Personification in a Sentence
Personification is what? This foreign word is rarely used in everyday life, and few people know how to interpret it. However, this phenomenon is quite common, for example, in fiction as well as in fairy tales, myths, religious cults and is closely related to the concepts of personification and anthropomorphism. More details about what it is – personification, will be told in the review.
What does it say in the dictionaries?
The dictionaries say that there are two meanings of this concept.
The first one is the action corresponding to the meaning of the verb “personify”. This verb, in its turn, can be interpreted in the following meanings:
- Give (give) something personality traits. Example: “Ancient Egyptians personified various elements and forces of nature in the images of gods and demigods”.
- To identify (identify) with a concrete personality. Example: “Ancient Egyptians in the images of gods and demigods, to identify with a specific person: “In order to personify a user, online stores use a number of special techniques”.
The second is accompanied by the “philological” label and speaks of a poetic technique that consists in endowing inanimate objects and various phenomena with the properties of inanimate beings. Example: “Poets in their creative work, especially in describing nature, often resort to personalization: they have grass whispering, wind howling, rain howling, earth humming, frosty warlord bypassing his possessions”. Go to the site and find out more https://argoprep.com/blog/personification/
Inspiration of Nature
People have resorted to it since ancient times. Due to their lack of scientific knowledge about the world, they represented natural phenomena and objects (e.g. seasons, sun, wind, ocean, sky, rivers and mountains) in various images of actors, including in the image of man. The properties of the human psyche were also attributed to them. And also personification extended on abstract phenomena, for example, Likho who personified evil at Slavs, or the goddess of love and beauty Venus at Romans, the goddess of youth Gebu at ancient Greeks.
Examples
As a rule, one cannot do without personalization of mythology, pagan religions, fairy tales, parables, cults and magic, art and other literature. Thus, in Russian folk tales and beliefs there are Santa Claus and Snow Maiden, Vesna Krasna, Leshy, Mermaid, Baba Yaga.
As an example of personification in religion we can mention Shintoism, which prevails in Japan. It is based on animism, i.e. belief in the existence of spirits, in the spirituality of nature. Shintoists deify and worship natural phenomena, believing that many things have their own spiritual essence, which is called “kami”. A kami can be a tree, a stone, a natural phenomenon or a sacred place.
As we continue to consider that this is a personification, one cannot help but notice its other meanings.
Personalization in pedagogy
Otherwise, teachers also call it individualization. It is one of the principles in upbringing and teaching and implies that in the development of each of the pupils an individual trajectory should be defined and special tasks should be singled out that correspond to their individual characteristics.
A teacher who implements the principle of personalisation shall do it first:
- Identify the characteristics of the inclusion of the child in various activities;
- to unlock the potential of the individual in both classroom and extracurricular activities;
- Provide every child with opportunities for optimal self-disclosure and self-realization.
For successful implementation of this principle, it is also necessary to follow the following rules:
- Work done with a group of students should be directed towards the development of each child.
- Achieving success in educational impact while working with one student should not negatively affect the education of others.
- The choice of educational means should take into account the individual qualities of the child.
- Choosing ways to correct the behavior of a pupil, it is necessary to interact with him/her.
- Continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of the impact on each of the children determines the totality of the educational means used by teachers.
Personification in psychology
In a psychological context, the concept in question is associated with the name of Harry Sullivan, an American researcher. According to his theory, personification represents images born in human consciousness since infancy, in the process of his interaction with the surrounding world.
The peculiarity of personifications is the possibility of their inconsistency with reality. They are born as reaction to those or other events, emotions and are fixed in consciousness as stereotypes. And then they are projected on other people, who do not always fit this pattern.
Sullivan personalization…
He, like Freud, played an important role in shaping the child’s personality. But, in contrast to the Austrian, he believed that the personality continues to develop and when a person grows up. Sullivan cites three types of personification – those that relate to the mother, his own “ego”, as well as the idol.
1-This stage of personification is carried out in infancy and contains two components, one of which is conditionally called “mother-bad” (primary) and the other – “mother-good”.
The first arises in children’s consciousness because of the object that does not bring food to the baby. They may, for example, be a pacifier. This image is not identified, because the pacifier can be obtained from anyone.
The stereotype “good mother” gives birth to the image of a mother who cares about her child. These two elements, projected on the same person, create two opposing images of the mother, which are then combined in harmony.
Once the initial image of the mother is strengthened in the mind and the child enters the phase of interpersonal communication, the second phase begins, the gradual personalization of the “Self”. Its first form, the “I-bad”, is associated with the experiences of the child, when he feels the disapproval shown by other people. For example, when the mother punishes him for bad behavior. Positive emotions, on the contrary, project “I am good”. The consequence of the strong emotions experienced by the child is “not me”.
The third stage is the personalization of the idol. It arises from a lack of attention or communication. Then the child composes an imaginary friend, which may become even more precious to him than real people. This kind of personification can manifest itself in adults as well. This happens when people around them are given personality traits that they do not really possess. This can lead to conflicts in interpersonal communication.
