Metaphor
The Meaning Of Metaphors
Metaphor is a comparison directly between two things - Greek - to carry over. Metaphor is the umbrella term for all comparisons:
Metonym - a word, name or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated with.
Synedouche - stands for something else, a part of it.
Similes - 'as' or 'like'
Allegory - story or text that has 2 layers of meaning
Pun - play on words
Catachresis - mix
Metonym - a word, name or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated with.
Synedouche - stands for something else, a part of it.
Similes - 'as' or 'like'
Allegory - story or text that has 2 layers of meaning
Pun - play on words
Catachresis - mix
- The use of language to refer to something other than what it was originally applied to in order to suggest some resemblance or make a connection between two things.
- Unless we identify and agree what is literal meaning of a word or expression is, we cannot identify and agree what is metaphorical.
- Metaphor suggests a connection between two things
- Metaphors can be single words/ phrases but can be developed into longer texts.
The Importance Of Metaphors
- Metaphor is pervasive in language, and there are two principal ways in which it is important.
- In relation to individual words - metaphor is a basic process in the formation of words and word meanings. Concepts and meanings are lexicalized, or expressed in words, through metaphor. Many senses of multi-sense words are metaphors of different kinds, as in the meanings of field, hurt, and dark in the following BoE examples:
She has published extensively in the field of psychology.
The failure has hurt him deeply.
…the end of a long tale, full of dark hints and unspeakable innuendos.
- Similarly, the names of many new concepts or devices are metaphorical or extended uses of pre-existing words: for example, computer terms such as web, bug, and virus. Many compound words express metaphors: browbeat, foothill, pigeon hole.
- Idioms and proverbs are often metaphorical in origin: don’t put all your eggs in one basket, miss the boat, rattle someone’s cage, and, more obscurely, kick the bucket and a red herring. These are mainly conventional metaphors
- Second, in relation to discourse: metaphor is important because of its functions—explaining, clarifying, describing, expressing, evaluating, and entertaining.
- There are many reasons why we use metaphors in speech or writing - because there is sometimes no other word to refer to a particular thing.
- Where we have a choice, we choose metaphors in order to communicate what we think or how we feel about something, to explain what a particular thing is like, to convey a meaning in a more interesting or creative way or to do all of these.
- Significantly, a lot of our understanding of things is mediated through metaphor. That is, we might well not understand them except with the help of metaphorical models or analogies, and our understanding is itself conditioned by the metaphor.
- For example, the cells in our bodies react biologically in complex ways to infection - we can understand the process more easily through a metaphor of war, thinking of it in terms of fighting and invasion:
Scientists believe stress may suppress development of T-cells, the white blood cells which help to fight off invading micro-organisms. (BoE) - Other metaphors might have been used, but this is the dominant, most familiar one. It is typical that metaphors use concrete images to convey something abstract; helping to communicate what is hard to explain.
Creative And Conventional Metaphors
- Creative metaphors are those which a writer/speaker constructs to express a particular idea or feeling in a particular context, and which a reader/ hearer needs to deconstruct or ‘unpack’ in order to understand what is meant.
- They are typically new (another term is novel metaphor ), although they may be based on pre-existing ideas or images, such as a traditional representation of fortune as a person, whether enemy or friend.
- Creative metaphor is often associated with literature, but there are plenty of instances of it in other genres.
- Creative metaphors contrast with conventional metaphors. These are metaphorical usages which are found again and again to refer to a particular thing.
- Cases in point are the metaphors of cells fighting off infection and of micro-organisms invading; and the metaphorical meanings of divorced to mean ‘completely separated’ and field to refer to a 'specialized subject or activity'.
- These kinds of metaphor are institutionalized as part of the language. Much of the time we hardly notice them at all, and do not think of them as metaphorical when we use or encounter them: dictionaries are likely to record them as separate senses.
- The term dead metaphor is sometimes used to refer to conventional metaphors,especially those which people do not recognize as metaphorical in ordinary usage.
