a Queen's Counsel, \"the bottle\" for alcoholic liquor.

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[ Metonymy(换喻)一词来源于希腊语，意思是：名称的变换。换喻就是用一个事物的名称替换与它有连带关系的另一事物的名称，例如，用法官坐的\"板凳\"替换\"法庭的法官\"；用法官穿的\"丝服\"表示\"英国王室的法律顾问\"；用盛酒的\"瓶子\"替换\"酒\"。]

The glories of our blood and state,

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings;

Scepter and Crown

Must tumble down

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked Scythe and Spade.

(Shirley, The Glories of Our Blood)

Metonymy can be derived from various sources-----from names of persons, from animals, professions, locations, or names of places:

A. Names of persons

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1. John Bull: England, or the English people

2. Uncle Sam: The United States of America

B. Animals

1. British Lion: England or the English government

2. the bear: The former Soviet union or the Soviet government

C. Parts of the body

1. heart: feelings or emotions

2. gray hair: old age

D. Professions

1 the bar: the legal profession;.

2. the bench: position (office) of judge or magistrate;

3. the veil: vocation of a nun;

4. the press: newspapers; newspaper reporters;

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E. Locations of government, of business or industrial enterprises

1. Downing Street: the British government or cabinet

2. The White House: the President or Executive branch of the U. S. government.

3. Capitol Hill: the Legislative branch of the U.S. government.

4. the Pentagon: the U.S. military establishment

5. Kremlin: the government of the former Soviet Union

6. Fleet Street: the British press

7. Wall Street: U.S. financial circles

8. Madison Avenue: American advertising industry

9. Hollywood: American film-making industry

10. Foggy Botton: U.S. State Department

Let's look at some examples:

1 Lands belong to the crown.

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普天之下皆王土。

2 The kettle boils. 壶里的水开了。

3 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. 为了生存，人皆要劳动。

{作者原文中用\"汗水\"替代\"劳动\"；用\"吃面包\"替代\"生存\"。}

4．Synecdoche(提喻)

Synecdoche has often been confused with metonymy, and sometimes even treated synonymously. This is not surprising, as both figures of speech involve substitution，only metonymy involves substitution of the name of one thing for that of another closely associated with it, whereas synecdoche involves the substitution of the part for the whole, or the whole for the part.

A. The part for the whole

1 hand: a) member of a ship' s crew ── All hands on deck.

b) worker, laborer, helper ── They were short of hands at harvest time.

2 head: person

He paid the workers $ 5 per head.

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3 heart: brave fellow

Yet there were some stout hearts who attempted resistance. (C.S.Forester)

4 legs(coll.) persons on foot ; the infantry

The legs could hardly keep up with the tanks.

5 bread: food, esp. staple food

＿Give us this day our daily bread.(Prayer)

＿They say there's bread and work for all,

And the sun shines always there;

But I'll not forget old Ireland,

Were it fifty times as fair. (Helen S. Blackwood)

B. The whole for the part

1 Name of country for group of people of that country

＿Australia beat Canada at cricket.

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(= the Australian team beat Canadian team)

2 Vehicle for engine, machine for mechanism of machine itself, etc.

＿The car conked out.

＿The plane's flamed out!

＿The radio(TV) is out of order.

3 Person for part of his body

＿Then he cut me open and took out the appendix and stitched me up again (=cut his abdomen open)

Let's look at more examples:

1 With thunders from her native oak, She quells the flood below.---------By Thomas Campbell

战舰喷出雷鸣般的炮火，在狂浪中稳健地向前冲． [analysis] \"Oak\" represents the warships as well as the material from which they are made.

2 Chelsea won the match. 切尔斯队在足球赛中获胜．

[analysis] Chelsea stands for the Chelsea Football team. In the Chinese version,

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we put the synecdoche into the truth-telling implied meaning.

3 The case had erupted round my head. 这个案子硬是把我搅了进去。

[analysis] Head is a part of a person and here stands for the person. This is a synecdoche in which part stands for the whole. The Chinese version has the implied meaning given clearly.

