Language Features: Simile
What it means: Comparing 2 things, saying something is like or as something else.
Teachers example: She was as fast as a rocket
My example: He was as tough as a rock
Language features: Metaphor
What it means: comparing 2 things, saying something is something else
Teachers example: The moon was a drop of silver in the night sky
My example: The sun was a blinding yellow light in the clear blue skies
Language features: Personification
What it means: Giving objects or non-human things human characteristics
Teachers example: The wind was breathing in my ear
My example: The frisbee flew like a bird
Language features: Alliteration
What it means: The repetition of letter sounds
Teachers example: Peter picked his pears politely from the park
My example: Nathan knitted nine neckties
Language features: Hyperbole
What it means: An exaggeration
Teachers example: I've told her that a million times!
My example: You've borrowed thousands of dollars from me
Language features: Assonance
What it means: Repetition of vowel sounds
Teachers example: How now brown cow. The cart went to the market for the chance to barter
My example: I used my phone to control a drone that flew into a cone
Language features: Onomatopoeia
What it means: Words that sound like what they describe
Teachers example: Splash, crash, boom, plop etc.
My example: The firework went BOOM and it lit up the night sky
Language features: Understatement
What it means: The presentation of something as being smaller or less good or important than it really is
Teachers example: (When a hurricane is coming towards you) "I see there's a bit of a breeze out here"
My example: (When you're standing next to lava) "It's a bit warm over here"
Language features: Consonance
What it means: The use of the repetition of consonants or consonant patterns as a rhyming device
Teachers example: Clair was caught drinking beer at the fair
My example: "I start the day by going to the church to pray and by the way, I saw a horse eating hay"
Language features: Pun
What it means: A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings
Teachers example: "The Railway Society reception was an informal party of people of all stations (excuse the pun) in life
My example: This game had so much wrong with it on so many levels
Language features: Anaphora
What it means: (an-AFF-or-a) is starting each sentence with the same words as the ones before. This will be most useful in creative pieces like speeches, songs and poems. You could build it in from the beginning, or you could go through in the second draft and change the first sentence of every paragraph. It’ll help if the words you’re repeating are the central idea or dominant metaphor of your piece.
Teachers example: It’s so preposterously easy to use anaphora. It’s so preposterously easy to pick some words. It’s so preposterously easy to repeat them. Everyone can do it. Everyone can start a sentence the same way. It takes no skill. It takes….. I could go on like this all day.
My example: "It's not easy doing work. It's not easy waking up in the morning. It's not easy going to school."
Language features: Epistrophe
What it means: This will be useful for songwriting, poetry, and speechwriting. When you end each sentence with the same word, that's epistrophe.
Teachers example: When each clause has the same words at the end, that’s epistrophe. When you finish each paragraph with the same word, that’s epistrophe. Even when it’s a whole phrase or a whole sentence that you repeat, it’s still, providing the repetition comes at the end, epistrophe.
My example: "I did good. I actually did really good. I can't believe that I did this good."
Language features: Chiasmus
What it means: The words of the first half of a sentence are mirrored in the second. They are deliberately turned back to front and then repeated.
Teachers example: John F Kennedy told America that “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."
My example: “If we are on Earth, we are humans; if we are humans, we are on Earth"
Language features: Epizeuxis
What it means: Epizeuxis (pronounced ep-ee-ZOOX-is) is repeating a word immediately using exactly the same meaning. Simple. Simple. Simple. Be warned, though: epizeuxis is like a nuclear bomb. It really works, but it’s overkill if you do it more than once.
Teachers example: The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.
My example: The instructions were simple simple, simple.
