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Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device of saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that it is obvious what the true intention is. [1] Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes. [2] When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
Complementary antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite but whose meanings do not lie on a continuous spectrum (push, pull). Relational antonyms are word pairs where opposite makes sense only in the context of the relationship between the two meanings (teacher, pupil). These more restricted meanings may not apply in all scholarly ...
Polysemy – the capacity of a word or phrase to render more than one meaning. Polysyndeton – the repeated use of conjunctions within a sentence, particularly where they do not necessarily have to be used. Postmodernism – a field of inquiry concerned with the ideological underpinnings of commonly held assumptions.
Comprehension of idioms is the act of processing and understanding idioms.Idioms are a common type of figure of speech.Based on common linguistic definitions, an idiom is a combination of words that contains a meaning that cannot be understood based on the literal definition of the individual words. [1]
[11] In other words, a condensation is when more than one displacement occurs towards the same idea. In 1957, Jacques Lacan , inspired by an article by linguist Roman Jakobson , argued that the unconscious has the same structure of a language, and that condensation and displacement are equivalent to the poetic functions of metaphor and metonymy .
Oxymorons are words that communicate contradictions. An oxymoron (plurals: oxymorons and oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox.
An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a figurative or non-literal meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic language , an idiomatic expression's meaning is different from the literal meanings of each word inside it. [ 1 ]