4 But neither his vanity nor his purse is any concern of the dictionary's.

编撰词典、收录词条可不管谁有钱、谁有名气。 （原文中使用了提喻，以装钱的包代替钱包里所装的钱，汉语中译出了提喻所寓的修辞意义。）

5．Personification(拟人)

By definition, personification is a figure of speech that gives human form of feelings to animals, or life and personal attributes to inanimate objects, or to ideas and abstractions. [ Personification(拟人)是写作中人为地把人格赋予事物或抽象概念，使之似乎活起来的修辞格。]

1 I ran across a dim photograph of him the other day, going through some old things. He's been dead twenty-five years. His name was Rex and he was a bull-terrier.-------James Thurber

[analysis] Here a dog is personified.

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2 The wind whistled through the trees.

[analysis] Here the wind is personified

3 If not always in a hot mood to smash, the sea is always stealthily ready for a drowning. -----Joseph Conrad

[analysis] Here the natural phenomena \"the sea\" is personified.

4 She sat like Patience on a monument Smiling at Grief. ------William Cowper

[analysis] Here an abstraction, patience, is personified.

5 The long flames sang their drumming chorus in voices of the heaviest bass.

6 The light we see coming from some far-off stars started on its journey more than a hundred years ago.

6．Euphemism(委婉)

The word euphemism comes from Greek meaning 'fair speech'. It is the habit of avoiding an unpleasant or taboo reference by substituting some indirect word or expression for the blunt direct one, as we say that somebody 'passed away 'when we mean that he died. [ Euphemism(委婉)一词来自希腊语，意思是：顺耳的话。习惯上，这是一种用间接的言词取代生硬的话语，以避免不愉快和禁忌语的方式。如：不说某某\"死了\"，而说他\"过世了\"。]

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A. Death, Illness, Old Age, etc

1. to die

to pass away; to depart; to go to sleep; to go to heaven

2. old age, senility

getting on (in years); past one's prime; feeling one's age; second childhood

3. old people

senior citizens

4. mad; feeble-minded

not all there; soft in the head; of unsound mind; simple-minded

5. stupid pupil

a slow learner; under-achiever

6. fat people

weight-watchers

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(The motive for the euphemisms in this case seems to be to avoid hurting people's feelings.)

B. Toilet Habits, etc.

1. to urinate or to defecate

go to the bathroom;

do their business;

answer nature's call;

(The motive here, obviously, is to avoid using the true words which are considered crude and indecent in polite conversation.)

C. Poverty and Unemployment

1. dismiss, sack

lay off; ease out; give (get) the walking ticket, pink slip

2. Penniless

out of pocket; hard up; in reduced circumstances;

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badly off

D. Menial jobs or professions of low social standing

1. a maid, housekeeper, etc.

domestic help; day-help; live-in help

2. chief waiter, waitress

captain; hostess

3. real estate agent

realtor

4. hairdresser

beautician

5. janitor

superintendent; custodian

6. undertaker

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mortician

7. rat-catcher

exterminating engineer; pest control operator

The motive here is plainly to uplift these professions by name.

Let's look at more examples:

1 A man is helping police with their inquiries.

一名罪犯正在配合的审讯工作。 [analysis] A suspected criminal is detained by the police and probably under close arrest.

2 A clean bomb put quantities of people to rest.

一枚炮弹送很多人回了老家。 [analysis] An atom bomb kills many people.

3 He is out visiting the necessary.

他出去方便了一下 [analysis] He is in the lavatory, or W.C.

7．Hyperbole(夸张)

Hyperbole is the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve

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emphasis.

Instead of saying in plain language \"She is a pretty girl\" or \"He laughed heartily\" we could express the same ideas more emphatically by saying \"She is the prettiest girl in the world\" or \"He almost died laughing.\"

Effective hyperbole, however, is more than just to emphasize something in exaggerated terms. In the hands of experienced writers it can be used to achieve various literary effects: to intensify emotion, to elevate a person or thing to heroic or mythical status, or to poke fun at or ridicule. Moreover, its form, too, can vary from a phrase, a sentence, to a paragraph or paragraphs of description. Sometimes a whole story or article may be one big hyperbole.

Examples of these various forms and uses are given below.