Metaphor In Everyday Discourse And In Literacy Discourse
- The idea that a particular metaphor is 'novel' can be understood as referring for example to the newness or uniqueness of a conceptual mapping between a source and target domain, or alternatively, to a striking method of expression which a writer uses to relay a metaphor.
- The background assumption that most metaphorical mappings are transmitted through familiar, commonly occurring linguistic expressions. For instance, the metaphor IDEAS ARE FOOD is relayed through a variety of everyday constructions like ‘I can’t stomach that idea’, ‘Your theory’s half-baked’ or ‘His story is pretty hard to swallow’.
- it is against this background of everyday metaphorical mapping that writers of literature seek not only to establish new connections, and new types of connection, between target and source domains, but also to extend and elaborate upon existing metaphors in various ways - . . . the vacuum cleaner grazes over the carpet, lowing,
- The source domain, as with many metaphorical expressions, is evoked by verbs which specify some action of the target (‘grazes’ and ‘lowing’), so the overall metaphorical formula can be captured as: A HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE IS A FARMED ANIMAL.
- As far as the originality of the metaphor is concerned, it is the ‘conceptual blending’ of the familiar entities that offers a fresh perspective on an otherwise ordinary object like the humble vacuum cleaner.
- It is worth reemphasising that novelty in stylistic expression cannot remain forever, and what is foregrounded in an original context of use will become part of the background as time goes by.
- Common sayings and figures of speech originated from creative metaphors in literature. The expressions ‘cold comfort’, ‘a tower of strength’, ‘play fast and loose’, ‘in my mind’s eye’ and ‘to the manner born’ may have little impact nowadays, but all of them saw their first use in the plays of William Shakespeare.
Metaphors In Style
The following poem is by the Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough 1971:
40 – LOVE
middle aged
couple playing
ten nis
when the
game ends
and they
go home
the net
will still
be be
tween them
40 – LOVE
middle aged
couple playing
ten nis
when the
game ends
and they
go home
the net
will still
be be
tween them
- The target domain is our understanding of a human relationship, the source domain for the metaphor comes from games and sport, yielding the formula: A HUMAN RELATIONSHIP IS A GAME OF SPORT
- The way this conceptual metaphor is sustained by patterns of graphology and other levels of language.
- McGough develops the basic metaphor through two processes known as extending and elaboration. Extending a metaphor means expressing it through linguistic resources which introduce new conceptual elements from the source domain.
- McGough extends the source domain from the more general concept of sport to one specific type of sport, and this enables yet further stylistic-expressive possibilities in the way the target domain is subsequently developed.
- The particular spatial organisation of tennis, with its back and forth movement between ball and players, is captured stylistically by the break up of the text into two columns, and this forces the reading of the text into a similar to and fro movement.
- A range of levels of language are also exploited in order to elaborate the underlying conceptual metaphor in the poem. Elaboration involves capturing an existing component of the source domain in an unusual or unconventional way.
- For example, once the source domain has been extended to tennis, special features of this domain, such as its props, can acquire extra signification in the metaphorical mapping. The net which serves as the physical barrier in a tennis court symbolises a spiritual and emotional barrier between the estranged couple.
- The numerical scoring system used in tennis allows for further elaboration, where the reference to ‘40’ in the title parallels the age of the couple and, the reference to ‘love’ allows a metaphorical projection from the sport domain to the more abstract target domain of human relationships.
- Derived from the French l’oeuf on account of the resemblance of an egg to the zero symbol, the tennis-domain ‘love’ facilities a pun because it allows more than one sense to be projected. The score in the game of love for the middle aged couple is, it seems, at zero.
- A variety of devices enable a conceptual projection to be made from the physical body of the poem into the more abstract world of human relationships.
- McGough’s text illustrates well the idea of novelty in metaphor because it offers both a new type of conceptual mapping between a source and target domain as well as a striking method of expression to relay the metaphor.