What are the guidelines for distinguishing hyperbole from exaggeration and specific examples? What Vietnamese knowledge does the 7th-grade Literature curriculum cover?
What are the guidelines for distinguishing hyperbole from exaggeration and specific examples?
To distinguish hyperbole from exaggeration, students can refer to the table differentiating hyperbole from exaggeration as follows:
| Criteria | Hyperbole | Exaggeration |
| Concept | A rhetorical device that exaggerates the degree or characteristics of an object or phenomenon to emphasize, create an impression, or increase expressiveness. | A way of speaking that exaggerates the truth excessively, without a factual basis, often to boast or evoke laughter. |
| Purpose | To emphasize, create an impression, and enhance the evocative and emotional power of the text. | To boast, exaggerate, provoke laughter, or sometimes deceive others. |
| Nature | Artistic nature, serving the purpose of expression and aesthetics in literature. | Humorous, satirical, or self-glorifying in a way that is excessive. |
| Reliability | The listener understands that it is an intentional exaggeration to clarify the meaning, without the intention to deceive. | The speaker tries to make others believe something that isn't true, even if it's illogical. |
| Example | "My tears fell like a river." (Hyperbole to emphasize deep sorrow) | "I am so strong I can break an old tree trunk with just my two fingers!" (Exaggeration to boast, not true) |
| Effect | Enhances the artistic nature, making the language lively and full of emotion. | Often provokes laughter, satire, or displays of ridiculous extravagance. |
In summary, hyperbole is a purposeful artistic device to enhance expression and emphasize content. Meanwhile, exaggeration is associated with boasting, excessively overstating the truth, often to amuse or create a false impression.
Examples of hyperbole and exaggeration
a. "Plowing the field at noon
Tears drip down like rain on the plowed field."
- Type: Hyperbole
- Explanation: This poem uses hyperbole to emphasize the farmer's hard work in the scorching sun. Comparing "tears dripping like rain" is an exaggeration to enhance expressiveness, highlighting the image of sweat falling profusely without deceiving or boasting.
b. "It's so hot, sweat dripped and soaked the entire floor."
- Type: Hyperbole
- Explanation: This sentence is also an exaggeration to emphasize the level of heat causing profuse sweating. In reality, it's impossible to soak the entire floor, but this way of speaking aims to increase the image and sensation of suffocating heat, not to boast or deceive.
c. "A human life is only a hand span
Those who sleep during the day only have half a span left."
- Type: Hyperbole
- Explanation: This is a philosophical hyperbole. Human life is compared to a hand span to emphasize the brevity and preciousness of time. The saying “those who sleep during the day only have half a span” further emphasizes the advice to cherish time, avoid wasting life. This is not boasting or a false exaggeration.
d. "I wrote this essay in just five minutes, yet it's still three pages long."
- Type: Exaggeration
- Explanation: This sentence shows boasting, exaggerating one's ability to impress others. In reality, writing a three-page essay in five minutes is nearly impossible. This is excessive boasting, unrealistic, claiming to have exaggerated “speed.”
Note: Contents are for reference only!
What are the guidelines for distinguishing hyperbole from exaggeration and specific examples? What Vietnamese knowledge does the 7th-grade Literature curriculum cover? (Image from the Internet)
What Vietnamese knowledge does the 7th-grade Literature curriculum cover?
Under the General Education Program for Literature issued with Circular 32/2018/TT-BGDDT, the 7th-grade Literature curriculum covers the following Vietnamese knowledge:
1.1. Idioms and Proverbs: characteristics and functions
1.2. Terminology: characteristics and functions
1.3. The meaning of some common Sino-Vietnamese elements (e.g., quốc, gia) and the meanings of words containing those elements (e.g., quốc thể, gia cảnh)
1.4. Context and the meaning of words within context
2.1. Numerals, adverbs: characteristics and functions
2.2. The main components and adverbial clauses in a sentence: expanding main components and adverbial clauses with phrases
2.3. The usage of ellipses (cooperating with commas, indicating many similar objects and phenomena not fully listed; expressing incomplete or hesitant speech; extending rhythm in texts; preparing for the appearance of surprising or humorous, satirical content)
3.1. Rhetorical devices of hyperbole, understatement, euphemism: characteristics and effects
3.2. Text coherence and cohesion: characteristics and functions
3.3. Document types and genres
- Narrative text: a narrative essay recounting true events related to historical characters and events
- Expressive text: an expressive essay; four-line, five-line poems; prose capturing emotions after reading a four-line or five-line poem.
- Argumentative text: the relationship between opinions, arguments, and evidence; argumentative essay on an issue in life; an analysis essay on a literary work
- Informational text: Footnotes and references; a description essay explaining a rule or regulation in a game or activity; a report; summarizing texts of various lengths
4.1. Regional languages: understanding and appreciating the differences in language across regions
4.2. Non-verbal communication means: images, statistics
What is the age of students entering 7th grade in Vietnam?
According to Clause 1, Article 33 of the Regulations of Lower Secondary Schools, Upper Secondary Schools, and Schools with Multiple Education Levels issued with Circular 32/2020/TT-BGDDT:
Secondary school age
1. Children shall start the sixth grade at the age of 11 and the tenth grade at the age of 15. For students skipping a grade or over-age students, the sixth grade and tenth grade starting ages shall be adjusted based on the age at which these students graduate from the previous education level.
...
Thus, 7th-grade students are ordinarily 12, except in cases of retaining a grade, skipping a grade, or enrolling at an age higher/lower than the regulated age.
