![Puck; 1894-05-02; Vol 35 Iss 895](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Puck%3B_1894-05-02%3B_Vol_35_Iss_895.jpg)
A metaphor is a
figure of speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use in order to produce a rhetorical effect. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into '' schemes,'' which vary the ordinary ...
that, for
rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
al effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as
antithesis
Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together f ...
,
hyperbole
Hyperbole (; adj. hyperbolic ) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (literally 'growth'). In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and ...
,
metonymy
Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.
Etymology
The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
, and
simile
A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors cr ...
. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "
All the world's a stage
"All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy ''As You Like It'', spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII Line 139. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a ...
" monologue from ''
As You Like It
''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
'':
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant...
:—William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, ''As You Like It
''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
'', 2/7
This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the behavior of the people within it.
In the ancient Hebrew
psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
(around 1000 B.C.), one finds already vivid and poetic examples of metaphor such as, "The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” and “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”. Some recent linguistic theories view all language in essence as metaphorical.
The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning "transference (of ownership)". The user of a metaphor alters the reference of the word, "carrying" it from one semantic "realm" to another. The new meaning of the word might be derived from an analogy between the two semantic realms, but also from other reasons such as the distortion of the semantic realm - for example in sarcasm.
Etymology
The English word ''metaphor'' derives from the 16th-century
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
word ''métaphore'', which comes from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''metaphora'', "carrying over", and in turn from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
μεταφορά (''metaphorá''), "transference (of ownership)", from μεταφέρω (''metapherō''), "to carry over", "to transfer" and that from μετά (''meta''), "behind", "along with", "across" + φέρω (''pherō''), "to bear", "to carry".
Parts of a metaphor
''The Philosophy of Rhetoric'' (1937) by
rhetorician
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
I. A. Richards describes a metaphor as having two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the object whose attributes are borrowed. In the previous example, "the world" is compared to a stage, describing it with the attributes of "the stage"; "the world" is the tenor, and "a stage" is the vehicle; "men and women" is the secondary tenor, and "players" is the secondary vehicle.
Other writers employ the general terms 'ground' and 'figure' to denote the tenor and the vehicle.
Cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics is an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics, combining knowledge and research from cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and linguistics. Models and theoretical accounts of cognitive linguistics are con ...
uses the terms 'target' and 'source', respectively.
Psychologist
Julian Jaynes
Julian Jaynes (February 27, 1920 – November 21, 1997) was an American researcher in psychology at Yale and Princeton for nearly 25 years and best known for his 1976 book ''The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind'' ...
coined the terms 'metaphrand' and 'metaphier', plus two new concepts, 'paraphrand' and 'paraphier'.
'Metaphrand' is equivalent to the metaphor-theory terms 'tenor', 'target', and 'ground'. 'Metaphier' is equivalent to the metaphor-theory terms 'vehicle', 'figure', and 'source'. In a simple metaphor, an obvious attribute of the metaphier exactly characterizes the metaphrand (e.g. the ship plowed the seas). With an inexact metaphor, however, a metaphier might have associated attributes or nuances – its paraphiers – that enrich the metaphor because they "project back" to the metaphrand, potentially creating new ideas – the paraphrands – associated thereafter with the metaphrand or even leading to a new metaphor. For example, in the metaphor "Pat is a tornado", the metaphrand is "Pat", the metaphier is "tornado". As metaphier, "tornado" carries paraphiers such as power, storm and wind, counterclockwise motion, and danger, threat, destruction, etc. The metaphoric meaning of "tornado" is inexact: one might understand that 'Pat is powerfully destructive' through the paraphrand of physical and emotional destruction; another person might understand the metaphor as 'Pat can spin out of control'. In the latter case, the paraphier of 'spinning motion' has become the paraphrand 'psychological spin', suggesting an entirely new metaphor for emotional unpredictability, a possibly apt description for a human being hardly applicable to a tornado.
Based on his analysis, Jaynes claims that metaphors not only enhance description, but "increase enormously our powers of perception...and our understanding of
he world
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
and literally create new objects".
