There is a list of tropes that you should understand and learn to recognise and explain in your study guide. This is the list: ? Metaphor ? Simile ? Personification ? Metonymy ? Hyperbole ? Irony ? Oxymoron ? Understatement (If you would like to get some useful definitions of the types of figurative speech listed above, try going to You can also find some useful examples on this site.) For example: If you say cat sat on the mat’, you are using normal language to convey a straightforward ‘the idea: that a furry four-legged animal is sitting on the carpet. BUT if you say let the cat out of the bag’, you are using figurative language (in this ‘you case, a metaphor) to convey an idea which is not straightforwardly evident in what you have said. You might have mentioned a cat and a bag, but what you mean is that someone has told a secret. Think about why someone would say let the cat out of the bag’ instead of told a ‘you ‘you secret’. What does the metaphor involving the cat convey that the simple phrase told a ‘you secret’ does not? If you imagine a cat being let out of a bag, you probably imagine the cat being quite angry. Cats do not like being forced into bags, so the cat would probably be hissing, biting and scratching. Thus, the idea of a cat getting out of a bag conveys how telling a secret that should not be told might lead to people becoming angry and fighting, much like furious cats would do. Understanding this and explaining it is part of the process of figurative analysing language which you need to learn.
There is a list of tropes that you should understand and learn to recognise and explain in your study guide. This is the list: ? Metaphor ? Simile ? Personification ? Metonymy ? Hyperbole ? Irony ? Oxymoron ? Understatement (If you would like to get some useful definitions of the types of figurative speech listed above, try going to You can also find some useful examples on this site.) For example: If you say ‘the cat sat on the mat’, you are using normal language to convey a straightforward idea: that a furry four-legged animal is sitting on the carpet. BUT if you say ‘you let the cat out of the bag’, you are using figurative language (in this case, a metaphor) to convey an idea which is not straightforwardly evident in what you have said. You might have mentioned a cat and a bag, but what you mean is that someone has told a secret. Think about why someone would say ‘you let the cat out of the bag’ instead of ‘you told a secret’. What does the metaphor involving the cat convey that the simple phrase ‘you told a secret’ does not? If you imagine a cat being let out of a bag, you probably imagine the cat being quite angry. Cats do not like being forced into bags, so the cat would probably be hissing, biting and scratching. Thus, the idea of a cat getting out of a bag conveys how telling a secret that should not be told might lead to people becoming angry and fighting, much like furious cats would do. Understanding this and explaining it is part of the process of analysing figurative language which you need to learn.
ENG2602-Outcome-2.docx