"What is a Synecdoche?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers

What does the literary term "synecdoche" mean? What is the difference between metonymy and synecdoche? Professor Peter Betjemann answers these questions using examples from everyday life and Allen Ginsberg's poem "A Supermarket in California." The short video is designed to help high school and college English students to properly identify synecdoches in poetry, novels, and short stories and to analyze the structure and purpose of this figure of speech.

This video now contains Spanish as well as English subtitles. To switch between languages, click on the "settings" button in the video.

The video is sponsored by the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University. For more discussions of literary forms and essay writing tips, please subscribe to the free SWLF YouTube Channel or visit https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/w...

To keep the conversation going, please feel free to provide more examples of synecdoches you've encountered in your reading in the comments section! Liking, sharing, and commenting on these videos will help us to build a rich digital learning environment around these topics.

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Timestamps
0:00 Synecdoche Defined
0:38 Synecdoche Easy Examples
1:08 Interpreting Synecdoches

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