NSW HSC English Standard

## Imagery **Imagery** is language that appeals to the senses so that the reader pictures, hears, smells, tastes or feels something that is not physically present. Visual imagery is the most common, but a writer who wants a scene to feel lived in usually adds at least one other sense. Compare two versions of the same moment: > The kitchen was old and the tea was hot. > The kitchen smelled of damp wood and burnt toast, and the tea scalded the tip of her tongue before she could taste it. The second version uses smell, taste and touch, and it also tells the reader something about the character: she is in a hurry, or distracted, or numb. Imagery earns its place when the detail does a job, so the useful question is always what the image suggests beyond the thing it describes. The senses are named by their adjectives: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile. **Kinaesthetic** imagery describes movement and bodily sensation, such as the lurch of a bus or the ache of a long walk. A cluster of images drawn from the same area, such as water, light, weather or illness, builds a **motif** or an **image pattern**, and a recurring pattern is often where a text's ideas sit. ## Figurative language Figurative language says one thing in order to mean or suggest another. The main devices are these. | Device | What it does | Example of my own | |---|---|---| | Simile | compares two things using "like" or "as" | The silence in the car was like a held breath. | | Metaphor | says one thing…