Significant substitutive figures of speech – linguistic functions and pedagogical implications

h one of its parts, then explain their choice or discuss the conventional substitution in pairs or groups. For examples, they should be able to point out the reason why sail can substitute for boat while gunwale cannot, or why hand is the best substitutive for man in one sentence and head is a better choice in another. Added to the three activities above, there are several other applicable activities such as the word-grouping activity, where students put words from a list into different categories, or the old yet useful odd-man-out activity. III.1.2. Making Connection activities for metonymy lessons III.1.2.1. Matching the associated words Familiar as it is, this activity is exploitable as a preliminary activity for a lesson on metonymy. Besides matching associated words from two columns, students should also be required to clarify their choices either by discussing in pairs, in groups or by making sentences with both of the words. In a less controlled variation of this activity, students can be asked to identify associated pairs from a list of words. The two activities are useful in raising students’ awareness of diverse kinds of associations between words. They can be a list of abstract concepts and concrete objects, or a list of objects and objects owners, or a list of events and places/time, etc. or a combination of them all. III.1.2.2. Brainstorming associated words This activity requires students to find words related to a given one. Again, justification is necessary. A picture or sketch could be a useful trigger. To bring the activity closer to the purpose of teaching metonymy, teachers can limit the number of words in form of a question such as “What are the first three things you think of relating to ?” Lazar (2003) frequently resorts to this type of activity as a lead-in to the lesson on metonymy-based figurative language. She organizes discussions that call for students’ ideas on concepts related to parts of the body (pp. 8-9) and certain colors (pp. 44-45), which could be very interesting and culture-enriching in multinational classes. In EFL monolingual classes, we can elicit associations in students’ culture first, then what they know about similar ones in English, which would help to raise their awareness of cultural similarities and differences between the two languages and two cultures as well. ? ? ? love ? Figure 7: Sketch as a visual aid in brainstorming associated words III.1.2.3. Naming game Playing this game, each student will make up a different name for a person as required by the teacher, using the most salient characteristics of the person such as a special physical trait, a type of clothing he/she often wears, or his/her prominent qualities. It is important that teachers remind students that comparisons are not accepted as the ground for their naming, except when metaphor is taught alongside metonymy. Then the whole class would vote for the most interesting names. Alternatively, teachers can give each group a list of people students all know. Then one student chooses a person to name, and other group members will guess whose the name is. While allowing students to have fun, the activity brings home to students the underlying logic of metonymy and thus makes the theory readily comprehensible. III.2. Teaching metonymy and synecdoche in everyday language After preliminary activities on word level, teachers can proceed to analyze some examples of metonymy and synecdoche in colloquial language to give a brief introduction of these figures of speech. To our expectation, students, being so well prepared, will have no difficulties in comprehending the functions of these figures. The activities below will enable them to practice various skills while learning vocabulary and phrases relating to metonymy and synecdoche and enriching their cultural knowledge. When the teacher uses literary texts to teach these figures of speech or teaches literary texts that include examples of these figures, analyzing examples from non-literature can also be, as Ronald Carter and Michael Long (1991, p. 112) comment, “a good starting point” because, they explain, “In this case you need not feel that you are dealing with a sacred and revered object, or that there is a certain sublime quality about a figure of speech... For the purpose of creating awareness of how language is used, ‘She walks around like a tramp’ is every bit as much a trope as Byron’s ‘She walks in beauty like the night’. Thus, the classroom activities below can be a transitional step towards the analysis of creative figures used in literature in general and poetry in particular. III.2.1. Talking about metonymic and synecdochic vocabulary and phrases. We can design various task-based activities for students to learn meanings of idiomatic vocabulary items, which should be organized thematically in accordance with pre-figure activities. A brainstorming-related-words activity focusing on parts of the body should for example be followed by activities centering on idiomatic expressions associated with parts of the body. Common tasks such as matching, blank filling and multiple choice can all be applied to practice or review idiomatic expressions and their meanings. Guessing meanings of expressions is also useful. These tasks can be done in either pairs or groups, to boost communication between students. Teachers should however make sure that idioms used in these activities are new to the majority of the students so as to give them chances to practice making connections between words in performing the tasks. (For teaching ideas and detailed lesson plans, see Lazar, 2003; Gauger, 2002; Phung Thanh Phuong, 2003. For definitions and examples of thematic idioms, see Deignan, 1995; Bringas, 2000, 2001; McCarthy & O’Dell, 2003; Lazar, 2003. It should be noted, nevertheless, that