3. Rhetorical Features

The sentence pattern of English proverbs is concise and the boundary tone is harmony. In addition, a large number of rhetorical devices express its art style. There are over dozens of rhetorics used in English proverbs. The following introduction from the three aspects of lexical devices, syntactical devices and phonetic devices briefly.

3.1 Lexical devices

In English proverbs, the figure of speech is used frequently. And the metaphor, personification, hyperbole, pun and antonym are more common.

3.1.1 Comparison

Comparison is the most common rhetorical device. It is used almost everywhere. It refers to an imaginative way of describing something by saying that it is something else which has the qualities that you are trying to describe. The abstract thing or principle can be expressed specifically, and easy to understand with tropes. The common metaphorical ways can be pided into the followings.

(1) Simile

 Simile is a stated comparison between two things that really are very different, but sharing some common elements. Similes are introduced by the use of “like” or “as”. Here are some instances:

There is no place like home.金窝银窝，不如自己的狗窝。

Choose an author as you choose a friend.择书如择友。

Beauty fades like a flower.色衰似花谢。 (Li, Feng 6)

(2) Metaphor

A metaphor, like a simile, is a comparison made by referring to one thing as another. But in a metaphor, the comparison is implied rather than stated. In metaphors, as in similes, the two things being compared must be essentially different.(Wang, Zhang 97) 

In a metaphor, the comparison would appear simply as:来!自~吹冰论-文|网www.chuibin.com

A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.

好书如相伴终生的挚友。  

A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees the farther of the two.

侏孺站在巨人的肩上，会看得更远。 

Speech is the picture of the mind.

言论是心灵的写照。 

3.1.2 Personification

Personification is a form of metaphor in which a lifeless object, an animal, or an idea is made to act like a person. Such as:

Walls have ears.隔墙有耳。

Time and tide wait for no man.时不我待。