As a type of comparison
Metaphors are most frequently compared with
simile
A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors cr ...
s. It is said, for instance, that a metaphor is 'a condensed analogy' or 'analogical fusion' or that they 'operate in a similar fashion' or are 'based on the same mental process' or yet that 'the basic processes of analogy are at work in metaphor'. It is also pointed out that 'a border between metaphor and analogy is fuzzy' and 'the difference between them might be described (metaphorically) as the distance between things being compared'. A metaphor asserts the objects in the comparison are identical on the point of comparison, while a simile merely asserts a similarity through use of words such as "like" or "as". For this reason a common-type metaphor is generally considered more forceful than a
simile
A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors cr ...
.
[The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653]
The metaphor category contains these specialized types:
*
Allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
: An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject.
*
Antithesis
Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together f ...
: A rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences.
*
Catachresis
Catachresis (from Greek , "abuse"), originally meaning a semantic misuse or error—e.g., using "militate" for "mitigate", "chronic" for "severe", "travesty" for "tragedy", "anachronism" for "anomaly", "alibi" for "excuse", etc.—is also the na ...
: A mixed metaphor, sometimes used by design and sometimes by accident (a rhetorical fault).
*
Hyperbole
Hyperbole (; adj. hyperbolic ) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (literally 'growth'). In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and ...
: Excessive exaggeration to illustrate a point.
*
Parable
A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, w ...
: An extended metaphor told as an anecdote to illustrate or teach a moral or spiritual lesson, such as in
Aesop's fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...
or
Jesus' teaching method as told in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
.
*
Pun
A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...
: A verbal device by which multiple definitions of a word or its homophones are used to give a sentence multiple valid readings, typically to humorous effect.
* Similitude: An extended simile or metaphor that has a picture part (''Bildhälfte''), a reality part (''Sachhälfte''), and a point of comparison (
''teritium comparationis''). Similitudes are found in the
parables of Jesus
The parables of Jesus are found in the Synoptic Gospels and some of the non-canonical gospels. They form approximately one third of his recorded teachings. Christians place great emphasis on these parables, which they generally regard as the word ...
.
Metaphor vs metonymy
Metaphor is distinct from
metonymy
Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.
Etymology
The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
, both constituting two fundamental modes of thought. Metaphor works by bringing together concepts from different conceptual domains, whereas metonymy uses one element from a given domain to refer to another closely related element. A metaphor creates new links between otherwise distinct conceptual domains, whereas a metonymy relies on pre-existent links within them.
For example, in the phrase "lands belonging to the crown", the word "crown" is a metonymy because some monarchs do indeed wear a crown, physically. In other words, there is a pre-existent link between "crown" and "monarchy". On the other hand, when
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Ghil'ad Zuckermann ( he, גלעד צוקרמן, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann is Professor of Linguistics and Ch ...
argues that the
Israeli language
The Israeli population is linguistically and culturally diverse. Hebrew is the country's official language, and almost the entire population speaks it either as native speakers or proficiently as a second language. Its standard form, known as Mod ...
is a "phoenicuckoo cross with some magpie characteristics", he is using a metaphor.
There is no physical link between a language and a bird. The reason the metaphors "phoenix" and "cuckoo" are used is that on the one hand hybridic "Israeli" is based on
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, which, like a phoenix, rises from the ashes; and on the other hand, hybridic "Israeli" is based on
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
, which like a cuckoo, lays its egg in the nest of another bird, tricking it to believe that it is its own egg. Furthermore, the metaphor "magpie" is employed because, according to Zuckermann, hybridic "Israeli" displays the characteristics of a magpie, "stealing" from languages such as
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
[
]
Subtypes
A dead metaphor A dead metaphor is a figure of speech which has lost the original imagery of its meaning by extensive, repetitive, and popular usage. Because dead metaphors have a conventional meaning that differs from the original, they can be understood without ...
is a metaphor in which the sense of a transferred image has become absent. The phrases "to grasp a concept" and "to gather what you've understood" use physical action as a metaphor for understanding. The audience does not need to visualize the action; dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some distinguish between a dead metaphor and a cliché
A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...
. Others use "dead metaphor" to denote both.