not all of the idioms included in these sources are metonymic or synecdochic.) After students have learned meanings of new vocabulary items, it is necessary for them to be able to analyze the metonymy and synecdoche employed in the items. One simple task is filling the table below. Examples The signifier The signified The association Name of the figure Type of substitution She’s a queen in his eyes. eyes opinion/view eyes’ function is to see – to perceive Metonymy Concrete for abstract Table 2: Analyzing examples of metonymy and synecdoche This task can also be used with familiar expressions students already know. The purpose is not to teach them new items but urge them to explore the underlying mechanism of substitutions that make these items figurative. There might be disagreements among students at this stage, which would help to encourage meaningful communication and reinforce their argumentative skills. With a little adaptation, this table is applicable in teaching many other tropes as well. No doubt, idioms chosen ought to base themselves on metonymy and synecdoche. Those based on metaphor can, however, also be introduced to make a contrast between association and similarity as the grounds for these two groups of figures of speech, especially when we deal with topics involving both. It is important to differentiate figures of comparison from figures of association while giving students a flexible attitude towards the categorization of the figures. For instance, teachers should tell students that the example in the table above, from another perspective, can be perceived as a conceptual metaphor, in which seeing is equated to understanding. They should however be able to distinguish heart in She’s always in my heart from the same word in She lives in the heart of the city. The first example is a concrete for abstract substitution basing on “the emotions conventionally ascribed to that part of the body” (Lazar, 2003, p. 8), while the second is a metaphor that transfers the characteristic of the human body part, specifically its position, to a part of another object. III.2.2. Identifying, collecting and analyzing examples from everyday language These are less controlled tasks in which students are required to collect examples of synecdoche and metonymy in authentic discourses such as tape scripts or reading texts to analyze. The teacher can give students a set of texts to choose from. To promote their communicative skills, this activity can be done in pairs or groups with more than one pair or group working on the same texts, after which they can compare their work and discuss for further understanding of the figures. For higher-level classes, the task can be assigned in form of a project where students are allowed to choose texts from sources suitable with their levels and interests. Besides building up students’ analytic skills, the task will improve their reading competence in general and enhance their autonomy in learning while developing in them a feeling for language as a wonderful communicative device. With the non-conventional examples of the two figures of speech, students should be invited to comment on their effects in communicating ideas as well as in adding beauty to language of the text. III.2.3. Comparing idiomatic expressions in English and in Vietnamese Lazar (2003, p. 2) writes: The figurative language we use stems from the underlying values and assumptions of our culture or society, so that a common metaphor in one culture may not be understood by people from another culture... As teachers, we need to sensitize our students to the cultural meaning inherent in many examples of figurative language in English while encouraging them to compare these associations with those in their mother tongue In an attempt to encourage our students “to compare these associations with those in their mother tongue,” we can either ask them to find equivalent expressions in their mother tongue or translate some idioms or proverbs, or some passages rich in figurative language of this type into their mother tongue. The process can also be reverse. Students can be asked to translate texts from their mother tongue into English. A requirement in this activity is that translated versions must sound as natural as possible. Unavoidable discrepancies between source and target language texts will reveal disparities in cultural-specific thought patterns reflected in the way notions and ideas are presented. Most EFL classes in Vietnam these days are taught by Vietnamese teachers, which is one of their advantages in teaching idiomatic expressions. They can exploit their common cultural background with students to guide them in this activity. They know, for example, that in Vietnamese culture, the body part associated with kindness is stomach/ belly and not heart – the Vietnamese equivalent of kind-hearted is tốt bụng, which can be translated word-for-word as kind-stomached/bellied – and therefore will be able to draw students’ attention to such differences. However, this also means that they need to strive much to acquire the foreign cultural knowledge as an inseparable component of the language they are teaching. Discussing the “processing of Idioms in L2 Learners of English,” Cooper (1999, pp. 233-262) states, “Activities which compare literal and figurative meanings of idioms help students to realize the absurdity of the literal meanings and provide a link from the literal words to the nonliteral meaning. [These activities] would be particularly useful with idioms which have no first language equivalent or a totally different one.” The activities he suggests include “matching pictures showing literal and idiomatic meanings of an idiom, drawing or acting out literal meanings [see Lazar, 2003, front and back covers, for examples of drawings of literal meanings of idioms], making up stories or dialogues in which the literal use of an