היפרבולה והתמננות

Descriptive words affect the reader

• Descriptive words, such as adjectives and adverbs, qualify or modify the things they describe and affect readers' interaction with the text.
• The second half is the new part: they change how the reader engages, not only what is described.
• So an adjective is doing something to you, not only to the noun.

An adjective can sneak an attitude into a line while pretending it only described the curtains.

Hyperbole exaggerates

• Hyperbole 夸张 exaggerates, and exaggerating an aspect of an object focuses attention on that trait and conveys a perspective about the object.
• Two effects, both stated: focus, and perspective.
• So a hyperbole tells you what the speaker wants you to look at and how they see it.

Device definitions are starting points; their effects depend on the actual wording.

Understatement minimizes

• Understatement 低调陈述 minimizes — and the CED gives it exactly the same two effects.
• Minimizing a trait focuses attention on it too, because the reader notices the mismatch.
• It was a difficult year about a catastrophe draws more attention than any adjective could.

Both work by mismatch

• Neither device works on its own — each needs the reader to know roughly what would have been proportionate.
• So to analyse either, name what the proportionate description would have been.
• The distance between that and what is written is the size of the effect.

A proportion pass

• Find any description that seems too big or too small for its object.
• Write what a proportionate description would have said.
• Then name the trait now in focus, and the perspective the mismatch conveys.