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Impactful Use Of Figurative Language In Malala's Nobel Prize Speech

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Twenty-six whopping minutes. That’s how long Malala Yousafzai's Nobel Prize speech was, and it was jampacked full of rhetorical devices such as figurative language, repetition, and parallel structure. You could go and watch it, but you’ll get the same content from reading this paper, and it’ll take half of the time. There are many instances of figurative language that can be found within Malala’s speech, but I’m just going to highlight the ones that stuck out to me. One of the most impactful uses of figurative language that I came across was a metaphor. In order to convey determination to learn, she referenced her “thirst for education.” I thought that this was very impactful because it compares education to one of the basic necessities of life, water. Another great use of figurative language within her speech was the use of symbolism. Throughout her speech, Malala uses herself as a symbol for various issues that she cares about, but it’s very evident when she claims to be other girls that have had to fight for their rights. Malala uses …show more content…

Three times she says “so it becomes the last time” when referring to education deprivation. She does this to ingrain the thought into our brains that if we take a stand, children will no longer have to worry about education deprivation. As a result, the thought that more and more helpless children will lose their rights to education if we don’t decide to help them will be ingrained in our minds as well. While talking about the same subject, Malala states that “it is not the time to pity them” twice to emphasize the point that nothing will happen if we don’t take actions to help the children. Towards the end of her speech, she reveals that her goal is to see “every child in school.” Twice more, she repeats the phrase, “the last time,” to show us that if we put all of our effort into achieving her goal, we will never have to fight for education

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