N FCURATIVELY SPEAKING I UNDERSTANDING PERSONIFICATION BY ROBIN JOHNSON Crabtree Publishing Company www crabtreebooks com
WHAT IS PERSONIFICATION Buzzzz Your alarm clock yells at you to wake up The sun is just starting to poke its head out The birds are clearing their throats and getting ready to sing The smell of French toast calls you downstairs for breakfast Viens ici Come here But your comfy bed begs you to stay just a little while longer You're barely awake and your day is already packed with personification 1 Personification is a figure of speech in which human characteristics or qualities are given to something that is not human't Clocks don really yell at you to wake up They just buzz at the time you toast set doesn the alarm t really French call you for breakfast in English or French It just smells so good that it seems as though it is calling you The sun shines but does not have a head to poke out Birds sing but don't clear their throats And beds don't really beg you to stay They just lie there quietly being
FIGURATIVE OR LITERALP We use literal language to tell our stories Literal language states facts or describes things as they really are We say it is time for the party to start We don t have time to blow up any more balloons Those are true statements Guests will literally be arriving soon 0 Personification is a type of figurative language Figurative language uses words or sayings with meanings that are different from their usual literal meanings We say that time flies when you re having fun Time does not really fly It moves at the same pace minute by minute We personify time to show that it sometimes seems to us to move more quickly the way a bird flies JUST KIDDING Why did the girl throw the clock out the window She wanted to see time fly LITERAL Daniel used a mop to clean the floor FIGURATE Daniel and the mop danced across the