idiom creates a misunderstanding or a humorous situation.” EFL teachers in Vietnam can also resort to these interesting teaching ideas in their classroom while teaching metonymy and synecdoche in everyday language. III.3. Teaching synecdoche and metonymy using poetry For the last few decades, literature in ELT has experienced an upsurge in interest. Linguists and ELT scholars have identified multiple values of literature in both EFL and ESL teaching (see Povey, 1972; McKay, 1982; Brumfit & Carter, 1986; Carter & Long, 1991.) Yet, the majority of language teachers, for various reasons, still hesitate to use poetry in the classroom. They raise many objections against using poetry in the classroom, one of which is, “Most authentic poems are very difficult to understand, even for native speakers, as their meaning is rarely overt and their use of language is idiosyncratic.” (Tomlinson, 1986, p. 33) As a reaction to these objections, Brian Tomlinson (1986), Gillian Lazar (1994), Natalie Hess (2003) and Phoebe Nilsen (2004) demonstrate that poetry has numerous values, including educational value, affective value, achievement value, individual value, stimulus value and skills development (Tomlinson, 1986, pp. 34-35). By proposing practical ideas on how poetry can be used to develop students’ language skills, they prove its applicability to various teaching contexts, even in lower level and in mixed ability language classes. The key recipe to success, in their views, lies in text selection. Poems used for language teaching should be superficially simple and relevant to students’ interests. With a view to figurative language teaching, we are in complete agreement with Tomlinson’s statement: Many poems are difficult to understand completely, but they use stylistic devices (e.g. of pace, stress, focus, repetition, onomatopoeia, etc.) which facilitate global comprehension and effective response, and help the learners to discover covert meaning. Reading poetry can thus help to develop the important language skills of identifying and interpreting assumptions and implications. (Tomlinson, 1986, p. 33) Global reading of the poem Understanding specific figures of speech Understanding the message(s) of the poem This implies that an understanding of poetic devices, including figures of speech, can help readers to have a better comprehension of the poem as a whole. In our view, they are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The analysis in the foregoing chapter shows that global reading of the poem, i.e. reading the poem as a whole, can reveal substantial capacity of metonymy and synecdoche in conveying complex ideas and expressing feelings that would be otherwise inexpressible. At the same time, proper comprehension of these figures facilitates overall comprehension of the poem and helps readers arrive at the deep meaning(s) of the poem (figure 8). Figure 8: Understanding specific figures of speech in reading poetry The analysis also suggests that several strategies, some of which will be presented below, can be employed in stylistically investigating examples of metonymy and synecdoche in poetry. By “stylistically,” we mean the analysis would be “concerned both with interpretation and with the codes themselves, with both what the text means and why and how it means what it does” (Cook, 1980, p. 152). Opposed to the widely held assumption among readers that interpretative competence is a gift endowed to certain people, we believe that these strategies can be imparted to foreign literature readers with appropriate instructions, just as Carter and Long (1991, p. 123) claim, “if students are regularly encouraged to explore equations between linguistic forms and meanings, then they are becoming more effective and accurate readers [of literature and other] texts in which language is deployed for create purposes.” III.3.1. Recording initial responses Poetry affects readers first and foremost by means of emotion. Therefore, readers of poetry should always approach it with open hearts and minds. They should get into the world of the poem while bringing their own experience into the reading process. As feelings students experience in this process are often short-lived and subtle, teachers should design activities that foster their initial responses to the poem and allow them to record and express these response to each other. Reading the lines, I see ______________________ (a noun) who/which is/are _______________(V-ing) ______________(adverb) and _____________(V-ing) _____________(adverb) in/on/at ______________(adj+place) in/on/at____________ (time) who/which is/are __________and _____ _____ ________(adjectives) I remember ______________________________ (image or memory) And I feel________________________________ The painting-mental-picture activity is designed for that purpose. As poetry speaks to us in language of pictures, readers would miss a lot if they fail to paint pictures in their minds while reading. This is also true in the case of interpreting synecdoche and metonymy, both of which being highly pictorial. Students should thus be encouraged to paint pictures in their minds with as many details as possible. After reviewing difficult and essential vocabulary items, teachers should ask students to close there eyes and imagine what they see, hear, feel, and think of while listening to the poem. Guiding questions can be given to boost their imagination and draw their attention to significant details. Students can also be required to take notes of what cross their minds basing on a card (figure 9). Figure 9: Model of a note-taking card used for recording initial responses Students will thereafter describe the pictures and share their initial impressions of the lines in pairs or in groups. In younger classes, where students are more active and find it funny and difficult to sit still and close their eyes for a while, teachers can