Metaphor

This article is about metaphor in literature and rhetoric. For metaphors in cognitive linguistics, see conceptual metaphor. For metaphors in psychotherapy, see therapeutic metaphor. For metaphors in computer science, see interface metaphor.

Metaphor (from the Greek language: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer") is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: "The [first subject] is a [second subject]." More generally, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope that describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first. This device is known for usage in literature, especially in poetry, where with few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context. In a simpler definition, it is comparing two things without using the words "like" or "as." E.X. The girl is a speeding bullet when she runs.

Contents

Structure

The metaphor, according to I. A. Richards in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936), consists of two parts: the tenor and vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the subject from which the attributes are borrowed. Other writers employ the general terms ground and figure to denote what Richards identifies as the tenor and vehicle. Consider the All the world's a stage monologue from As You Like It:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances; — (William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7)

This well-known quotation is a good example of a metaphor. In this example, "the world" is compared to a stage, the aim being to describe the world by taking well-known attributes from the stage. In this case, the world is the tenor and the stage is the vehicle. "Men and women" are a secondary tenor and "players" is the vehicle for this secondary tenor.

The corresponding terms to 'tenor' and 'vehicle' in alternate viewpoint terminology are target and source. In this nomenclature, metaphors are named using the typographical convention "TARGET IS SOURCE", with the domains and the word "is" in small capitals (or capitalized when small-caps are not available); in this notation, the metaphor discussed above would state that "LIFE IS THEATRE". In a conceptual metaphor the elements of an extended metaphor constitute the metaphor's mapping--in the Shakespeare passage above, for example, exits would map to death and entrances to birth.

Metaphors are defined as comparisons without the use of the words "like" or "as", in the average classroom; these comparisons would be called similes.

Terms and categorization

A metaphor is generally considered to be more forceful and active than an analogy (metaphor asserts two topics are the same whereas analogy may acknowledge differences). Other rhetorical devices involving comparison, such as metonymy, synecdoche, simile, allegory and parable, share much in common with metaphor but are usually distinguished by the manner in which the comparison between subjects is delivered.

The category of metaphor can be further considered to contain the following specialized subsets:

Common types of metaphor

The following are the more commonly identified types of Metaphor:

Less common classifications

Other types of metaphor have been identified as well, though the nomenclatures are not as universally accepted:

Metaphors outside of rhetoric

The term metaphor is also used for the following terms that are not a part of rhetoric:

Metaphors in literature and language

Metaphor is present in written language back to the earliest surviving writings. From the Epic of Gilgamesh (one of the oldest Sumerian texts):

My friend, the swift mule, fleet wild ass of the mountain, panther of the wilderness, after we joined together and went up into the mountain, fought the Bull of Heaven and killed it, and overwhelmed Humbaba, who lived in the Cedar Forest, now what is this sleep that has seized you? - (Trans. Kovacs, 1989)

In this example, the friend is compared to a mule, a wild donkey, and a panther to indicate that the speaker sees traits from these animals in his friend.

The Greek plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides, among others, were almost invariably allegorical, showing the tragedy of the protagonists, either to caution the audience metaphorically about temptation, or to lambast famous individuals of the day by inferring similarities with the caricatures in the play.

Novelist and essayist Giannina Braschi states, "Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy."

Even when they are not intentional, can be drawn between most writing or language and other topics. In this way it can be seen that any theme in literature is a metaphor, using the story to convey information about human perception of the theme in question.

Metaphors in historical linguistics

In historical onomasiology or, more generally, in historical linguistics, metaphor is defined as semantic change based on similarity, i.e. a similarity in form or function between the original concept named by a word and the target concept named by this word[1]. Example: mouse 'small, gray rodent' > 'small, gray, mouse-shaped computer device'.

Some more recent linguistic theories view language as by its nature all metaphorical; or that language in essence is metaphorical.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Cf. Joachim Grzega (2004), Bezeichnungswandel: Wie, Warum, Wozu? Ein Beitrag zur englischen und allgemeinen Onomasiologie, Heidelberg: Winter, and Blank, Andreas (1998), Prinzipien des lexikalischen Bedeutungswandels am Beispiel derfgjghfjg romanischen Sprachen, Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Other References

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