Trope

In linguistics, trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e., using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form. The other major category of figures of speech is the scheme, which involves changing the pattern of words in a sentence.

The term trope derives from the τρόπος - tropos "turn, direction, way, related to the root of the verb τρέπειν (trepein), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change".^[1] A trope is a way of turning a word away from its normal meaning, or turning it into something else.

Types

• metonymy — a trope through proximity or correspondence, for example referring to actions of the U.S. President as "actions of the White House".
• irony — creating a trope through implying the opposite of the standard meaning, such as describing a bad situation as "good times".
• metaphor — an explanation of an object or idea through juxtaposition of disparate things with a similar characteristic, such as describing a courageous person as having a "heart of a lion".
• synecdoche — related to metonymy and metaphor, creates a play on words by referring to something with a related concept: for example, referring to the whole with the name of a part, such as "hired hands" for workers; a part with the name of the whole, such as "the law" for police officers; the general with the specific, such as "bread" for food; the specific with the general, such as "cat" for a lion; or an object with the material it is made from, such as "bricks and mortar" for a building.
• antanaclasis — is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.
• allegory - A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse. For example: "The ship of state has sailed through rougher storms than the tempest of these lobbyists."

See also

Linguistics portal

• Invariance principle
• Scheme (linguistics)
• Trope (disambiguation)
• Tropological reading

References

Sources

1. Silva Rhetorica (rhetoric.byu.edu)