Personification Hyperbole Kinds of Non-Literal Meaning

b. I keep my clothes in the closet In a, ‘keep’ means continuous activity, in b, ‘keep’ means putting something in a place.

3.4.1. Personification

Personification is the figure of speech in which a thing, an animal, or an abstract term truth, nature is made or the object are likely considered as having human since human characteristics are attached to the objects themselves. In Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 2000 states that personification is the arbitrary of human qualities to an inanimate object. The representing of the imaginary creatures or things as having human personalities, intelligence, and emotion “Personification consists in giving the attributes of a human being to an animal, an object, or an idea Perrine, 1973. Personification is a special form of metaphor that pictures inanimate things to act, speak, or talk like humans. An example of personification is in the quotation of Keat’s Personification of autumn as a harvester “sitting careless on a granary floor” or “on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep” Perreine, 1973. Shaw 1972:283 says that “Personification is a figure of speech in which abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are having human form, character, traits, or sensibilities”. For example; “the wind speaks in whisper”. It is already know that “speaks” is the characteristics of human, and able to speak, it needs the articulatory organ to make it possible which the wind does not has. Therefore this characteristic is given to personify the inanimate object. Universitas Sumatera Utara Another example of the uses personification is “my heart says yes”. The word “say” can be interpreted literally as an activity of a person to express the person’s idea. But according to the sentence above, this activity is done by ‘heart’, which is an inanimate object. Although, the idea of the sentence above is non- literally meant as an expression of agreement of something.

3.4.2. Hyperbole

The word hyperbole itself derived from Greek. It is from two words, hyper means over and balle means to throw. Hyperbole is one of the exaggerated way which consist of exaggerated statement which is not mean to be literally. Whereas exaggerated way is an expression to make something looks bigger or greater than it really is. In Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary, hyperbole is indicated as a way of describing something in order to make it sound bigger, smaller, better, worse, etc. than it really is. For example, “I miss you like crazy”, here it does not really become crazy person but the strong feeling of miss someone or it may mean “I miss you so much”. Another example of hyperbole is “I’m dying again”. Dying is connected with or happening at the time of somebody’s death. In addition, it happen to people only once in life. It is impossible to say, “I’m dying again” as if ever happen before. “Dying” here may means that the feeling of unpleasant, useless, and hopeless. So the sentence may means “I feel unpleasant, hurt, and disappointed. Universitas Sumatera Utara

3.4.3. Synecdoche