Types of Figure of Speech

1. Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that says that one thing is like another different
thing. We can use similes to make descriptions more emphatic or vivid.
We often use the words as...as and like with similes
2. Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that says that one thing is another different
thing. This allows us to use fewer words and forces the reader or listener to find
the similarities.
3. Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech that uses an exaggerated or extravagant
statement to create a strong emotional response. As a figure of speech it is not
intended to be taken literally. Hyperbole is frequently used for humour.
4. Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that deliberately uses two contradictory ideas.
This contradiction creates a paradoxical image in the reader or listener's mind that
generates a new concept or meaning for the whole.
Levels of Usage
1. Formal English is, for the most part, a written language. In general, it is confined to the
realm of the serious: textbooks, academic or technical works, and most essays you will
write at university. You would write formally in a letter of application for a job. Formal
language tends to be impersonal and precise, and often uses long, carefully constructed
sentences; the formal writer will avoid contractions and abbreviations, and will use a more
specialized and complex vocabulary than that employed in everyday speech.
2. Informal English is the language spoken by most people every day. While educated
speakers retain their knowledge of formal rules, they're more relaxed about grammar and
less concerned with vocabulary when they're engaged in ordinary conversation. Informal
writing reflects this relaxation. Sentences are shorter, and tend to avoid the more formal
punctuation of the semi-colon and colon. Contractions and the first person are acceptable.
Newspaper articles and columns are usually written informally, and you use informal
language when you write to your friends.
3. Popular English can be colourful and highly expressive, but it is out of place in any writing
unless you are reporting speech. In everyday speech, imprecision of meaning or poverty of
vocabulary can be compensated for by enthusiastic verbal expression, but you can't wave
your hands around, or vary your voice for emphasis when you are writing. Many of the
errors in usage covered in the dictionary which follows are a result of a lack of awareness of
the difference between written and spoken English.
4. Here are some examples of how vocabulary changes in each level of usage:
Formal Informal Popular
comprehend understand get it
intoxicated drunk wasted
exhausted tired bagged

Si Tenggangs Homecoming
the physical journey that I
traverse
is the journey of the soul,
transport of the self from a
fatherland
to a country collected by
sight and mind.
the knowledge the sweats
from it
is estranger's experience,
from one who had learnt to
see, reflect
and choose between
the challenging actualities.

its true I have growled at my
mother and
grandmother,
but only after having told
them my predicament
that they have never brought
to consideration
the wife that I began to love
in my loneliness,
in the country that alienated
me,
they enveloped in their pre-
judgment.
i have not entirely returned, I
know,
having been changed by
time and place.
coursed by problems
estranged by absence.
but look.
I have brought myself home,
seasoned by faith.
broadened by land and
language,
I am no longer afraid of the
oceans
of the differences between
people,
no longer easily snared
no words of ideas

the journey was a loyal
teacher,
who was never tardy
in explaining cultures and
variousness.
look I am just like you.
still malay,
sensitive to what
I believe is good,
and more ready to
understand

than my brothers.
the contents of these boats
are yours too,
because I have returned.

travel makes me
a seeker who does not take
what is given without
sincerity
or that which demands
payment from
beliefs.
the years at sea and in
coastal state
have thought me to choose,
to accept only those tested
by
comparison,
or that which matches the
roads of my
ancestors,
which returns me to my
village
and its completeness.

I've learnt
the ways of the rude,
to hold actuality in a new
logic,
debate with hard and
loud facts.
but I too
have humanity, respecting
man and life.

I am not a new man,
not very different
from you;
the people and cities
of coastal ports
thought me not to brood
over a foreign world,
suffer difficulties
or fear possibilities.
I am you,
freed from the village,
its soils and ways,
independent, because
I have found myself.