【正确答案】正确答案：The first meaning for a word that a dictionary definition gives is usually its literal meaning, while figurative language is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. Appealing to the imagination, figurative language provides new ways of looking at the world. It always makes use of a comparison between different things. Figurative language compares two things that are different in enough ways so that their similarities, when pointed out, are interesting, unique and/or surprising. Figurative language uses "figures of speech" to express something other than the literal meaning of the words, in other words, figurative language cannot be taken literally (or should not be taken literally only). Simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, apostrophe, are all forms of figurative language. For example, the literal meaning of the word "tree" is "a large plant". However, once we start talking about a tree in the context of "a family tree" for example, it is no longer a literal tree we are talking about, but a figurative one. The literal use of the word "tree" refers to an organism which has bark, branches and leaves. A "family tree" shares some of these qualities-graphically, a plan of a family and a representation of a tree can look similar, and in a way they are both a process of organic growth, so we use the same term for both. But when we use the term for a plant it is a literal usage and when we use the term to describe our ancestry, it is a figurative usage.