A mixed metaphor is a metaphor that leaps from one identification to a second inconsistent with the first, e.g.:
This form is often used as a parody of metaphor itself:
An extended metaphor, or conceit, sets up a principal subject with several subsidiary subjects or comparisons. In the above quote from ''As You Like It'', the world is first described as a stage and then the subsidiary subjects men and women are further described in the same context.
An implicit metaphor has no specified tenor, although the vehicle is present. M. H. Abrams offers the following as an example of an implicit metaphor: "That reed was too frail to survive the storm of its sorrows". The reed is the vehicle for the implicit tenor, someone's death, and the "storm" is the vehicle for the person's "sorrows".
Metaphor can serve as a device for persuading an audience of the user's argument or thesis, the so-called rhetorical metaphor.
In rhetoric and literature
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
writes in his work the ''Rhetoric'' that metaphors make learning pleasant: "To learn easily is naturally pleasant to all people, and words signify something, so whatever words create knowledge in us are the pleasantest." When discussing Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', Jan Garret stated "metaphor most brings about learning; for when omer
Omer may refer to:
__NOTOC__
* Omer (unit), an ancient unit of measure used in the era of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem
* The Counting of the Omer (''sefirat ha'omer''), a 49 day period in the Jewish calendar
* Omer (Book of Mormon), a Jaredite ...
calls old age "stubble", he creates understanding and knowledge through the genus, since both old age and stubble are pecies of the genus ofthings that have lost their bloom." Metaphors, according to Aristotle, have "qualities of the exotic and the fascinating; but at the same time we recognize that strangers do not have the same rights as our fellow citizens".
Educational psychologist Andrew Ortony gives more explicit detail: "Metaphors are necessary as a communicative device because they allow the transfer of coherent chunks of characteristics -- perceptual, cognitive, emotional and experiential -- from a vehicle which is known to a topic which is less so. In so doing they circumvent the problem of specifying one by one each of the often unnameable and innumerable characteristics; they avoid discretizing the perceived continuity of experience and are thus closer to experience and consequently more vivid and memorable."
As style in speech and writing
As a characteristic of speech and writing, metaphors can serve the poetic imagination. This allows Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...
, in her poem "Cut", to compare the blood issuing from her cut thumb to the running of a million soldiers, " redcoats, every one"; and enabling Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...
, in "The Road Not Taken", to compare a life to a journey.
Metaphors can be implied and extended throughout pieces of literature.
Larger applications
Sonja K. Foss Sonja K. Foss is a rhetorical scholar and educator in the discipline of communication. Her research and teaching interests are in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist perspectives on communication, the incorporation of marginalized ...
characterizes metaphors as "nonliteral comparisons in which a word or phrase from one domain of experience is applied to another domain".
She argues that since reality is mediated by the language we use to describe it, the metaphors we use shape the world and our interactions to it.
The term metaphor is used to describe more basic or general aspects of experience and cognition:
* A cognitive metaphor is the association of object to an experience outside the object's environment
* A conceptual metaphor
In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another. An example of this is the understanding of quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "the pr ...
is an underlying association that is systematic in both language and thought
* A root metaphor is the underlying worldview that shapes an individual's understanding of a situation
* A nonlinguistic metaphor is an association between two nonlinguistic realms of experience
* A visual metaphor uses an image to create the link between different ideas
Conceptual metaphors
Some theorists have suggested that metaphors are not merely stylistic, but that they are cognitively important as well. In ''Metaphors We Live By
''Metaphors We Live By'' is a book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (professor), Mark Johnson published in 1980. The book suggests metaphor is a tool that enables people to use what they know about their direct physical and social experiences to ...
'', George Lakoff
George Philip Lakoff (; born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguistics, cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain comple ...
and Mark Johnson argue that metaphors are pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but also in thought and action. A common definition of metaphor can be described as a comparison that shows how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in another important way. They explain how a metaphor is simply understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another, called a "conduit metaphor". A speaker can put ideas or objects into containers, and then send them along a conduit to a listener who removes the object from the container to make meaning of it. Thus, communication is something that ideas go into, and the container is separate from the ideas themselves. Lakoff and Johnson give several examples of daily metaphors in use, including "argument is war" and "time is money". Metaphors are widely used in context to describe personal meaning. The authors suggest that communication can be viewed as a machine: "Communication is not what one does with the machine, but is the machine itself."