ask them to paint real pictures of whatever crossing their minds while they read the lines. This can be performed either individually or in pairs or in groups, with some colored pencils and paper brought to the class by either students or teachers. Using these pictures as visual aids, students will explain to others what there are in their minds and how and why each image gets in there. These preliminary activities are essential in teaching literary interpretation, particularly in Vietnamese literature classes, where the dominant approach to literature teaching is still teaching “knowledge about literature” rather than “knowledge of literature” (Carter and Long, 1991, p. 4). Students may find these activities new, as they have been accustomed to just sitting, listening to the teacher and taking notes in literature classes, but this does not mean they will not enjoy them. On the contrary, they are very likely to be motivated because in these activities the most important things are their thoughts, their feelings, and their experience. They will be interested in exchanging their ideas with their friends, no matter how long they have worked with each other and how well they know about each other, because the conversation is concerned with something completely new that students would rarely have in their minds under other circumstances. These pictures and initial reactions will later direct, reinforce or attest students’ deductions when analyzing figures both linguistically and aesthetically. To avoid teacher influence, it is advisable that the activities are carried out immediately after students’ first or second readings of the poem. III.3.2. Identifying the “deviant” The next step in interpreting the figures of speech is to identify them. Often examples of synecdoche and metonymy are fairly easy to spot. However, when the poem under consideration is syntactically complicated or the line division is confusing, it is necessary for students to write the lines down as sentences in form of prose. They should be able to analyze sentence structures and normal uses of words in order to find the “deviant.” There are several techniques to help students at this stage. A simple technique is to ask guiding questions. For example, when teaching students the synecdoche in the first sentence of the poem “The Battle” by Louis Simpson, teachers can ask, “Who often march in the forest?” As for the metonymy in Teasdale’s poem, simple questions are, “What do people often sell? What are the common features of these things?” Answering these questions will show what the normal collocations are, and thus reveal the non-literal element of the poem. Barter Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things; Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up, Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell; Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And, for the Spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. How can one sell loveliness? It’s not a physical object. So why did the author use it? Why “sell”, and not “offer”? What can we pay in this sale? How can “eyes” love someone and “arms” hold someone? That should be people. Why eyes and arms but not other body parts? Another more student-centered approach to question making is to allow students to raise their own questions. Teachers can encourage them to make as many questions regarding language or meaning of the poem as possible (see figure 10). On the one hand, these questions can be productively used for pair or group discussions. On the other hand, question collections will give the teacher hints as to what is/ are problematic or interesting to a particular group of students, which will enable him/her to make appropriate adjustments to the content or focus of the lesson. Unquestionably, the most common questions will point out where the “deviant” is. Furthermore, this activity can establish in students the habit of asking questions – or, in Coulson et al’s words, starting conversations with poems (Coulson, 2002, pp. 8-18) – , which is one crucial step in the process of making sense of poetry. Figure 10: Questions making while reading poetry. Another useful activity is filling blanks to finish the poem. Ronald Carter (1986, pp. 112-113) uses this cloze procedure as “a form of prediction” in teaching prose. The same activity can be used in guiding students to identify figures of speech in poetry. Certainly, this activity can only be used at the beginning of the lesson, before students have the full version of the poem. Substitutive nouns in metonymy and synecdoche should be omitted to invite students to make a guess and fill in blanks with words they think are appropriate (figure 11). The expected result is that most students will base on adjacent words and their typical collocations to guess words in the blank and create non-literary sentences. These students when introduced to the full version of the poem will immediately recognize deviant elements. Other students, being aware of literariness in language of poetry, may attempt to create a figure by filling in literary words. Their choice of image, however, will hardly be the same as the poets’, which would help them to grasp the A group of soldiers/ a battalion/ a regiment Marched through a forest. Somewhere up ahead Guns thudded. Like the circle of a throat The night on every side was turning red. artfulness of the poet’s diction and explain the figure’s effects more profoundly. Figure 11: Blank filling in identifying metonymy and synecdoche in poetry After the signified and the signifier have been identified, a simple graphic representation of the two elements can be made in order for them to see the relations between the two nouns. III.3.3. Paraphrasing texts using non-literary language “The possibilities of paraphrase in the teaching of literary idiom” in particular and in teaching literature in general