1 A Vow to Zip His Lips

[analysis] It is impossible to zip one's lip, so this is hyperbole.

2 Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.

3 Hamlet: I loved Ophelia, forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.

4 For she was beautiful──her beauty made

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The bright world dim, and everything beside

Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade.

------------- P.B.Shelley: \"The Witch of Atlas\"

8．Onomatopoeia(拟声)

This device makes use of imitation of sounds for effect.

[ Onomatopoeia(拟声)是一种模拟声音，追求特殊语言效果的修辞手法。]

These sounds may be those made by a person, animal or thing, or associated with some action or movement. For example, moo, meow, bow-wow, hiss, roar and baa are respectively imitative of the cries or calls of cows, cats, dogs, snakes, lions and sheep. In the same way, trains toot; doors bang; windows rattle; fire crackles; machines clang; and racing cars go vroom-vroom.

It is a device much used in poetry and prose to add vividness or vitality to description or narration.

1 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,

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Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

-------- Thomas Nash: \"Spring\"

2 Ding! Whrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Crash!

A tiny virus called Michelangelo whips the computer world into a frenzy.

3 Rent a toot or buy a tweet, boom, zing, twang, tinkle, hum or plink. (Advertisement for Dallas Music Company - Reader's Digest, June 1981)

4 As you approach the copper-smith's market, a tinkling and banging and clashing begins to impinge on your ear.

5 Four or five thousand men in all, winding up the road with a clumping of boots and a clatter of iron wheels, were marching southward.

7 He finds himself projected into a hall full of people humming with anticipation.

9．Paregmenon(同源词并列)

As a figure of speech, paregmenon is the use of several words of similar origin close together. Its function is to accumulate strength by phonological means.

[ Paregmenon(同源词并列)并列这种辞格连续使用几个同源词，凭借其类似的音韵增

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强语势。]

1 Can't you sense his sensibility?难道你没有意识到他是多么敏感？

[analysis] \"sense\" echoes phonologically with the first part of the sounds of \"sensibility\". Such a short sentence have the same sounds repeated and the two words come from the same origin, thus making the impression and the interrogation strong in sentiment.

2 What will effect the effectiveness?还能有什么办法会产生这种效果呢？

[analysis] \"effect\" matches \"effectiveness\" in sounds, thus giving stress. In translation, we show the rhetorical effect by adding a part of undoubted question.

3 \"There's one thing you may be sure of, namely, that lies are lies. Don't you tell any more of them, Pip. And as to being common, you can't get to be uncommon through going crooked.\" said Joe after some reflection. -------- Dickens乔伊想一阵后说：\"匹普，有一件事你要记住：谎言就是谎言。再也不要说谎。至于'没出息'的问题，人若是不走正道，是'出息'不了的\"。

4 Although William Blake was evidently sometimes prone to answer a fool according to his folly, he often explained in sober earnest his ideas of the essential truth of art.虽然威廉·布菜克往往好用\"以其人之道，还治其人之身\"的办法回敬某个笨蛋，但是他常常极其诚恳而平和解释他自己的精辟的艺术见解。

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5 \"Still, I think you'll do the job all right, Dixon. It's not that you've the qualifications, but you haven't got the disqualifications, and that is much rarer.\"\"丘克斯，我还是认为你可以干这件事。不是因为你合乎资格；而是因为你没有不合格的地方。这才是难得的。\"

6 He tried to force his spirits down, to expect nothing but unexpected and very marshy mushiness.他竭力镇静下来，只等着出乎意料和难解难分的情况发生。

7 The flowing water helped her thoughts to flow. 潺潺流水使她思绪翩翩。

10．Pun(双关语)

Pun is a figure of speech to play on words, or rather to play with the form and meaning of words, for a witty or humorous effect.

[ Pun(双关语)是一种使用音异义词或多义词以取得诙谐效果的修饰手法。]

a form of word play which exploits numerous meanings of a statement, allowing it to be understood in multiple ways for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or metaphorical language.

There are many words in the English language which look or sound alike, but have different senses, or connotations.

e.g.

