Images & Symbols
English Language: AQA GCSE, topic 1.1.7
Key Terms for English Language - Images and Symbols
You need to know the following key terms for your English Language exam:
Symbolism
- When one idea, feeling, emotion, or other concept is represented by something else. They reflect the figurative meaning of a picture, object, colour, etc.
- E.g. The colour black is often used to represent death or evil.
Simile
- A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, using ‘like’ or ‘as.’
- You are comparing the qualities of the two things you are comparing.
- E.g. in the phrase 'He was as fierce as a lion', you are comparing the anger and aggression of the lion with the anger and aggression of the man you are describing.
Personification
- Giving human characteristics to something that isn't human to create imagery.
- E.g. The waves danced on the shore.
Metaphor
- A figure of speech in which you say something is another thing. You compare the qualities or behaviour of two things using metaphors.
- E.g. in 'the curtain of fog', you create the image of the fog falling down on the area as if it is a curtain being dropped over the place - this could also suggest that the fog is thick and difficult to see through.
Imagery
- Language and description that appeals to the five senses (smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing). Often, imagery includes similes, metaphors, etc.
- E.g. The waves battered the defenceless rocks, crashing and bashing against them and spraying frigid, salty water into the night.
Anthropomorphism
- This is when we make something that is not human do or say things that make them seem human.
- E.g. The Sorting Hat talks in Harry Potter.
- The difference between anthropomorphism and personification: anthropomorphism is when something inhuman actually does human-like things; personification creates imagery where something inhuman seems human.
Test yourself on Images & Symbols
What two words can we use to compare things in similes?
What technique does this sentence use?
James was as silly as a clown.What technique is being used in this sentence?
Jenny was a ghost in her paleness.