have been acknowledged by many ELT scholars, among whom are Walter Nash (1986, pp. 88), Carter and Long (1991, pp. 88-90). Throughout our analysis of the examples in chapter II, paraphrasing, or rewriting the lines in ordinary language is also one notable repeatedly used strategy. The act may remind us of conventional ways to teach and test literature (see Carter and Long, 1990, p. 215) but they are essentially different. Traditionally, paraphrasing is used to reveal the meaning of a poem or an extract from a poem. Often teachers paraphrase texts to make meanings explicit to students, who will then take notes and memorize these paraphrases to answer questions in exams. Therefore, the restatement herein is an end in itself. By contrast, we approach paraphrasing as a means to recognize and assess literariness in texts. We encourage students to express the same idea in non-literary language, which also means they will remove figurative elements from particular lines, and then put the paraphrase and original version in juxtaposition, comparing the two in order to detect the differences brought about by the figure of speech. This “recognition of literariness,” as Cater (1986, p. 110) aptly asserts, “is one of the most fundamental components in literary competence.” The outcomes of paraphrasing are numerous. Often the paraphrase is either dull or awkward, because as Richard Wilbur the poet states, a real poem does not “too readily [submit] to paraphrase. A poem ought not to be fissionable. It ought to be impossible satisfactorily to separate ‘ideas’ from the poetic ‘embodiment’. When this can be done to a poem, it is a sign that the poem began with a prose ‘idea’ – i.e. began wrongly – and that the writer was not a poet but a phrase-maker.” (Nash, 1986, p. 70) Recognizing the awkwardness of their paraphrases and their inability to express the idea of the author non-literarily will dawn on students how effectively and appropriately the figure of speech is employed. Furthermore, it will show them the nature of poetry as a form of literature specifically used to speak the unspeakable. A limit on the number of words in their paraphrase will illustrate the compactness of the poem and the expressive capacity of language in poetry in general and of these figures of speech in particular. This strategy can also be used to assess a poem as a whole in form of a summary. Again, a word limit is advisable since it will require students to understand the poem thoroughly in order to express the overall meaning of the poem without using too many words. Above are the three main strategies which can be used as a starting point for identifying, interpreting and assessing the two figures of speech in poetry. It should be kept in mind that metonymy or synecdoche used in a poem, in spite of being very small details, may reflect meaning of the entire poem. The rule of unity in literary works requires that we examine each word in relation with other details and with the poem as a whole. Teachers should therefore direct students to assess figures basing on their effectiveness in expressing the meaning of the whole poem. In some cases, it is necessary to look for clues outside the poem to see how the context may have influenced the poet’s feelings and thoughts and hence affected his/her choice of words and images. Some research on the author and background may help. If students know, for example, that Louis Simpson was himself a soldier in World War II and that “The Battle” was published in 1955 in a collection called Good News of Death and Other Poems, they may interpret the poem and the metonymy in the first two lines differently. However, it is essential to recognize that a poem’s meaning is not always limited to the author’s intention, and “The Battle” thus can be meaningful anywhere any time as an accusation of war in general. III.3.4. Rating a trope on a cline Original Central Appropriate Inappropriate Overall rating Worn/threadbare Not central It could be gathered from the previous chapter that one main difference between metonymy and synecdoche in everyday language and those in poetry is that in poetry they are used more creatively and purposefully. When studying figures of speech in literary texts, it is necessary for students, especially those in literature classes, to assess these tropes in terms of originality, appropriateness, and centrality. Carter and Long (1991, pp. 113-114) introduce a cline as a means of assessing tropes. Basing on these clines, we can rate the synecdoche in “Eyes that love you” as in figure 13, which means this substitution is central to the idea of the line, is quite appropriate and fairly original. Clearly, the substitution is central to the idea of the poem and is not just an afterthought or an addition. Strange as it may seem, substituting “people” with “eyes” is appropriate in that “eyes” are conventionally considered the window to human souls and thus capable of expressing emotions and compassion. However, saying “eyes that love you” is so extravagant that the trope also reserves a high rating in terms of originality. Figure 12: Rating the eyes-for-people substitution (Carter and Long, 1991, pp. 113-114). Teachers should make it clear that there is no correct answer in such ratings. Students may have different ideas on how a trope should be rated and they can share their ideas and argue for their choices in a group or pair discussion, which could expand their knowledge on literary traditions as they listen to their friends’ experience with reading literature and enrich their own. In many scholars’ views, this is one effective way of developing readers’ literary competence. Brumfit (1981, p. 188), for example, states, “The ability to perceive and explore relationships between literary texts and other literary texts (hence developing understating of the notion of convention and tradition) will be developed by reading