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a) arms (part of the body)

arms(weapons)

b) see(verb, to sight)

see(noun, a bishop's diocese)

see(noun, a vast expanse of water)

c) row(verb, to row a boat)

row(noun, a row of houses)

row(noun, a noisy quarrel, pronounced /rau/ )

There are also words which have more than one basic meaning, or have developed figurative meanings.

e.g.

d) bridge(a wooden bridge)

(a dental bridge)

e) power(authority, force)

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(energy, as in electric power)

f) table(a dining table)

(a table numbers, a time-table)

Based on the above two types of similarities in words, there are two broad classes of puns.

1) Why is an empty purse always the same?

Because there is never any change in it. (change can be “变化” or “ 零钱”)

2) What do lawyers do after they die? Lie still.

3) A professor tapped on his desk and shouted: “ Gentlemen---order!”

The entire class yelled, “Beer!”.

4) On Sunday they pray for you, on Monday they prey on you. (homophone同音异形异义词)

5)If we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately.

(homograph同形异义word spelt like another but with a different meaning.)

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11．Transferred Epithet(移就，修饰转换)

A transferred epithet （移就，修饰转换） is, as its name implies, a figure of speech where an epithet (an adjective or descriptive phrase) is transferred from the noun it should rightly modify to another to which it does not really belong. Generally, the epithet is transferred from a person to a thing or idea. For instance, when we say we spent sleepless nights on a project, the word sleepless is a transferred epithet, for nights cannot sleep. We really mean to say we did not sleep for many nights while working on the project. Below are further examples:

[ Transferred Epithet(移就，修饰转换)顾名思义是一种修饰转换，这种修辞格将修饰词转换位置不再修饰应该由它修饰的名词，而去修饰一个本不应该 被它修饰的词。 ]

1The old man put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

2） He said ‘ yes’ to the question in an unthinking moment (He did not think when he said ‘yes’)

3）He sang with a passionate throat ( He sang passionately.)

4）We spent an anxious night / sleepless night.

5） He gave a wide-eyed answer.

6）He is not an easy poet.(His poems is not easy to understand)

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7） In his quiet laziness he suddenly remembered that strange word.( he is quiet not his laziness)

8) The assistant kept a respectful distance from his boss when they were walking in the corridor.( to show respect)

9) The letters, sad and reproachful, offer me the choice of pleading ignorance or being proved insensitive.( the writers of the letters were sad at my stand and full of blame.（这封信， 有的是对我的观点表示遗憾，有的是对我的观点给予斥责。 他们要我承认不是愚昧无知，就是麻木不仁。）

10) The movement for abolition of death penalty is widespread and articulate.（ 这场废除死刑的运动已遍及世界，而且已宣传得深入人心。）

11) His unfriendly tongue surprised her.（不友好的言辞令她吃惊）

1. Gray peace pervaded the wilderness-ringed Argentia Bay in New Finland. ------ Herman Wouk \"The Winds Of War\"

在纽芬兰，一片灰色的宁静笼罩着四周荒漠的阿根夏湾。——赫尔曼·沃克《战争风云》

[analysis]In general, gray is used to modify a noun related to color. The word \"gray\" in the above sentence is tranferred to modify \"peace\". In the concret setting, gray peace cannot be misunderstanding and can add to colorful imagination.

2. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

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The lowering herd winds slowly o've the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

--------- Thomas Gray \" Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\"

晚钟响起来一阵阵给白昼报丧，

牛群在草原上迂回，吼声起落，

耕地的人累了，回家走，脚步踉跄，

把整个世界留给了黄昏。

---- 托马斯·格雷《挽歌》

[analysis]The word \"weary\" is obviously used to modify \"the plowmanhe poet transfers it to modify \"way\imageable.

3. She liked to sit on the end of the landing-stage, her legs hanging down, her back warmed with sun, her ears filled with the cool gurgling of the water against the jetty poles.

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她喜欢坐在平台的尽头，耷拉着双腿，背晒着太阳，倾听清凉的池水拍击平台支柱汩汩声响。

[analysis] The word \"cool\" originally modifies \"water\" and is transferred to be the epithet of gurgling which can not be cool.

4. ...the production of guilt-free eggs

[analysis] This really refers to eggs which have been decholesteroled, so that people don't feel guilty of taking in too much cholesterol when eating them.