Experimental evidence shows that "priming" people with material from one area will influence how they perform tasks and interpret language in a metaphorically related area.
As a foundation of our conceptual system
Cognitive linguists emphasize that metaphors serve to facilitate the understanding of one conceptual domain—typically an abstraction such as "life", "theories" or "ideas"—through expressions that relate to another, more familiar conceptual domain—typically more concrete, such as "journey", "buildings" or "food".[Zoltán Kövecses. (2002) Metaphor: a practical introduction. ]Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
US. . For example: we ''devour'' a book of ''raw'' facts, try to ''digest'' them, ''stew'' over them, let them ''simmer on the back-burner'', ''regurgitate'' them in discussions, and ''cook'' up explanations, hoping they do not seem ''half-baked''.
Lakoff and Johnson greatly contributed to establishing the importance of conceptual metaphor as a framework for thinking in language, leading scholars to investigate the original ways in which writers used novel metaphors and question the fundamental frameworks of thinking in conceptual metaphors.
From a sociological, cultural, or philosophical perspective, one asks to what extent ideologies
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
maintain and impose conceptual patterns of thought by introducing, supporting, and adapting fundamental patterns of thinking metaphorically. To what extent does the ideology fashion and refashion the idea of the nation as a container with borders? How are enemies and outsiders represented? As diseases? As attackers? How are the metaphoric paths of fate, destiny, history, and progress represented? As the opening of an eternal monumental moment (German fascism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
)? Or as the path to communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
(in Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
or Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
for example)?
Some cognitive scholars have attempted to take on board the idea that different languages have evolved radically different concepts and conceptual metaphors, while others hold to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people ...
. German philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after ...
contributed significantly to this debate on the relationship between culture, language, and linguistic communities. Humboldt remains, however, relatively unknown in English-speaking nations. Andrew Goatly
Andrew Goatly is an English language professor at Lingnan University (Hong Kong), Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
Career
Goatly studied English at Jesus College, Oxford before working for Voluntary Service Overseas in Rwanda and Thailand. On re ...
, in "Washing the Brain", takes on board the dual problem of conceptual metaphor as a framework implicit in the language as a system and the way individuals and ideologies negotiate conceptual metaphors. Neural biological research suggests some metaphors are innate, as demonstrated by reduced metaphorical understanding in psychopathy.
James W. Underhill, in ''Creating Worldviews: Ideology, Metaphor & Language'' (Edinburgh UP), considers the way individual speech adopts and reinforces certain metaphoric paradigms. This involves a critique of both communist and fascist discourse. Underhill's studies are situated in Czech and German, which allows him to demonstrate the ways individuals are thinking both within and resisting the modes by which ideologies seek to appropriate key concepts such as "the people", "the state", "history", and "struggle".
Though metaphors can be considered to be "in" language, Underhill's chapter on French, English and ethnolinguistics demonstrates that we cannot conceive of language or languages in anything other than metaphoric terms.
Nonlinguistic metaphors
Metaphors can map experience between two nonlinguistic realms. Musicologist
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
Leonard B. Meyer
Leonard B. Meyer (January 12, 1918 – December 30, 2007) was a composer, author, and philosopher. He contributed major works in the fields of aesthetic theory in music, and of compositional analysis.
Career
Meyer studied at Columbia Un ...
demonstrated how purely rhythmic and harmonic events can express human emotions. It is an open question whether synesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...
experiences are a sensory version of metaphor, the "source" domain being the presented stimulus, such as a musical tone, and the target domain, being the experience in another modality, such as color.
Art theorist Robert Vischer argued that when we look at a painting, we "feel ourselves into it" by imagining our body in the posture of a nonhuman or inanimate object in the painting. For example, the painting ''The Lonely Tree
''The Lonely Tree'' (German: ''Der einsame Baum'', sometimes translated as "The Solitary Tree") is an 1822 oil-on-canvas painting by German painter Caspar David Friedrich. It measures . The work depicts a panoramic view of a romantic landsca ...