texts ... linked by subject matter, by formal and structural similarity, by thematic intention, or by any other appropriate device.” Rating a trope’s originality is also one way to activate students’ literary experience and require them to make comparison between a literary device used in a particular literary text and those in other literary texts they have read before. They may also resort to texts of the same subject to see what other authors have employed to substitute a kind of objects or people so that they can decide how original the trope in question is. Generally, the activities we have presented so far aim at developing students’ literary competence, to develop in them “the fundamental ability of a good reader of literature [, which is] the ability to generalize from the given text either to other aspects of the literary tradition or to personal or social significances outside literature” (Brumfit, 1981, p. 188). Poems used for teaching metonymy and synecdoche, besides other general criteria for text selections in using literature in language teaching, should contain recognizable examples illustrating these figures’ linguistic functions. They should be creative figures so as to highlight stylistic differences between uses of metonymy and synecdoche in everyday language and those in literature. In addition, these examples should provide a link, either direct or indirect, to the theme of the sample poem to help them practice skills of literary interpretation. In this chapter, we have touched upon several pedagogical aspects of teaching metonymy and synecdoche, namely their possible teaching contexts, their pedagogical values, and applicable activities for EFL classrooms. Though by no means exhaustive, these suggestions demonstrate that these two figures of speech, if put into appropriate use, can be valuable resources for language teaching. Conclusion I. Summary Metonymy and synecdoche are major linguistic phenomena in English, which are omnipresent in everyday language as well as in literature. These two substitutive figures of speech, as suggested by their names, base themselves on the substitution of one word or object for another associated one. In synecdoche, the lexical relation between the signified and the signifier is either hyponymy or part-whole. In metonymy, relations involved in the substitutions vary greatly with one domain suggestive of the other. Concerning the use of these figures in poetry, the analysis shows that they are useful literary devices in poetry. While a number of figures are taken from non-literary language, others are highly original and aesthetically effective. It is proved that they are not just simply ornamental but on the contrary quite essential to the meaning of the poem. In some cases, the effect is achieved by the figure’s pictorialness. In others, the figures in question help reveal readings which would be otherwise very difficult to arrive at. The findings on these figures’ linguistic functions and use in poetry have various pedagogical implications. It is argued in this paper that these types of figures of speech can and should be taught in a wide range of EFL classes, most notably skills classes and literature classes, for multiple pedagogical values they offer ELT teachers. In addition, a variety of classroom activities were introduced for teaching these figures, based on the linguistic functions of the two figures. Particularly, several strategies to teach these figures in poetry were discussed in an attempt to facilitate students’ literature learning and improve their figurative and literary competence. II. Suggestions for further research Figures of speech in general and substitutive figures of speech in particular are appealing linguistic phenomena that should be scrutinized from both linguistic and pedagogic perspectives. It is a shame that this paper, due to reasons of space, could focus only on synecdoche and metonymy and thus left out many other interesting yet under-investigated substitutive figures of speech such as catachresis, enallage and metalepsis. It is suggested that these figures should be systematically studied. For EFL course designers’ part, they can conduct research on where figures of speech would fit in the curriculum and how they should be used in teaching English as a foreign language. With regards to the study of the two figures of speech in questions, it is noticeable that this paper centers primarily on their functions in poetry, which means further research can be carried out to examine their functions in other types of discourse. Their conventional use in everyday language is also a promising area to work on, especially from an intercultural outlook. In addition, with this paper being principally qualitative, other quantitative research can be conducted to illustrate the omnipresence of these figures in poetry and disprove the much-received opinion that they are mainly used in prose, not poetry. Those interested in these figures’ pedagogical applications may implement classroom-based research to testify the effectiveness of certain teaching strategies. 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The road was his with not a native near; And Eben, having leisure, said aloud, For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear: “Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon Again, and we may not have many more; The bird is on the wing, the poet says, And you and I have said it here before. Drink to the bird.” He raised up to the light The jug that he had gone so far to fill, And answered huskily: “Well, Mr. Flood, Since you propose it, I believe I will.” Alone, as if enduring to the end A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn, He stood there in the middle of the road Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn. Below him, in the town among the trees, Where friends of other days had honored him, A phantom salutation of the dead Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim. Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child Down tenderly, fearing it may awake, He set the jug down slowly at his feet With trembling care, knowing that most things break; And only when assured that on firm earth It stood, as the uncertain lives of men Assuredly did not, he paced away, And with his hand extended paused again: “Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this In a long time; and many a change has come To both of us, I fear, since last it was We had a drop together. Welcome home!” Convivially returning with himself, Again he raised the jug up to the light; And with an acquiescent quaver said: “Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might. “Only a very little, Mr. Flood -- For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do.” So, for the time, apparently it did, And Eben evidently thought so too; For soon amid the silver loneliness Of night he lifted up his voice and sang, Secure, with only two moons listening, Until the whole harmonious landscape rang - “For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out, The last word wavered; and the song being done, He raised again the jug regretfully And shook his head, and was again alone. There was not much that was ahead of him, And there was nothing in the town below -- Where strangers would have shut the many doors That many friends had opened long ago. From Collected Poems, 1922. Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) Barter Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things; Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up, Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell; Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And, for the Spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Give all you have for loveliness; Buy it, and never count the cost! For one white, singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost; And for a breath of ecstasy, Give all you have been, or could be. From Love Songs, 1917. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) Perception of an object costs Perception of an object costs Precise the Object's loss— Perception in itself a Gain Replying to its Price— The Object Absolute—is nought— Perception sets it fair And then upbraids a Perfectness That situates so far— From Poems of Emily Dickinson, 1890. Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) We Wear the Mask We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--This debt we pay to human guile;With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties.Why should the world be overwise,In counting all our tears and sighs?Nay, let them only see us, while          We wear the mask.We smile, but, O great Christ, our criesTo thee from tortured souls arise.We sing, but oh the clay is vileBeneath our feet, and long the mile;But let the world dream otherwise,          We wear the mask! From Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896. William Blake (1757-1827) Love's Secret Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind does move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart; Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears, Ah! she did depart! Soon as she was gone from me, A traveler came by, Silently, invisibly He took her with a sigh. From Songs of Innocence, 1789. Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) Suicide in the Trenches I knew a simple soldier boyWho grinned at life in empty joy,Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum,With crumps and lice and lack of rum,He put a bullet through his brain.No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eyeWho cheer when soldier lads march by,Sneak home and pray you'll never knowThe hell where youth and laughter go. From Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) Richard Cory Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him:He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean-favoured and imperially slim.  And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good Morning!” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich, yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace, In fine -- we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked and waited for the light, And went without the meat and cursed the bread, And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head. From Collected Poems, 1922. Louis Simpson (b. 1923) The Battle Helmet and rifle, pack and overcoat Marched through a forest. Somewhere up ahead Guns thudded. Like the circle of a throat The night on every side was turning red. They halted and they dug. They sank like moles Into the clammy earth between the trees. And soon the sentries, standing in their holes, Felt the first snow. Their feet began to freeze. At dawn the first shell landed with a crack. Then shells and bullet swept the icy woods. This lasted many days. The snow was black. The corpses stiffened in the scarlet hoods. Most clearly of that battle I remember The tiredness in eyes, how hands looked thin, Around a cigarette, and the bright ember Would pulse with all the life there was within. From Good News of Death and Other Poems, 1955. TABLE OF CONTENTs Certificate of originality ....................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. iii List of tables and figures ..................................................................................................... iv List of abbreviations ............................................................................................................. v Abstract ............................................................................................................................... vi Table of contents .................................................................................................................vii