Tropes and Schemesin Play comments on examples of figures of speech — known also as the tropes and schemes — found in play in today's media, examining them for their designs, meanings, and effects.
Basic Terms
A figure of speech is any device or pattern of language in which meaning is enhanced or changed. The term has two subcategories:
Trope: using a word to mean something other that its ordinary meaning.
Scheme: preserving the original meaning of words but placing them in a significant arrangement of some kind. — Adapted from Richard A. Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (2nd ed.)
Some Common Tropes:
Source: Edward P. J. Corbett's Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (2nd ed).
Metaphor — an implied comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common: words are loaded pistols — J.P. Sartre
Simile — an explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature yet than have something in common:
Synecdoche — [syNECdakey] a figure of speech in which a part stands for a whole:
a) Genus substituted for species: vessel for ship
b) Species substituted for genus: cutthroat for assassin
c) Part substituted for whole: hands for helpers
d) Matter for what is made from it» canvas for sail
Metonymy — [meTONymy] substitution of some attribute or suggestive word for what is actually meant: I believe more in the sissors than I do in the pencil.— Truman Capote
Puns — generic name for those figures of speech which make a play on words:
a)Antanaclasis — [antaNAClasis] repetition of a word in two different senses: draft a designated driver. Beer ad.
b)Paranomasia — [paranoMAYsia] use of words alike in sound but different in meaning: it was a foul act to steal my fowl
c)Syllepsis — [syLEPsis] use of a word understood differently in relations to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs: he lost his hat and his temper
Anthimeria — [anthiMIRea] the substitution of one part of speech for another: the thunder would not peace at my bidding (Shakespeare)
Periphrasis [perRIPHrasis]— substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name for a quality associated with the name: Tom Delay, the hammer
Personification — investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities or abilities: the ground thirsts for rain
Hyperbole — [hyPERbole] the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect: his eloquence would split rocks
Litotes — [LIE-tuh-tees] — a deliberate use of understatement, not to deceive someone but to enhance the impressiveness of what we say: a not unhappy crowd
Some Common Schemes
1.Schemes of balance:
a)Parallelism — similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses: He tried to make the law clear, precise, and equitable.
b)Antithesis — the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure:
2. Schemes of unusual or inverted word order:
a)Anastrophe— inversion of the natural or usual word order:
b)Paranthesis — insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactic flow of the sentence:
c)Apposition — placing side by side two co-ordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation of the first:
3. Schemes of Omission
a)Ellipsis — deliberate omission of a word or words which are already implied by the context:
b)Asyndeton — deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses:
4. Schemes of repetition
a)Polysyndeton —
Tropes and Schemes Defined
The phrase "tropes and schemes" is a synonym for "figures of speech," turns of phrase that