'' by Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...
shows a tree with contorted, barren limbs. Looking at the painting, we imagine our limbs in a similarly contorted and barren shape, evoking a feeling of strain and distress. Nonlinguistic metaphors may be the foundation of our experience of visual and musical art, as well as dance and other art forms.
In historical linguistics
In historical onomasiology Onomasiology (from el, ὀνομάζω ''onomāzο'' 'to name', which in turn is from ὄνομα ''onoma'' 'name') is a branch of linguistics concerned with the question "how do you express X?" It is in fact most commonly understood as a branch of ...
or in historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
, a metaphor is defined as a semantic change based on a similarity in form or function between the original concept and the target concept named by a word.
For example, mouse: ''small, gray rodent with a long tail'' → ''small, gray computer device with a long cord''.
Some recent linguistic theories view all language in essence as metaphorical.
Historical theories
Aristotle's discusses the creation of metaphors at the end of his ''Poetics
Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry.
History
The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...
'': "But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars."
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
literary theorist
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mora ...
Emanuele Tesauro defines the metaphor "the most witty and acute, the most strange and marvelous, the most pleasant and useful, the most eloquent and fecund part of the human intellect
In the study of the human mind, intellect refers to, describes, and identifies the ability of the human mind to reach correct conclusions about what is true and what is false in reality; and how to solve problems. Derived from the Ancient Gree ...
". There is, he suggests, something divine in metaphor: the world itself is God's poem and metaphor is not just a literary or rhetorical figure but an analytic tool that can penetrate the mysteries of God and His creation.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
makes metaphor the conceptual center of his early theory of society in ''On Truth and Lies in the Non-Moral Sense''. Some sociologists have found his essay useful for thinking about metaphors used in society and for reflecting on their own use of metaphor. Sociologists of religion note the importance of metaphor in religious worldviews, and that it is impossible to think sociologically about religion without metaphor.
See also
* Alliteration
Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...
* Camel's nose
The camel's nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.
History
The phrase is not commonly used in the 21st century. According to Geoffre ...
* Colemanballs
Colemanballs is a term coined by ''Private Eye'' magazine to describe verbal gaffes perpetrated by sports commentators.
* Conceptual blending In cognitive linguistics, conceptual blending, also called conceptual integration or view application, is a theory of cognition developed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. According to this theory, elements and vital relations from diverse sce ...
* Description
Description is the pattern of narrative development that aims to make vivid a place, object, character, or group. Description is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narr ...
* Experience model
An experience model is a description of the key attributes that drive end-user experience when interacting with a system, product, or service. These attributes may be a combination of end-user attributes and those of the system or environment. Thes ...
* Hypocatastasis
Hypocatastasis is a figure of speech that declares or implies a resemblance, representation or comparison. It differs from a metaphor, because in a metaphor the two nouns are both named and given; while, in hypocatastasis, only one is named and th ...
* Ideasthesia
Ideasthesia (alternative spelling ideaesthesia) is a neuropsychological phenomenon in which activations of concepts (inducers) evoke perception-like sensory experiences (concurrents). The name comes from the Ancient Greek () and (), meaning 'se ...
* List of English-language metaphors
A list of metaphors in the English language organised alphabetically by type. A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her ey ...
* Literal and figurative language
Literal and figurative language is a distinction within some fields of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.
*Literal language uses words exactly according to their conventionally accepted meanings or denotation ...
* Metaphor identification procedure
Metaphor identification procedure (MIP) is a method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. It can be used to recognize metaphors in spoken and written language. Mainly intended for scholars, it can be helpful in empirical research ...
* Metaphor in philosophy
Metaphor, the description of one thing as something else, has become of interest in recent decades to both analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, but for different reasons.
Metaphor in analytic philosophy
In the Anglo-American tradition ...
* Metonymy
Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.
Etymology
The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
* Misnomer
A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied. Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the name ...
* Origin of language
The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study th ...
* Origin of speech
The origin of speech refers to the general problem of the origin of language in the context of the physiological development of the human speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and vocal organs used to produce phonological units in all spok ...
* Pataphor
Pataphysics (french: 'pataphysique) is a "philosophy" of science invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to be simply defined or pinned down, it has been described as the "science of imag ...