12．Paradox( 似非而是)

A Paradox is a figure of speech consisting of a statement or proposition which on the face of it seems self-contradictory, absurd or contrary to established fact or practice, but which on further thinking and study may prove to be true, well-founded, and even to contain a succinct point.

[ Paradox( 似非而是)指与意料相反、明显的茺谬或者自相矛盾的说法。然而细心推敲会发现矛盾中寓有真理的名句。它与矛盾修饰的差别在于：矛盾修饰通过连续的意义矛盾的字词实现自身，而僻论实现自身的途径通常是通过结构句式的陈述。]

A good example of a paradox is in this passage from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet, finding out who Romeo is, expresses her feelings in this way:

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1. Nurse: His name is Romeo, and a Montague,

The only son of your great enemy.

Juliet: My only love sprung from my only hate.

Too early seen unknown, and known too late!

Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.

[analysis] Those who are unfamiliar with the play would think the statement \"My only love sprung from my only hate\" rather strange, for how could one love what one hates? But knowing the story they would find the paradox is used most effectively to express Juliet's mixed feelings at the enormity of her act:

that she has fallen in love with the son of the family she has been brought up to hate.

Another famous example of a paradox is from Wordsworth's poem on the rainbow:

2. My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

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So was it when my life began,

So is it now I am a man,

So be it when I shall grow old

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

[analysis] At the first reading, one is struck by the absurdity of the statement: The Child is father of the Man. How is that possible? In deeper study of the poem, however, one can deduce that Wordsworth meant that one's spiritual love of things natural begins from infancy and develops through manhood to death.

Below are further examples of paradox:

3. There is this quality, in things, of the tight way seeming wrong at first.

----------- John Updike: Rabbit, Run

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[analysis] The writer implies in this statement that there is a paradoxical quality in life, that sometimes what one does right may seem at first, to most people, wrong and unconventional, when it is really the correct thing to do.

4. This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

------- Oscar Wilde

[analysis] We usually don't wish something terrible to last, but Wilde is implying

here that he really enjoys the suspense, and hopes it will last.

5. In fact, it appears that the teachers of English teach English so poorly largely because they teach grammar so well.

[analysis] The writer is making a very significant point here──that students who are taught to be highly grammar-conscious do not necessarily speak or write good idiomatic English.

6. John McEnroe: The Champ you Love to Hate (Cover title in Newsweek, September 7, 1981)

[analysis] This title wittily expresses the feelings of most fans of this world-renowned tennis player: they love his beautiful tennis \"on-court tantrums\" i.

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e. losing his temper during matches.

7. The child is father to the man.

------ Wordsworth

[analysis]In the above sentence of paradox, Wordsworth meant that one's spiritual love of things natural begins frominfancy and develops through manhood to death.

13．Oxymoron(矛盾修饰语)

An oxymoron (矛盾修饰语) is a compressed paradox, formed by the conjoining of two contrasting, contradictory or incongruous terns。

[ Oxymoron(矛盾修饰语)是一种经过凝缩的paradox, 是将两个意义相反、互相矛盾或者互不调和的词并列在一起构成修饰格。 ]

1）Bitter-sweet memories

2) proud humility (不卑不亢) ( humble, but not servile)

3) Orderly chaos: chaos exists, but there is some method or order in the way that things are thrown around.

4) The coach had to be cruel to be kind to his trainees. (冷酷的善意)

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5 ) victorious defeat

6) She read the long-waited letter with a tearful smile. (tearful joy)

7) cold pleasant manner (冷漠文雅的举止)

8) dully bright (大智若愚)

9) a love-hate relationship

1 So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler.

He can't even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom! There he is, up in a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky. (The New York Times, July 21, 1969)

[analysis] The oxymoron is effective because it contrasts the magnificence of the deed of Americans landing on the moon with the blunders and inadequacies of Americans in authority, and their in difference to earthly social problems.