* Personification
Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...
* Reification (fallacy)
Reification (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical ...
* Sarcasm
Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...
* Simile
A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors cr ...
* Synecdoche
Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy: it is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term comes from Greek .
Examples in common Engl ...
* Analogy
Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ( ...
* ''Tertium comparationis
''Tertium comparationis'' (Latin for "the third artof the comparison") is the quality that two things which are being compared have in common. It is the point of comparison which prompted the author of the comparison in question to liken someone o ...
''
* War as metaphor
The use of war as metaphor is a longstanding literary and rhetorical Trope (literature), trope. In political usage, war metaphors are used to manage a perceived societal problem, with the concept taking the place of an individual or state enemy i ...
* ''World Hypotheses
''World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence'', by Stephen C. Pepper (1942), presents four relatively adequate world hypotheses (or world views or conceptual systems) in terms of their root metaphors: formism (similarity), mechanism (machine), contextu ...
''
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
*
* Stefano Arduini (2007). (ed.) ''Metaphors'', Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
* Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
. ''Poetics''. Trans. I. Bywater. In ''The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation''. (1984). 2 Vols. Ed. Jonathan Barnes
Jonathan Barnes, British Academy, FBA (born 26 December 1942 in Wenlock, Shropshire) is an English scholar of Aristotelianism, Aristotelian and ancient philosophy.
Education and career
He was educated at the City of London School and Balliol Co ...
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
* Max Black
Max Black (24 February 1909 – 27 August 1988) was an Azerbaijani-born British-American philosopher who was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the years after World War II. He made contributions to the philosophy of language, the philo ...
(1954). ''Metaphor'', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 55, pp. 273–294.
* Max Black
Max Black (24 February 1909 – 27 August 1988) was an Azerbaijani-born British-American philosopher who was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the years after World War II. He made contributions to the philosophy of language, the philo ...
(1962). ''Models and metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy'', Ithaca: Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...
.
* Max Black
Max Black (24 February 1909 – 27 August 1988) was an Azerbaijani-born British-American philosopher who was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the years after World War II. He made contributions to the philosophy of language, the philo ...
(1979). ''More about Metaphor'', in A. Ortony (ed) Metaphor & Thought.
* Clive Cazeaux (2007). ''Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: From Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemolo ...
to Derrida
Derrida is a surname shared by notable people listed below.
* Bernard Derrida (born 1952), French theoretical physicist
* Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), French philosopher
** ''Derrida'' (film), a 2002 American documentary film
* Marguerite De ...
.'' New York, NY: Routledge.
* L. J. Cohen (1979). ''The Semantics of Metaphor'', in A. Ortony (ed.), ''Metaphor & Thought''.
* Donald Davidson. (1978). "What Metaphors Mean." Reprinted in ''Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation''. (1984). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
* Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
(1982). "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy." In ''Margins of Philosophy''. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago, University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
.
*
*
*
* Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. ''Metaphors We Live By'' (IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980), Chapters 1–3. (pp. 3–13).
* .
*
*
* McKinnon, AM. (2012). 'Metaphors in and for the Sociology of Religion: Towards a Theory after Nietzsche'. Journal of Contemporary Religion, vol 27, no. 2, pp. 203–216
* David Punter (2007). ''Metaphor'', London, Routledge.
* Paul Ricoeur
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
(1975). ''The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language'', trans. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello, S. J., London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1978. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press
The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911.
The press originally printed only examination books and the university calen ...
1977)
* I. A. Richards. (1936). ''The Philosophy of Rhetoric''. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
* John Searle
John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
(1979). "Metaphor," in A. Ortony (ed.) ''Metaphor and Thought'', Cambridge University Press.
* Underhill, James W., Creating Worldviews: Metaphor, Ideology & Language, Edinburgh UP, 2011.
*
*
*
External links
*
''A short history of metaphor''
Top Ten Metaphors of 2008
Definition and Examples
List of ancient Greek words starting with ''μετα-''
on Perseus
Metaphor and Phenomenology
article in the ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original pape ...
''
Metaphors algebra
*
{{Authority control
Figures of speech
Rhetorical techniques
Tropes by type