An oxymoron can be formed in various ways, the most common being the following:

a) adj+ noun

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a living death

conspicuous absence

tearful joy

jarring concord

b) adj+ adj cold pleasant manner

poor rich guys

c) adv+ adj dully bright

mercifully fatal

d) verb+ adv hasten slowly

shine darkly

e) noun +noun a love-hate relationship

14．Parallelism(平行)

When two or more ideas in a sentence are related in function and purpose, they can and should be phrased in the same grammatical form (words, phrases,

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clauses, etc.). Thus two or more subjects are parallel which means alongside one another; two or more verbs with the same subject are parallel; two or more adverbial clauses modifying the same verb are parallel; and so on. This method of expressing ideas of equal importance in the same grammatical form is called parallelism, a rhetorical device for giving emphasis, clarity, and coherence of ideas and sentences.

[ Parallelism(平行)指当一句语中的两个或两个以上的概念在功能和目的上有关联的时候，它们应当以同样的语法结构来表示。因此，并排的两个或两个以上的主语是平行的；同一主语支配下的两个以上的动词是平行的；修饰同一动词的两个以上状语从句也是平行的；如此等等。以同一的语法结构表示具有同等重要性的几个概念的这种方法被称之为平行修辞，它是一种强调语意、使概念清楚、连贯的修辞方式。]

1 When our part at the earth faces the sun, we see sunlight and have day.

When our part at the earth turns away form the sun, we can't see the sunlight and have night.

When our part begins to turn towards the sun and we see the first light, we call it morning.

2 Answer to \"what is the worst sort of husband a sober woman can marry?\" by Defoe:

He is in good, wavering; in mischief, obstinate; in society, empty; in

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management, unthinking; in manners, sordid; in error, incorrigible and in everything ridiculous.

3 A sculpture mentally visualizes a complex form all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he identifies himself with its center of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.

--from New Concept English Book 4

4 To be or not to be; that is the question.

--by Shakespeare

5 If we are no longer young, neither are we old.

If we are no longer innocent, neither are we corrupt.

If we are no longer paramount, neither are we pawns of destiny.

15．Antithesis(对照)

The word comes from a Greek word meaning to oppose or opposition. It is a rhetorical figure which gives the contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. It deliberately arrange contrast words of ideas in balanced structure for emphasis.

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[ Antithesis（对照）一词来自希腊语，意思是：相反、相对。对照、故意把相反的字词、短评和从句平行或者平衡地排列起来，以便表述相反或者相对的概念，达到加强词气的目的。]

1 The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; But it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and can not enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. (Samuel Johnson)

2 Less wit than mimic, more wit than wise. (from Moral Essays by Pope)

3 Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare)

4 They vanish from a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever. (Mark Twain)

5 Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. (from Love is a Fallacy by Max Schulman)

6 Crafty men condemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them. (from On Study by Bacon)

7 Does one like islands because one unconsciously appropriates them, a small manageable domain in a large unmanageable world? (by V. Saukville)

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8 If the economy stays down, can the conservatives stay up? (from Time, Sept.28, 1981)

9 It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature(Henry James)

16．Assonance中韵, 谐韵

1）Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound within words.

e.g. make the grade; by hook or crook, no pains, no gains.

2）the use of words in close proximity ending with the same letter or letters.

e.g. wear and tear: damage

(<-> alliteration: e.g. drip-dry, shilly-shally, no sweet without sweat)

Assonance in Prose

Prose writers sometimes repeat vowel sounds to reinforce the meaning of the words. It also helps to create moods.

Here, the long o sounds mysterious.

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Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came.

--Carl Sandburg, Early Moon）

“As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives,

Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats,

Every cat had seven kittens: kittens, cats, sacks and wives,

How many were going to St. Ives.”

\"I feel the need, the need for speed.\"

17．Zeugma: the use of a word to modify or govern 2 or more words usu. in such a manner that it applies to each in different sense or makes sense with only one【语】共轭支配(指以一形容词或动词勉强修饰或支配两个名词的方法, 如 wage war and peace 一语中 wage war 是合逻辑的, 但 wage peace 则不合逻辑)

The issue of New York Times …hail the Second as the authority… and the Third as a scandal…

Miss Bolo went home in a flood of tears and a sedan chair.

He lost his hat and his temper.

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To wage war and peace

With weeping eyes and hearts

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